The Keys to Jon Gray’s Breakout

If you’re a sucker like me, you constantly pin your hopes on the latest Rockies phenom hoping that he will finally be the one to tame the beast that is Coors Field. After all, there are only 29 other teams full of pitchers playing in exponentially more friendly ballparks, so why not intently focus on the toughest pitching environment we’ve ever seen in the game and hope to find the diamond in that rough?! (Cool life, Paul.)

The latest Great Coors Hope is Jon Gray.

His 3.94 ERA isn’t exactly a jump-off-the-page kind of number, but it’s not bad (48 of 93 qualified SPs) and there are very encouraging numbers underneath the ERA. His 26% strikeout rate is 12th-best, his 19% K-BB% is 15th-best, and his 1.16 WHIP is 28th-best. Unsurprisingly, those underlying numbers suggest that his ERA should be better with a 3.69 FIP. A rough start to the season (11 ER in 8.7 IP over two starts – both at Coors) and a nightmarish trip to St. Louis (9 ER) account for 20 of his 47 ER this season (43%). He’s been especially strong since that St. Louis outing.

He hasn’t allowed more than 4 ER in a single start and only twice has even allowed the 4 ER. He’s posted a 2.93 ERA and 1.06 WHIP in the 11 starts with 72 strikeouts and a 3.1 K:BB ratio in 70.7 IP. All this despite a 1.3 HR/9, though six of the 10 HRs have been solo shots during that span. Perhaps the best part of this recent run is that five of the 11 starts have been at home and he has a 2.70 ERA during those starts with 35 strikeouts and just six walks. There have been some discernible changes for Gray that have helped spur his run.

Gray has a strong mid-90s heater, but moving away from using it so much has been a key part of this run (though the fastball itself has still been instrumental and we’ll get to that in a bit). Using that St. Louis start (May 19th) as a cutoff, let’s look at his pitch mix to see where the changes have come:

Notice that the curve and change have both become more instrumental in his game and the success has followed. The differences are even starker against lefties which has led to drop in OPS from .782 to .604, including a dirty .185 AVG. Here are those lefty differences:

He has changed up his pitch mix against righties, too, but the results haven’t really changed (.683 to .700 OPS). He’s using the fastball 10% less often, down to 49% with the bulk of that going into the slider (from 32% to 38%) while also throwing more righty-righty changeups (2% to 5%). Honestly, one of the biggest differences between these two samples is the BABIP. Early on it was a sky-high .376 and in these last 11 it’s down to .247. Even though he’s pitching better, the .247 still feels too good to maintain as-is. I’d eye his .287 composite figure as a best-case scenario the rest of the way.

Notice that the slider usage has jumped up in both the overall and versus lefty samples. In fact, just looking at his overall work compared to 2015 shows a 10% jump in slider usage to 29%. It was a great pitch for him last year (.418) and he seems to have subscribed to theory that if some is good, more is better because it’s been almost the same exact pitch with a .413 OPS this year. Lefties are getting a large part of the slider increase and he’s successfully burying in under their hands – backfooting it if you will.

Even though we’ve seen a big drop in fastball usage in the recent 11 starts, it has still been very important in his success, especially against right-handers. Last year, they absolutely owned the pitch with a 1.121 OPS in 63 PA. A lot of the success is derived from a change in approach. Gray is now working the fastball in on righties, almost a complete 180 from last year. His inside/middle/outside breakdown with the fastball in 2015 was 32%/23%/45% while this year it’s at 46%/24%/29%. Inner-third fastballs to righties last year yielded a 1.106 in 20 PA. This year, it’s at .548 in 68 PA!

Gray was sharp yet again in Baltimore on Wednesday night, registering seven innings of one-run ball on just five hits and two walks with three strikeouts. Increased use of the slider against lefties and pounding the fastball in on righties have been two keys to his recent success. His margin for error at home remains slight because of that insane ballpark so we will probably still see a dud form time-to-time, but I’d consider him in certain matchups, especially if I’m not protecting ERA and WHIP as closely. Meanwhile, he’s a full-time start on the road.