To get an idea of what the Yankees might do with either of their newest pitchers, we can look to last summer when the Yankees added Sonny Gray, also a historically fastball heavy pitcher. Though Gray wasn’t quite a reliant on the pitch as Happ or Lynn, he did throw the offering roughly 60 percent of the time in Oakland. The thing that Gray also has is a curveball with a very high spin rate, which ostensibly enticed the Yankees to alter how he attacks hitters. I wrote about this earlier in the season, though it hasn’t turned out as fruitful as the Yankees had hoped. Happ and Lynn aren’t Gray, though, and not only because they throw their fastball even more often. Rather, the two hurlers the front office acquired in this past week are rentals, whereas Gray was seen as a rotational piece for the next few years that the team could mold in its vision. Aside from other factors, the time of control likely will be a big influence on how Happ and Lynn are handled.

Happ has already made one start in pinstripes, and if it’s indicative of anything, it’s that he’s not making any changes. 75 of his 96 pitches against the Royals were fastballs, which is consistent with his past. The southpaw has been just fine with this routine for a few years now, so why try to fix it especially with only a dozen or so starts remaining? It doesn’t appear that his secondary offerings (slider and changeup) are anything special according to Fangraphs’ Pitch Values, anyway. Furthering the status quo argument is his slider spin rate, which is a well below average 2,206 RPM. Spin rate isn’t everything, but it is one indicator of pitch quality. As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Happ has been good and it doesn’t seem like there is much room for improvement. Plus, he’s only around for a couple of months, so now’s not the time to make drastic adjustments.

Then there’s the case of Lynn. Lynn cuts and sinks his fastball, but doesn’t have much else to offer. His main secondary pitch is a curveball, though he also rarely throws a changeup. The curveball, which he’s thrown just under ten percent of the time this season, doesn’t appear to be anything to write home about based on pitch values. It’s got a very low spin rate (2,223 RPM), which is ranks 292nd of nearly 400 pitchers. For what it’s worth, the pitch does have a .153 wOBA and .168 xwOBA against this year, but that appears to be an aberration compared to last year (.302 / .309). Like Happ, there doesn’t appear to be a growth opportunity for Lynn by using his breaking ball more often. Not to mention this:

Perhaps a change of scenery helps Lance Lynn. I hear with Twins there had been some tension. Seems he had his own plan and stuck with it — despite consistently poor results. There’s some thought he might fit better within Yankees clubhouse dynamic.

— Marc Carig (@MarcCarig) July 30, 2018

If “own plan” translates to fastball-centric, then it doesn’t sound like Lynn would want to make a change.

Either way, Lynn appears to be more of an insurance policy, while Happ is of greater importance. Happ not only adds to the rotation for the rest of the regular season but will also be expected to make postseason starts. Meanwhile, there isn’t a spot open in the rotation for Lynn at the moment, so he’ll likely take Adam Warren’s vacated bullpen spot. Perhaps Lynn is better suited as a reliever with his fastball-heavy9 approach considering that he wouldn’t have to turn the opposing lineup over multiple times. Lynn’s fastball velocity is up this year, and perhaps it could go up more in shorter outings.

With Happ and Lynn, it doesn’t look like we’ll see a new style coached like we saw with Gray. Obviously, these are different circumstances given Gray’s promising curveball and his future with the team. If the Yankees want to get the most out of Happ and Lynn, particularly the former, sticking to the current path makes the most sense. The rotation needs a steady hand, and it certainly appears that Happ can provide that as is. Lynn doesn’t seem like he’d be amenable to a big adjustment anyway (plus he doesn’t seem like a good candidate for it). In all likelihood, the Yankees would prefer differently styled pitchers, but given what is available on the trade market, it seems like they have no choice but to buck the internal pitching philosophy.

Pitch usage and values per Fangraphs. Statcast data via Baseball Savant.

But…

It was against the Orioles and he’s had some success against them—Gray is 3-0 with a 0.51 ERA in three starts at Camden Yards. So while it was nice to see Sonny Gray exit a game after six innings (instead of two) without giving up any runs, he hasn’t quite turned the corner. Not yet anyway. He’ll need to string together a few strong/quality starts against tougher teams and/or be successful at home for that to happen. Still, Wednesday night was a step in the right direction.

So what worked for Gray against the Orioles?

His curveball:

As you can see, he threw it a lot. Gray finished his outing with 90 pitches and half of them were curveballs. He also threw 39 two-seam fastballs, three four-seam fastballs, two sliders, and one changeup.

A positive for Gray was his eight strikeouts–five swinging, three called. He threw his curve for strike three five times, his two-seamer two times and he threw one four-seam fastball for strike three against Chris Davis. Gray’s had three outings with eight or more strikeouts.

The other positive for Gray was that he only gave up three hits and he didn’t surrender a run. There were no two-out, two-strike, run-scoring hits for Baltimore. He gave up two doubles and a single and the two times when Baltimore had runners in scoring position (the second inning and the sixth inning), Gray was able to work out of the jam and end the inning without any damage. This was only his second scoreless outing of the season. The other time he didn’t give up a run was in an eight-inning, two-hit masterpiece against Toronto on June 6.

As Gray told reporters last night, “It’s one start,” but it’s a start he can build upon, hopefully.

Gray’s next start will be after the All-Star break so we’ll have to wait until then to see if he’s actually turned the corner.

Photo credit: Tommy Gilligan / USA TODAY Sports

Hooray!

Heading into Sunday’s game against the Royals, Gray’s longest output of the season was six innings which he reached three times; April 7, April 30 and May 5. And in his last start, he pitched five innings against his former team and he gave up five runs on nine hits, including two home runs. It was pretty ugly.

On Sunday, the Yankees were looking to win their eighth series in a row, and with Gray starting, some fans were afraid the streak would end. Fortunately, Gray was masterful in his outing in Kansas City. He lasted eight innings, only gave up four hits and surrendered one run. He also struck out five and walked a batter. He was also pretty efficient this time around. He threw 92 pitches overall, 62 for strikes and his highest pitch count was 18 in his final inning of work. He had a seven-pitch fourth inning.

Gray also did a nice job of mixing his pitches and velocity.

All five of Gray’s strikeouts were swinging. He struck out Jorge Soler and Mike Moustakas in the first inning. Soler swung through an 85.3 mph curveball while Moustakas swung at a 93.9 mph fastball. Hunter Dozier was Gray’s next strikeout victim. He swung through an 84.0 mph curveball. Whitt Merrifield was next. He struck out in the fifth inning on an 85.7 slider. Gray got Soler again in the eighth inning on an 85.2 mph curveball.

Courtesy of Baseball Savant

As you can see, Gray did a nice job of mixing his pitches and he threw more fastballs than he has in previous outings.

In this next graph, you’ll see the difference in what’s he throwing now compared to April.

He’s abandoned his cutter which he wasn’t throwing very much anyway and he’s ramped up his fastball output. So what does this all mean? Who knows. Hopefully, Gray will watch this start and try to replicate it in his next start.

Data courtesy of Brooks Baseball and Baseball Savant

Before Sonny Gray became the broken link in an otherwise sturdy chain.

With the renowned fall-off of nearly all pitchers when facing a lineup for the third time in one night, even the casual fan can criticise a Manager’s decision to leave a starter in past the fifth inning with objective evidence. With the strikeout prowess of the Yankees’ bullpen, peripherals suggesting a bit of bad luck early, and the slow starts of Chad Green and Tommy Kahnle (DL), even stronger evidence supporting bullpen reliance will emerge as the Yankees trek towards October.

Severino and Tanaka would headline a Yankees’ playoff rotation. After that, things get interesting. CC Sabathia has more than earned consideration for a spot, but expectations have to be tempered. That brings consideration to Sonny Gray and whether his early struggles are a genuine reason for concern to any Yankees fan already thinking of how many layers are necessary to combat New York’s October chill.

2018 Sonny Gray isn’t a fresh topic. Relevant entries into the saga already exist.

At the beginning of the season, BP Bronx’s very own Derek Albin noticed a change in Gray’s pitch usage, one that aligns itself with the philosophy of so many other pitchers across the league: less fastball, more breaking ball.

Not only more breaking balls but different breaking balls. Gray’s curveball-slider usage this year resembles his early days with Oakland in 2013 when he used his curveball a quarter of the time. The former Vanderbilt product’s tendency to shy away from two-seam fastball usage is most notable versus left-handed hitters, cut in half to 15 percent, coupled with a doubling of his curveball usage to 26 percent. His affinity for hard stuff versus right-handed hitters has remained stable from last year, but this slider-to-curveball flip is also apparent.

The issue? Gray himself might have trouble confirming any of these specific usage alterations. An essential read to understand Gray’s uniqueness was written last year by the venerable Eno Sarris. It cited how unique Gray’s offerings were, highlighting the blur that exists when distinguishing between his curveball and slider. Comparing the visuals of Gray’s breaking pitches to a two-breaking ball arm like Corey Kluber, who has a slider with a more horizontal break to eliminate the majority of classification errors. Below is a quick gif of Gray’s slider and curveball to help visualize what I’m attempting to break down in words.

If we believe what Baseball Prospectus is classifying as Gray’s curveball and slider, we can see why this discrepancy occurs. The vertical break on Gray’s curveball is fantastic, sitting inside the 90th percentile of the league, a feat likely driven by the excellent spin rate earned year to year.

I imagine the philosophy behind Gray’s tinkering comes from the realization of how superb his curveball’s vertical break is and the want to emulate a plus characteristic of his curve by tinkering just enough horizontally to generate slider classification. This is supported by the vertical break on Gray’s “slider” sitting in the 98th percentile of the league for each of the last two years – to the naked eye, it’s easy to mistake it for a hard curveball.

This is part of the thrill with Sonny Gray: accepting his ability to render pitch recognition software periodically useless. But I also suspect his reliance on feel – not having a true distinction between pitches on occasion – creates stretches of struggle, like the rut we’re in right now.

So how does one remain optimistic in the face of poor results? This comes from one of the underlying results within Gray’s overall change: his curveball has been fantastic. Even with the classification errors we’ve already discussed, we can still parse out the effectiveness of this pitch with some reservation given his tendency to tinker.

Gray’s curveball location has been properly at the knees, the pitch’s whiff rate remains above league average, and the two-plane bend he generates is another plus aspect of his unique mix. The Yankees’ intentions of wanting to develop Gray towards more comfort with his breaking ball could have been to capitalize on this pitch’s effectiveness. Unfortunately, in a utopian world, everything else would have remained intact. Including the effectiveness of both his four-seamer and sinker, to his ability to manipulate his fastball grip and generate cut (which is the “cutter” that occurs when you see a fifth pitch disclosed on various outlets).

Rothschild & Co. shouldn’t alter their course six starts into the season, especially with his curveball this strong. Tinkering with Gray’s complementary components, maintaining a focus on this curveball is what I’d love to see the prolonged results of.

His curveball’s effectiveness to left-handed hitters should be enough to prolong success versus that handedness, but versus right-handed hitters, moving away from his slider has caused a key pitch from his 2017 repertoire to fade. This is where tinkering is needed most. Without the ability to regain bite on either his four-seamer or sinker, even if Gray aligns himself with the Yankees’ push for offspeed, nothing effective preempts his heavy dose of breaking balls.

Perhaps Gray’s tinkering has taken the “feel” away from his fastballs. Perhaps Gray needs to tinker more with his fastball, leaning on his cutting alteration more. Perhaps the answer is something previously undiscovered; something a “feel” pitcher needs time to adjust towards or away from.

Whether Gray figures this out, with enough time to make the general public walk back their criticism of a potentially necessary arm for October, remains to be seen. If the Yankees trade for another starter, as the New York Daily News, suggested back in January, grave concern for Gray as a starter might be unnecessary.

The future is bright, even with how cloudy it currently seems.

When it comes to a player’s approach or style, we tend to think of launch angle for hitters (at least nowadays) and pitch usage for pitchers. It doesn’t take long to find out that certain hitters are trying to hit more fly balls just like how we can quickly realize that a pitcher has made a change to his pitch selection. If we saw, for instance, Luis Severino start throwing a curveball frequently, we’d notice pretty quickly and it would probably be meaningful for what’s to come. In the early stages of 2018, there’s one Yankees pitcher who has made a big change, though it doesn’t come in the form of a new pitch. Rather, it’s how he’s utilizing his preexisting repertoire thus far. With a new season upon us, Sonny Gray has become a different pitcher.

First, let’s establish what Gray normally threw entering 2018. Since he came up with Oakland, the right-hander had predominantly relied on his fastball and sinker:

*I grouped sliders and cutters together. There have been some issues categorizing Gray’s repertoire, so I think this makes the most sense given their similarity in velocity. 

He tossed his four-seamer and sinker about 60 percent of the time and it certainly worked for him given his career results. Yet, it’s evident that the Yankees thought the status quo could be improved upon.

Including his exhibition start in Atlanta prior to the regular season, Gray has appeared three times in ballparks that have tracked his pitches in 2018. In those starts, Gray has been a totally different pitcher than what we’re accustomed to:

Gray has practically abandoned his four-seamer in favor of his curveball by a wide margin. His slider/cutter usage has shown an uptick too. In other words, Gray has suddenly become a breaking ball heavy pitcher, and it appears that this approach is here to stay.

With the advent of Statcast, we hear a lot about spin rates when it comes to pitchers. It turns out that Gray’s curveball is one of Statcast’s spin rate darlings, something that almost certainly is playing into this change in pitch usage. Since last season, Gray’s 2,879 RPM average on his curveball ranks 17th in baseball. That’s higher than guys with great curveballs like Justin Verlander and Rich Hill. Of course, there are pitchers on this list that have favorable RPMs without much success (looking at you, Jonathan Holder!). Still, spin rate is one important part of having an effective curveball, and clearly Gray possesses this skill that he and the Yankees are apparently looking to exploit.

This wouldn’t be the first time that the Yankees have encouraged a change in pitch usage. Most recently, we heard about the analytics department suggesting that prospect Dillon Tate throw a two-seamer based on inputs like arm angle and spin rate. It’s safe to assume that the same thing is going on here with Gray.

Will the increased curveball usage make Gray a better pitcher? It’s obviously too soon to say, but the Yankees seem to believe so. With his new approach thus far, he’s been mediocre and has struggled with command. Perhaps his increased curveball usage has resulted in location issues, considering how much harder it is to spot a curveball as compared to a heater. Again, though, it’s impossible to pass judgment after just a few starts, and frankly, I’m excited to see how his new approach pans out.

Pitch usage data via Brooks Baseball. Spin rate via Baseball Savant.

Photo credit: Winslow Townson / USA TODAY Sports