Looking at the Statcast data, the Reds have completely revamped Gray’s repertoire, returning him to a pitch mix very similar to what Gray used in his Oakland salad days. Gray’s four-seam fastball, tossed just 26% of the time in 2018 with New York, is now his most common offering, being used nearly a third of the time. His sinker is now a distant third in his pitch mix after being used over 30% of the time in New York, and Gray has replaced those sinkers with hard sliders and changeups, two pitches that the Yankees had shelved almost entirely.
This change—reverting to his Oakland roots—has led Gray to perhaps his finest season. Through 97.1 innings this season, Gray has the highest strikeout rate of his career (10.36 K/9, 28.1% K%), the second-best strikeout-to-walk ratio of his career (3.11 K/BB; 19.0% K%-BB%), and the second-best ground ball rate of his career (55.1%). As a result, Gray has a 3.42 ERA (76 ERA-), 3.24 FIP (72 FIP-), and 3.44 xFIP (78 xFIP-), all the second-best marks of his career.
Pitching half his starts in the launching pad that is Great American Ball Park, Gray is twentieth among all qualified MLB starting pitchers in ERA (ahead of Stephen Strasburg, Aaron Nola, Walker Buehler, and Trevor Bauer), twelfth in FIP (ahead of Clayton Kershaw, Chris Sale, Matthew Boyd, and Kyle Hendricks), and thirteenth in xFIP (ahead of Patrick Corbin, Justin Verlander, and Zack Greinke. Overall, Gray is 20th among MLB starting pitchers in fWAR (+2.5, ahead of Verlander and Noah Syndergaard).
To show just how good Gray has been, here’s another chart:
This is a chart I love because it’s pretty wild. All three pitchers here are about even in terms of run prevention and missing bats. Gray is the best at inducing grounders, by not a small margin. So who are the other two pitchers? Mystery ace is Jacob deGrom, and yes, Gray has been as good as deGrom at preventing runs this year, and FIP and xFIP suggests that’s real. Sonny Gray has been deGrom with a few more walks and a lot more grounders. The Mystery Millionaire is Nationals southpaw Patrick Corbin, who has pitched well in the first year of a six year, $140 million megadeal. Gray has pitched just as well as Corbin, if not better - and he’s on a three-year, $30 million deal that now looks incredibly team-friendly.