Less than a month before the 2022 season, the Minnesota Twins made a bold move to solidify their pitching staff. They traded pitching prospect Chase Petty to the Cincinnati Reds for Sonny Gray. Adding Gray itself wasn’t necessarily bold, but trading Petty, their most recent first-round pick, showed how much the Twins wanted to get the two-time All-Star arm to lead the rotation.
Gray pitched well in his first year with Minnesota. He pitched 119.2 innings, had a 3.08 ERA, and earned 2.3 bWAR, which seems like a solid season. But his 2022 campaign was stunted by a couple of IL stints. Gray wasn’t fully healthy entering the season, and he averaged 5.0 innings per start. Coming into his 11th season in 2023, would Gray, 33, be able to shake those issues? Or was he on the downswing of his career as an above-average starting pitcher?
Twins fans have been through this with multiple pitchers over the last 15 years. A veteran pitcher who was once a household name finishes out their career pitching for Minnesota once their best years are behind them. Liván Hernández, Bartolo Colon, or J.A. Happ have all filled that role for the Twins throughout the last decade-plus. The team would try to milk the last bit of baseball out of a pitcher or rely on the veteran savvy to get outs as their talent faded. It’s something every team does from time to time but for the Twins, they never were able to find that guy who could ever return to a dominant form.
Gray was a dominant starter in the first five seasons of his career with the Oakland Athletics. He earned a 3.42 ERA in 705 innings and an All-Star appearance in 2015 during his time in Oakland. However, the A’s traded him to the New York Yankees in 2017 and he struggled, owning a 4.50 ERA in two seasons in the Bronx. Cincinnati scooped up Gray in 2019, and he earned another All-Star appearance that season.
Maybe Gray’s start shouldn’t be that surprising, considering his 3.50 career ERA and 26.7 career bWAR. However, Gray hasn’t just been good or productive, he’s been one of the best starting pitchers in baseball through the first month of the season. His 0.62 ERA in 29 innings is the best in baseball while his 1.8 bWAR is third-best behind only Gerrit Cole and Shohei Ohtani. His 29.3 percent strikeout clip is also the highest since 2019, the most recent season he made the All-Star team.
Gray’s cutter has made a comeback this season while relying less on the fastball. His usage of the pitch has gone up to 19 percent this season compared to only nine percent in 2022. It’s also been his most effective pitch with a .089 wOBA and an 86.5 average exit velocity. He has a 50 percent put-away clip when throwing the cutter. Even though his spin rate is down across all seven of his pitches, Gray is in command of his stuff. It’s showing with a campaign that is putting him on an early path for an All-Star caliber season. With a 2.11 FIP and a 3.25 xERA, his hot start doesn’t seem to be an anomaly.
Contrast the great start Gray is having to what Twins fans have been used to seeing over the last decade-plus. Remember in 2008 when the Twins went from Cy Young winner Johan Santana as an ace to Hernandez as the Opening Day starter? Hernández was a former World Series champion and World Series MVP in 1997 with the Florida Marlins, and two-time All-Star. However, in Minnesota, he’s remembered for his 5.48 ERA through 139.2 innings before they DFA’d him midway through the season.
In 2017, the Twins took a flier on Colón after the Atlanta Braves had put him on waivers. Colón was more well-known for being a walking meme than a reliable starting pitcher, but he was effective for Minnesota in small doses. However, it was clear that Big Sexy didn’t have much left. He retired a year later. In 2020, Minnesota brought in Rich Hill and Homer Bailey to bolster the 2020 rotation and had mixed results. Hill had a solid 3.03 ERA in the 60-game season, and he continues to defy father time with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Bailey pitched eight innings in what was his final season.
In 2021, the Twins signed Happ to be a solid lefty for the rotation. The Twins were hoping to tap into what the 2018 All-Star was able to do from 2014 to 2018 when he posted a 14.8 bWAR. But he made 19 starts with Minnesota and had a 6.77 ERA through 98.1 innings. Somehow, they were able to trade him to the St. Louis Cardinals at the deadline instead of DFAing him. Happ announced his retirement on May 26, 2022.
Gray has been a productive pitcher and has also been fun to watch. There are plenty of reasons to endear himself to Twins fans. His craftiness as a veteran to get hitters out, his grunts and screams while on the mound, or his determination to pitch deep into ballgames. Gray is a gamer who is enjoying himself while he pitches some of the best baseball of his career.
Pablo López is Minnesota’s ace going forward. However, it appears Gray has the command of the starting rotation this year. López was also an offseason trade acquisition, but he is 27 years old and in the prime of his career. Gray’s success at this point in his career has been something Twins fans were told was always possible but never actually got to see until this season. There have been plenty of bumps in the road fishing for veteran starters, though it’s rewarding to see it pay off when the Twins have their best rotation in years.
If the first month is any indication, 2023 might be the season where Gray got his groove back. The veteran has found a way to continue being a productive pitcher and is at a Cy Young-level pace in his first five starts of the season. After years and years of failing to find someone like Gray, the Twins have finally found the crafty veteran they have been searching for.
