If you like what you’re reading then you will like my 2015 Fantasy Baseball Guide! Last year’s fantasy guide was more than 150,000 words and had 440 player profiles (of hitters and pitchers). My approach to player evaluation is to ask questions about what the player has done in the past and what he may do in the future. I certainly provide a narrative on how I feel a player will perform, but I also ask a lot of open ended questions that I hope will get you thinking about the information I’ve provided.
After the first four months of the season Sonny Gray looked like legitimate top 20 starting pitcher, but in the last two months he faded down the stretch (table below). In fall fairness the August-September data was skewed by a very bad August.
| Splits | ERA | WHIP | BABIP | AVG | K% | BB% | HR/FB |
| April-July | 2.65 | 1.18 | .278 | .224 | 21.1% | 8.5% | 7.0% |
| Aug-Sept. | 3.83 | 1.21 | .287 | .247 | 19.0% | 7.7% | 13.6% |
What surprised me about Gray last season was the high walk rate (8.3%). I thought he had impeccable command of the fastball, but that wasn’t the case. In fact, among starting pitchers with at least 25 starts, his walk rate ranks in the bottom 25% of pitchers.
Another trend that caught my eye was he was a much better pitcher on the road than at home (table below), which is counterintuitive because of how much of a pitcher’s park he plays in.
| Splits | ERA | WHIP | BABIP | AVG | K% | BB% | HR/FB |
| Home | 3.60 | 1.28 | .303 | .250 | 21.3% | 8.1% | 10.9% |
| Away | 2.51 | 1.10 | .256 | .212 | 19.2% | 8.4% | 7.5% |
So to recap, Gray has a very confusing profile thus far. He pitched better on the road and was very effective despite walking a lot of batters.
Last year I wasn’t high on Gray entering the 2014 season because I thought the lack of a third pitch would make it easier for opposing batters to figure him out the more times they saw him. For the year he was primarily a two-pitch pitcher but during the last three months he started to incorporate the slider and changeup (image from BrooksBaseball.net).
The next obvious question is how the changeup and slider performed when he started throwing them more the last three months of the season. The table below shows precisely that.
| Splits | Strike% | K% | WHIFF% | AVG | SLUG |
| 1st Half | 57.6% | 20.4% | 30.2% | .220 | .280 |
| 2nd Half | 68.3% | 22.6% | 26.0% | .233 | .383 |
I don’t know what to make of Sonny Gray’s season. He walks a lot of batters, but he misses a lot of bats and generates a lot of ground balls. Since he walks so many batters he’s probably going to regress in 2015.
My 2015 projection for Gray is 210 IP, 3.40 ERA. 1.21 WHIP, 175 Ks and 13 wins.
