I know on the surface there's a lot of blue abilities, but I think Gray's on the trajectory to be the A's ace. I read a bunch of scouting reports on him this time. VsL4 was unavoidable of course, I garnered Safe Pitch randomly (sorta fits), and same for Poker Face - but I was planning on Battler anyway. He can get frustrated on the mound but keeps himself collected. Plus he limits hits with runners on, hence the W/RISP4. GDReflexes is in addition to decent fielding, he is athletic with a "nice throw to first" to paraphrase. GBPitcher due to his 50-55% rate, he does a great job getting outs off them. Gray keeps it 94-95 but he can dial it up to 97, also got GdPace for his willingness to throw his fastball in there for strikes. Was looking at GdDelivery but couldn't get it.
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Besides all that the question was whether his vicious breaking ball was a CB (described as heavy 12-6 or DCB) or a SLV, because he throws it at a slider angle at times.
From what I could gather he throws with different grips and leans more on a slurve variation these days.
Quote:
It now looks more like a slurve, with its high release speed and nasty late break away from right-handed hitters. As Eno Sarris included in his great article from October of last year, Gray said he "adds and subtracts" with the same grip on his curve to move between the 12-to-6 and slurve (which is sometimes classified as a slider) varieties. However, it seems as if he has leaned more toward the slurve option as time has gone on. One question that arises out of this is "why throw the slurve more?"
Given his whiff % on the curve has increased as he has added velocity, I’d say that fact alone has supported the move to the slurve over the 12-to-6. However, there’s another potential reason that isn’t strictly rooted in statistics, and could be more about what goes into an elite pitching approach: by increasing his arm speed and flattening out the vertical movement of his curve, Gray can further deceive batters into thinking he’s throwing hard pitches before the bottom drops out.
That said, I think it's deserving of level 4. He racked up 9 strikeouts in the AA title game. He was promoted to starter in AAA by week 4 of March, fairly early for me I think. A notable weight training that landed him there was worth 5 coach/4 scout eval.
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