Don’t Look Now, but Sonny Gray Is Back

2016 was not kind to elite pitchers at all. Zack Greinke stunk. Dallas Keuchel struggled. And Sonny Gray, who is typically one of the best pitchers in the Majors, finished the season as one of the worst — going from 5.8 rWAR in 2015 to -0.5 rWAR in 2016.

When a star like Gray falls off of a cliff, an injury is the usual culprit. And it’s true: Gray twice landed on the disabled list in 2016, once with a back injury and once with a strained forearm.

Perhaps as a result of the forearm strain, Gray’s average velocity dropped — he lost only .1 MPH on average on his fastball, but his slider lost almost a full MPH.

In fact, Gray struggled mightily with his slider — batters hit it for line drives at almost double the rate that they had done so in 2015, and he missed far more frequently with it in the past. Considering that Gray uses the pitch as his finisher (75% of his strikeouts came on the pitch in 2015), the loss of effectiveness with his slider was a terrible blow to Gray.

The slider exaggerates the difficulties Gray saw in 2016 with his pitches. Simply put, Gray was having trouble finding the zone (reaching a career high BB%), and the pitches that Gray put over the plate were getting hit harder (he saw his soft contact% decrease by 2% while his hard contact% rose by 13%).

Gray’s struggles weren’t entirely his fault. Gray pitched 2015 in front of one of the worst defenses in the league, but in 2016 the Athletics were even worse — as a team the As posted -5.9 UZR/150 in 2015, but dropped even further to -8.2 UZR/150 in 2016. Yikes.

If Gray had been giving up harder hits in front of a better defense, he might have had a decent 2016. But instead, his BABIP ballooned from .255 in 2015 to .319 in 2016. Part of that is because Gray was giving up harder contact, but the defense still hurt Gray badly in 2016.

But 2017 is a new year, and Gray appears to have made the most of the fresh start. After a slow start, Gray has caught fire. On the 24th, Gray pitched 7 strong innings with 11 strikeouts and gave up only 1 ER. Despite a rough outing against Cleveland on Tuesday, Gray still looks like he’s bounced back.

Looking at his peripherals, there is hope for Gray — his velocity has improved significantly not just on his 2016 numbers, but his 2015 numbers too. Gray’s slider is possibly more devastating than ever before — batters are hitting a microscopic .121 wOBA off of the pitch.

While the defense behind Gray has only marginally improved from last year to this year, Gray is compensating by striking out batters at a higher rate (8.13 K/9 in 2017 compared to a 7.64 K/9 for his career), and Gray’s placement has improved, leading to fewer walked batters than in 2016.

It may be doubtful as to whether Gray can sustain his .286 BABIP, especially given the defense behind him, but Gray did the exact same thing in 2015. Regardless, Gray is looking much more like the Cy Young candidate from 2015 than the wreck that he was in 2016, and it’s a welcome improvement. It’ll be a remarkable bounce back for a terrific pitcher if he can finish 2017 strong.