Credit: Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports
Bats/Throws: R/R
Date of Birth: 11/7/1989
Traditional Stats: 5-3, 3.70 ERA, 11 GS, 56 IP, 1.21 WHIP
Advanced Stats: 3.05 FIP, 3.19 xFIP, 1.7 fWAR, 0.6 bWAR, 11.57 K/9, 4.18 BB/9
We have decided to revive this series in parallel with free agent profiles! Think about it this way, would you rather read about Jose Quintana or Sonny Gray?
Ever since his Yankee stint, Gray has been borderline dominant in Cincinnati. Him, Trevor Bauer, and Luis Castillo managed to take the Reds to the playoffs this past season.
I know what some of his main detractors will say so let us address the elephant in the room. Gray’s struggles with the Yankees had nothing to do with his mental makeup or his inability to pitch in New York. The whole narrative of “he can’t play in NY” or “the bright lights got to him” is not an accurate one. The Yankees asked him to throw his cutter 20.4% of the time in 2018. His previous high for that pitch usage was 3.5%. Using that pitch on a blue moon occasion and then making it one of your primary pitches is tough to do.
Do I believe the Yankees would have fixed him if he was there in 2019? Probably. Do I think he was tired of New York radio heads saying he could not pitch in New York? Yes. I also believe that saying someone can’t play in New York is convenient copout instead of saying, “We did not put him in a position to succeed.”
The Reds, with the help of Kyle Boddy and Gray’s college pitching coach, managed to turn his career around. In fact, they improved it drastically from where it was. Gray was a solid starter in Oakland but in Cincinnati, he has seen a massive uptick in his strikeouts and his peripherals have improved as a result.
He has gone from a solid starter to a bonafide number two pitcher. In Oakland, Gray was using his fastball about 60-65% of the time. After the essentially Yankees scrapped it, the Reds brought it back to an extent. He uses it roughly 50% of the time in Cincinnati which is a lot higher than it was in New York but it’s also not as high as it was in Oakland. That other 10-15% has essentially been re-distributed to his slider and curveball and for good reason. So the Yankees were onto something in their defense. They wanted him to use his fastball less but they should have told him to start using his curveball and slider more instead of the cutter.
His curveball 5.9 inches of horizontal movement along with 4.2 inches of vertical movement. Gray is one of the rare pitchers who excels at getting great movement vertically and horizontally. Gray has one of the highest spin rates for his curveball and has a high active spin rate. This essentially means that his spin rate contributes to the movement on his curveball.
Here is an example of Gray’s curveball in action courtesy of Baseball Savant:
There is a very similar story for Gray’s slider. Gray has the highest horizontal movement on his slider in baseball with 10 inches of movement. He also gets the 22nd highest vertical movement in baseball with 5.8 inches. Much like his curveball, Gray has one of the highest spin rates in baseball on his slider. He also uses that spin to contribute to his pitch movement. The Reds have a lot of high spin pitchers who also seem to have a lot of active spin. They are doing something right.
Here is an example of his slider at work courtesy of Baseball Savant:
Compensation
Gray will make $21 million over the next two seasons as part of his contract. ZiPS projects Gray to have a 5.8 WAR over the next two seasons. They don’t think he will have a high inning total but let us imagine most teams have him in a range of 6-8 wins between 2021 and 2022. Despite the Reds trying to dump players (or so it would appear), Gray still provides a heavy surplus in terms of value. The Mets have two paths to a trade.
One would be paying the prospect haul that the Reds want, which would likely be significant. The other option would be taking on Mike Moustakas and having him be your third baseman. Moustakas signed a four-year deal last offseason worth $64 million. I do not believe his contract is that underwater like the Reds might. It might still cost the Mets a prospect but it will lower the prospect cost by a significant.
My Thoughts
Yes. I have detailed my thoughts on the whole New York narrative above. They do not seem to be in on Tomoyuki Sugano or Jake Odorizzi. They cannot go into a season with Jacob deGrom, Marcus Stroman, and then some fillers.
