In November of 2023 the St. Louis Cardinals signed starter Sonny Gray to a 3 year 75-million-dollar contract and a mutual option for a 4th year at 30 million dollars. So far, the Cardinals have gotten every penny’s worth of their investment in Sonny. From his performances on the field to the leadership and tone he sets off of it. In 2024, Sonny, went 13-9 with a 3.84 ERA in 166.1 IP striking out 203 batters a carrying a K% of 30.3% coming off of a 2nd place finish in Cy Young voting in 2023 with the Minnesota Twins.
This season, Gray, is continuing to make good on the Cardinals investment! Pitching to a 7-1 record with a 3.35 ERA, 3.11 FIP, a 26.5 K%, and a 1.13 WHIP, and has generated 1.8 fWAR. Sonny is making a strong case for his 4th All Star game appearance in his career. Where does that rank among NL RH starters? 1st in Wins, 12th in IP, 12th in ERA, 6th in FIP, 6th in fWAR, 7th in K%, 3rd in K-BB%, 8th in WHIP, and 5th in SIERA. For what it’s worth, I really enjoy Fangraphs dollar value metric, Sonny Gray has been the 6th most valuable starter with the same qualifiers attached as before at 14.0 Million behind Paul Skenes (PIT), Logan Webb (SFG), Zach Wheeler (PHI), Yoshinobu Yamamoto (LAD), and Chad Patrick (MIL).
If Brendan Donovan is unthinkably unable to secure an All-Star game selection. Sonny Gray would be the next logical choice to be a selection, and if Sonny is able to continue on the trajectory he’s on, this snippet may be academic, and Sonny will be selected regardless.
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According to Baseball Savant, Sonny Gray, is in the top 10% of breaking run value, and top 16% in fastball and pitching run value in general. Sonny is top 7% in preventing free passes and is easily the most effective strikeout artist of any starter the Cardinals currently feature in their rotation.
The Cardinals find themselves in a fun, but complicated, position. The runway season is morphing into some sort of pseudo runway/contending season and Sonny has been a big part of leading that charge. We heard at Winter Warm Up that Sonny, specifically, wasn’t willing to waive his no trade clause because of his and other players internal belief that this team was going to be capable of doing exactly what the Cardinals are doing right now. “surprise some folks.”
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