For a Red Sox organization with years of devastating pitching injuries, the appeal of adding a starter like right-hander Sonny Gray, acquired from the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday, was clear:
A proven track record of putting up high inning and strikeout totals throughout his 13-year career.
“When you think about what Sonny has been in this league, it’s a guy who’s pitched at the front of rotations, and you know, those things that we think pitchers carry from year to year, things like strikeout rates and walk rates and ability to stay off barrels, he excels there,” said Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow. “We’re really excited about adding a guy that is coming off back-to-back 200-strikeout seasons, and shouldering a significant workload.”
Since the start of his first full MLB season with the ’14 Athletics, Gray has averaged 194.9 innings and 195.3 strikeouts per 162 games. Over the last two seasons in St. Louis, the perennially-underrated righty pitched to a 4.07 ERA over 60 starts, with 404 strikeouts across 347 innings. He’s coming off a 180.2-inning, 201-strikeout ’25 season in which he ranked in the 93rd MLB percentile in BB% and 79th MLB percentile in K%.
The ’25 Red Sox had one pitcher exceed 166.2 innings: Garrett Crochet, whose 205.1 frames led the American League. He was also the only Sox pitcher more than 124 strikeouts; he led the majors with 255, and was the first Red Sox pitcher to reach 200 since Chris Sale and Eduardo Rodriguez in 2019.
“Sonny is a very talented major league pitcher,” said Breslow. “The seasons that he’s put up pretty consistently indicate that to be the case.”
Gray’s pitch mix, which includes a four-seam fastball, sweeper, curveball, sinker, cutter, changeup, slider, and a little-used slow curve, was also a huge draw. Though his fastball velocity isn’t what it once was, his breaking pitches continue to be elite weapons. For the first time since 2021-22, he increased his curveball usage, a component of his 97th MLB percentile ranking in Breaking Run Value.
“He is a guy whose secondaries make up a significant part of the arsenal,” said Breslow, “and particularly, like sweeper and curveball are just two really, really good pitches. And you can look at the whiff rates and the chase rates on the sweeper and say like, this is the foundation of a really strong arsenal.”
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