The evolution of Sonny Gray’s many sliders: ‘More velo, less movement’

When Sonny Gray places his hand down flat, his index finger doesn’t make it to the desk. His 9,282 breaking balls — greater than anyone not named Clayton Kershaw, Gerrit Cole, Justin Verlander or Yu Darvish since 2014 — have modified his physique over time. He’s additionally made some adjustments to these pitches since he debuted. Over time, he’s transferred his elite capacity to spin the ball into immediately’s lethal arsenal of flexible pitches.

“My curveball has always been my curveball,” the right-hander stated earlier this month. “It’s down and left, a two-seam grip curveball.”

That pitch has been there for him, 4 or 5 hundred occasions a yr, yearly. The relaxation of his breaking pitches, although, have been in flux ever since he debuted in Oakland. Getting the names proper is simply as laborious as nailing down what he was making an attempt to do with every pitch.

“I lost my slider until 2017,” he says, after which a breath later begins speaking in regards to the laborious slider that labored for him in Oakland. He prefers to name his sweeper a slider, too, however the motion profile suits the previous label. What else is there to do when somebody clearly has had a pair of completely different sliders at his disposal? The phrase “slider” would begin to lose which means.

Let’s separate these right into a (laborious) slider (even when it’s generally known as a cutter) and a sweeper (even when it’s generally known as a slider) for readability’s sake. A mixture of readability and precision is the entire level of including “sweeper” to baseball’s glossary, in spite of everything, and utilizing these names will assist make a chart like this make extra sense.

So, again to the sweeper. It was most likely born from his curveball, or a minimum of that’s what he stated of his “slider” after his struggles in New York. It was throughout that point when he in contrast his sweeper to 1 he noticed on the Yankees — one he ended up selecting up when he left. Maybe the very best factor he realized whereas in pinstripes.

“I don’t have that type of slider, like (Masahiro) Tanaka’s slider,” Gray stated in 2019. “His slider, the catcher will catch it, and the batter will swing-and-miss. If I get a swing-and-miss, the catcher is blocking it in the dirt. When I try to throw sliders for a strike, I get around it and it’s just a s—– spinning pitch.”

That envy led to Gray studying Tanaka’s grip and making use of it in Cincinnati.

The sweeper grip Sonny Gray acquired from Masahiro Tanaka. (Eno Sarris / The Athletic)

That first yr in a Reds uniform, Gray threw 587 of these sweepers and acquired a 40 p.c whiff charge and a .212 slugging allowed on the pitch as a reward. Bingo!

Well, perhaps. Over the subsequent three years, he chased horizontal motion on the pitch (which elevated) on the expense of velocity (which decreased) and customarily acquired worse and worse outcomes on the pitch yearly. There had been … extenuating circumstances within the center of that stretch. In 2021, after pitchers’ rampant use of sticky stuff as a efficiency enhancer had been unveiled, MLB stepped up its enforcement. It triggered pitchers to need to reevaluate how they had been designing their pitches.

“The ball was moving great. That was during sticky stuff, being honest, when the ball would stick,” Gray stated of his sweeper in 2019. “When you started having to use the seams more, it would move a lot to the left but it was slower.”

You can comply with together with what Gray is saying right here within the numbers, as his horizontal motion elevated whereas his velocity decreased.

So Gray needed to discover a pitch that labored with out sticky stuff. The key was his thumb.

“With my thumb there, it would pop,” Gray stated of the motion of the ball out of his hand. “How do I make the pop not happen? It was moving too much and too slow. It would pop up and slowly move, and batters could see it.”

The key was shifting the thumb up and out of the way in which.

Sonny Gray reveals off his new sweeper grip from two angles. (Eno Sarris / The Athletic)

Now the ball might come out of his hand in a extra crisp manner, which led him to his subsequent “Aha!” second with the pitch.

“It started with a conversation, I would say in between 2022 and leading into 2023, a conversation with the people at Drivelive,” Gray stated. “We talked for a while and I started asking questions. How could I be better, what can I do better? We had a lot of conversations about that and what my arsenal could look like to maximize what I already do well. The one thing was to stop chasing movement on your slider, sweeper, whatever you want to call it, and add in velo. More velo, less movement.”

As you may see within the graph above, Gray’s been in a position to toggle that swap. This yr, he’s throwing it tougher than ever. He’s not getting his most motion on the pitch, however 60 p.c of the time a batter swings at this factor, he misses. And when he does make contact, he’s slugging .160 on the pitch. It’s nicely on its option to being the best sweeper in baseball for the second yr in a row.

“I looked into some of the best, bigger moving sliders, what performs the best, the stuff movement, damage and expected damage, all of the metrics that you want to look at,” Gray stated. “A harder breaking ball is better. Then I really bought into straight chasing velo and not chasing the movement.”

Not surprisingly, his coaches agree with the change.

“It’s a good pitch already, but in general, in baseball across the board, if you can keep the same actions and throw a breaking pitch harder, it’s almost always a better pitch,” Cardinals pitching coach Dusty Blake stated. “It’s got a unique shape and it has a ton of horizontal movement, but the depth of it is much more than the normal sweeper. ”

Only one pitcher in baseball has thrown extra pitches with as a lot depth, sweep and velocity as Gray has this yr.

Along the way in which, he additionally found out his tougher slider, or cutter.

“In 2015, when I had that hard slider I was doing well with, I would offset my four-seam and I was just throwing a hard slider,” Gray stated of the pitch. “I’m always on the side on the ball, I would try to spin it as hard as I could. Now I’m throwing it like a fastball and letting the grip do the work.”

Now the pitch has less motion than earlier than, virtually 9 inches less drop. Again, although, it’s coming down the pipe three or 4 ticks tougher and forcing the batters to make their selections faster. Also, as a tougher pitch, it seems extra like a fastball, giving him extra varieties of fastballs with which he can assault the plate.

“Having three different fastballs is a game changer,” Gray agreed. “With my four-seam and my sweeper, it was more than 15 inches of separation, which is easier for them to differentiate. The cutter, what it’s done for me, it sticks a pitch in the middle.”

It’s laborious to drag aside all of the various things he’s modified, however previously two years, Gray has gotten his finest swing charges on his sweeper. Having a cutter will help coax the batter into these swings when he thinks he’s getting a cutter. Or takes on the cutter when he thinks he’s getting the sweeper.

Often, pitchers use cutters in opposition to opposite-handed hitters up and in, however the right-handed Gray will throw it to righties in a spot the place they only may assume it’s a sweeper to get these takes within the zone.

The evolution of his arsenal has introduced Gray to this second. He’s acquired three fastballs, so you may’t essentially sit on one laborious form and keyhole him that manner. With the cutter and the sweeper, he’s acquired two pitches which are related sufficient that it’s powerful on a batter to simply spit on something breaking in that path. Gray has three breaking balls, so you may’t simply sit on one tender form and attempt to strategy him that manner.

This is what a really feel for spin can do if a pitcher hones it and refines it over time. Speaking of which, there’s a Gray on the way in which who’s acquired much more time. If he’s acquired his father’s proclivity for breaking balls, baseball higher be careful.

“My son’s 9,” Gray laughed. “He’s already ripping curves.”

(Top photograph: Rick Ulreich / Icon Sportswire through Associated Press)