In this series I’ll be taking an in-depth look at pitchers I’m targeting in 2019 drafts. Some will be studs who I think are still undervalued, others will be pitchers who have finished mid-pack but are breakout candidates. Some will be genuine sleepers you can get in the last few rounds of your drafts.
ADP: (NFBC Rank: 54; DC Rank: 36)
Rockies’ RHP Jon Gray has had a dizzying start to his MLB career, alternating stretches of pure dominance with stretches of ratio-destroying disastrous performances. The disastrous performances are pretty much par for the course for Coors Field pitchers, and now I’m recommending one for the second time in this Pitchers to Target series.
Gray set a career-high in innings last year with 172.1 IP in the big leagues and another 10.2 at the minor-league level as he was demoted for a couple of starts mid-season. The strikeout percentage of 24.6 percent was impressive, and the seven percent walk rate was solid enough. Gray continued to get a solid number of ground balls at 47.5 percent which was on par with his previous seasons, so it was the home run rate spike that jumped to 1.41 HR/9 (under 1.0 in both 2016 and 2017) that resulted in his ERA spiking to 5.12. The home run rate spike wasn’t the result of a different batted ball profile, but simply more of his fly balls conceded flying over the outfield wall. After limiting his HR/FB rate to 12 percent in 2016/17, Gray’s HR/FB percentage jumped to 18.1 percent in 2018. We can definitely expect some regression in that regard even if Gray is unchanged as a pitcher, and based on his body of work with no offseason changes I’d project gray to put up a 4.00 ERA, decent WHIP, win a dozen games, and strikeout 200 batters over 180 innings.
But there are to changes to Jon Gray that should give us optimism for his 2019 performance. While the “best shape of his life” stories get old and are usually not predictive, Gray struggled maintaining his weight last season and is up 25 pounds entering 2019 after a rigorous offseason workout/eating schedule. More importantly, he spent time at Driveline Baseball, which I wrote about in my Trevor Bauer piece. Driveline has helped Bauer turn into one of the best pitchers in MLB (and my #1 pitcher for 2019) by helping him understand the different spin, velocities, and mechanical changes that can help make pitches more effective. If you look at the velocity and movement on Gray’s pitches, in particular his breaking balls, over the course of his career, you see a lot of inconsistency. Gray has stated that he understands better now how to more efficiently use the spin on his breaking balls to produce maximum movement, and I think we’ll see improved breaking balls this season. Gray also saw his velocity dip in the second half of last year due to the weight loss, so we should see him back over 95 mph on his heater instead of the 93-94 we saw at times last year.
One can dismiss all these supposed changes to Jon Gray if they want to, and some people take the approach of making a player “prove it”. Unfortunately, we don’t have that luxury in season long fantasy baseball. In DFS, sure, maybe you wait a couple of starts to see if Gray really has made tangible changes. But we’ve got to decide before the season begins whether or not we want to invest in a player. And if Gray had claimed all these changes and then come out and struggled during Spring Training, perhaps we wouldn’t put much stock into the changes. But the changes Gray has made in the offseason, so far, have paid massive dividends. He leads all pitchers in MLB Spring Training with 22 strikeouts in 17.2 innings, and has walked just a single batter and not given up a single home run (which of course was his big issue last year). He’s sitting 95-96 on his fastball, and I’ve had the opportunity to watch a couple of his starts and the breaking balls look sharper than they did last year. It’s hard to tell for sure if they really are improved because we don’t have any of the pitching data, we get from MLB ballparks, but to my semi-trained eye they look good.
Jon Gray has always been a quality pitcher, but due to some bad luck, fatigue, pitching at Coors Field, and frankly just learning to become a better pitcher (he’s just 27 years old) Gray hasn’t had that true breakout season the former No. 3 overall pick is capable of. This is the year. Changes to Jon Gray’s frame, a better understanding of the pitches he throws, and improved movement on his breaking balls will lead Jon Gray to return immense value on his average draft position.
