Anatomy of a Start

Getting into the weeds with Josiah Gray

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The concept of “information-driven player development,” or the mining of baseball’s information glut for tools to assist players in improving their own performance, has become a hot topic in recent years. When we talk about this work, we usually paint with broad strokes with statements like this one: the Yankees saw potential in Lou Trivino’s slider, and Trivino became more effective by developing it and throwing it more often.

We’ve heard this one before. A team analyst notices that this slider profiles as strong. The player is acquired and has a short meeting with team’s front office and coaching staff. Player X starts throwing his slider more often and transforms into a pitcher who strikes out more hitters than ever before.

It all sounds so simple, and yet it isn’t. Behind each of the development stories that we read about is a messy process. The analyst from the above hypothetical has the easiest job, with the brunt of the work (the transition from idea to implementation) falling on the pitcher and coaching staff. This group must work together to move from idea to implementation, because implementation is where player development actually happens.

Implementation means considering the situations/counts a pitcher might be able to throw his slider more often. It means creating an approach to helping a pitcher become comfortable with and capable of executing his slider in those new situations.

This work also requires adopting an in-the-weeds type of viewpoint that can be missed by those who only focus on the aggregate. Statements like “Player X started throwing his slider 20% more often and with 3” of additional lateral movement” tell us the what, but not the how. To analyze and appreciate the how, we need to be at field level, watching game-by-game and pitch-by-pitch. This is where big league teams actually operate, and it can be a pretty fun vantage point to watch from.

At field level, we consider the measurable and the unmeasurable. Say a starting pitcher throws 90 pitches on a given night. With a quick web search, we can find out know where each pitch ended up and how much each pitch moved - this part can be done from the press box. It takes some additional work, though, to determine what a pitcher’s intent for each pitch might have been. Nearly every one of those pitches will have a unique purpose, and most will be tied to some broader goal or skill. In tracking a pitcher’s goals for each individual pitch thrown, we can evaluate his progress toward achieving his broader development goals in real time.

To demonstrate how interesting this “field level” way of watching the game can be, I’ve put together a breakdown of one random start made by a developing starting pitcher on a non-contending team. Josiah Gray made 28 starts for a 55-win Nationals club in 2022 and pitched to a 5.02 ERA. Unless your favorite team plays in the NL East, you probably didn’t see him pitch last year.

Gray’s last start of 2022 serves both as a mark of his accomplishment and a reminder of work left to be done. I’ll start with a quick but necessary overview of Gray’s background and the pitch mix he works with, and then I’ll jump into a review of his approach to facing a difficult Atlanta Braves lineup on September 28, 2022.

Some Context

Still relatively new to pitching, Gray was pushed to both adapt to the major league level in 2022 and to cross new workload thresholds. Gray posted 148.2 innings in 2022 - that’s a huge jump from the 96.1 innings posted in 2021 and zero competitive innings in 2020. To make it this far and still be standing is an achievement in its own right (half of those starts came against playoff teams, too). Welcome to the big leagues! Before Gray could officially close out the year, he had to face a Braves lineup that did have something to play for.

The Mix

In 2022, Gray worked as a breaking-ball-first pitcher. Two breaking balls (slider and curveball) made up 55% of his pitch mix. It’s mix that is still very much in development - Gray’s fastball doesn’t even have a reliable movement profile yet. In late September, it picked up a good amount of armside run (toward a right-handed hitter) - so that will be something to watch in this start and in 2023. Mechanically, Gray is a very short strider with a tendency to collapse over his “drive” leg. None of this (the lack of consistency or the short stride) is surprising to see from a former college shortstop.

Fastball

In the last two months of the season, Gray leaned into the natural two-seam running action on his fastball. With more run than sink, the pitch has been difficult to land in the zone. A gloveside target (away from a right-handed hitter) risks the potential for a fastball to run right back over the middle of the plate, so keep an eye out for those in this start. On the flip side, with enough running action, a target on the other side of the plate can find a right-handed hitter’s elbow pad.

If Gray can hone that armside run, the pitch comes with some benefits. It’s a great platoon-neutralizing pitch to keep left-handed hitters from leaning out over the plate - think Aaron Nola. Command and consistency are key, though - if Gray doesn’t know how much it will move, picking a target on either side of the plate isn’t on the table.

Slider

This pitch has been the get-out-of-trouble pitch for Gray. He’ll use it early and often to right-handed hitters, but he’s still working on snapping it off consistently. It’s hard and “short,” with more curveball-like tilt than lateral movement. “Backups” (sliders that spin but don’t finish breaking laterally) have been common for Gray.

Commanding this pitch for two distinct aims (as a chase pitch below the zone, and as a freeze/backdoor strike pitch in-zone) isn’t something Gray has shown the ability to do yet. Setting up a consistent goal for the slider as a strike-to-ball pitch (and saving the curveball as the ball-to-strike option) might make it easier to repeat both pitches than it would be to try use both inside and outside the zone simultaneously.

Curveball

Sitting in the 81-84 mph range, the curveball is about 3 ticks off of the slider. Like the slider, it is also shorter than most curveballs (less depth) and (also like the slider) it has a north-south profile. The north-south profiles on both breaking pitches is an uncommon pairing for a running fastball, but Gray’s mix is far from finished. It would not be surprising to see more lateral sweep added to either the slider or the curveball as Gray gets a better feel for both.

Changeup

This pitch is still pretty raw - Gray is one of those who embodies the “developing at the major league level” concept. While the approach 10 years ago might have been to tie Gray’s big league promotion to the development of his changeup, he’s going to have to try to refine it in 2023 in front of Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Matt Olson, etc. This chart says about all that needs to be said about Gray’s feel for it in 2022:

The Line

6 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 2 K (85 pitches)

Let’s move on to Gray’s last start of 2022. Crossing the 6 IP threshold is something Gray has only done in 10 of 27 starts prior to this one, so that’s an accomplishment. To do it in 85 pitches? Well, that could either be a function of efficiency or some pitches hit right at people. Let’s find out as we walk through Gray’s two-plus trips through the Atlanta lineup¹:

1st Time Through

Ronald Acuña Jr. doesn’t let you settle in as a starting pitcher - he loves to jump on the first pitch of the game. So, Gray opts for the common approach to 1st inning Acuña: start him off with a strike-to-ball slider:

Wait, was that a slider? Yes (I’m pretty sure), but it was one of those unintentional backups we highlighted. Note the target, the final pitch location, and a confused Acuña Jr. (who may have thought he just saw a first-pitch changeup from a pitcher who doesn’t really throw one). Acuña stares at Gray, perhaps in an attempt to spot any sign of oops, I didn’t mean to do that. Gray plays it cool, though.

And we’re off. After getting away with that one, Gray tries once more to finish that slider - but this one backs up too:

Having missed badly with his best pitch twice, I guess Riley Adams (Gray’s catcher) decides he’s had enough of this at-bat - time to give in. He sets up for a fastball in the danger-zone (down and in):

We’ll give Adams the benefit of the doubt and assume that his target is accounting for some serious high/armside miss (running toward Acuña) that has plagued Gray recently. Here, that type of miss runs Gray’s fastball (safely) up and in on Acuña.

No harm done there. Now that Gray has crowded Acuña, he’s opened up more of the plate to try to run a fastball away, or try to execute the slider one more time. Gray opts for the first option, but his up/armside miss carries the pitch way back over the inside corner and high (again).

We’re only four pitches in, but most of Gray’s areas for development have already revealed themselves:

• First, the slider. When he can execute his slider, he’s more likely to stay away from dangerous hitters’ counts. When he can’t, his options narrow and hitters can key in on a fastball running over the plate.

• Next, the fastball. The armside run on Gray’s fastball (something that he seems to be ramping up in recent weeks) is making it really hard to find the strike zone, let alone one side of it. We haven’t seen a straight fastball yet - which isn’t something Gray needs but is something that might make it a little easier to find the zone if he falls behind.

Having fallen behind 3-1, Gray and Adams opt to “let it rip” and send two fastballs running up and across the plate toward Acuña. For Gray to make it through this start, that down/away target may be the only option to corral his new, running fastball. Acuña falls about 10 feet short of putting the Braves up 1-0:

After that gift, Gray settles in a little bit. Dansby Swanson is a lot more interested in the two-seam/slider combination than Acuña was, and he ends up rolling over on a well-executed slider:

Atlanta’s Michael Harris II is not your prototypical 3-hole hitter, and because he’s left-handed, Gray might be especially happy to see him at this point. We’ll keep an eye on this, but Gray’s extreme fastball run, when commanded, can become a weapon to attack left-handed hitters on the inner-half (this is called a “front-hip” or “run-back” two-seamer). This pitch might seem like a difficult one to execute, but the image of the hitter in the left-hand box can actually work as a helpful target for a pitcher. Here, Gray hits his first fastball target of his seventh attempt thus far:

Left-handed hitters also give Gray an opportunity to pull out his curveball - breaking balls with more depth tend to profile better against opposite-handed hitters than shorter sliders do. Gray goes to the curveball three times in a row to get Harris swinging. The curveball has had its own backup issues, but as the cliche goes, “a backup breaking ball can be the best pitch in baseball”:

We see every pitch but the changeup in the first inning, and after Gray sits down and sees his team go up 1-0 in the bottom half, he comes out looking like a different pitcher. He throws a few near-perfect sliders to Austin Riley and then gets ahead of Matt Olson 0-2. I hate to pick on Adams’ targets again, but an 0-2 fastball with this target to a hitter like Olson is a bit of a head scratcher. An 0-2 count should give a catcher some room to be a little more expansive than this:

Olson loves to get those arms extended, and because this is baseball, Gray’s perfectly-executed fastball ends up in the left-field bleachers:

That outcome might encourage more of the “front-hip” two-seam fastball that Gray executed to Harris earlier. If left-handed hitters are conscious of the inner-third against Gray, his breaking balls have more room to work (either backdoor for strikes, or below the zone for chase).

Gray skates through the rest of the Atlanta lineup untouched. Perhaps frustrated with the lack of depth on his slider, he incorporates a few curveballs to right-handed hitting Travis d’Arnaud. The slider isn’t something he can totally scrap, but it’s not a dependable pitch if it occasionally comes across looking like a batting-practice fastball.

2nd Time Through

With an inconsistent slider and a fastball that ran right into Acuña barrel last time up, Gray and Adams think up a new sequence: curveball, curveball, curveball, curveball, curveball. Because some of these curveballs back up a bit, Acuña isn’t able to key in on the pitch. Gray’s last to Acuña here was one of his best of the night:

Ok, new plan. Curveballs only from here on out. This one hangs but Swanson is a little too excited to see it:

This one has Harris just a hair out in front:

That last pitch highlights another path for Gray’s development. His curveball, which is a bigger, softer version of his slider, is not yet a plus pitch on its own. But if hitters start to sit on a velocity band of 87-95 mph (from his slider and fastball), attacking the zone with strike-curveballs might become important, because it opens up more room for the other two pitches. Harris, after fouling off that curveball, gets caught in swing-mode when a harder breaking ball (the slider) follows it:

Now we’re seeing a mix of the two breaking balls. This next pitch is an 0-0 curveball that has just enough of a wrinkle/velocity gap to freeze Austin Riley for strike one:

If Gray can throw that pitch on demand in 2023, he might take a huge step forward. A few more 0-1 counts would force hitters to expand on an inconsistent fastball/slider mix. It can’t hurt Gray’s confidence to pull ahead in the count, too. He follows up with what might be his best slider of the night:

For Nationals fans, that pitch might make you miss Max Scherzer just a little less.

Gray works into a fourth inning without further damage, but he does run out of luck on some of those common command issues he’s been having. I really like this Riley Adams target for an 0-2 fastball that they’ll try to run back toward the outside edge to Travis d’Arnaud - it is well off the plate and encourages Gray to miss outside the zone. With a ton of armside run, though, the outcome is predictable - d’Arnaud whacks a line drive to right field:

There’s not much Gray can do with a fastball comes out of his hand like this. His only option to try to push deeper into this start is to try to land his curveball for strikes and expand with his slider. That’s what he does to the first two hitters he sees in the fifth inning (Eddie Rosario and Orlando Arcia). Rosario lines out and Arcia walks. Robbie Grossman nearly pulls Atlanta ahead as a slider breaks right into his bat path (down and in), but Gray gets away with a flyout. Gray has turned over the Braves lineup twice and somehow only allowed the one run. With a runner on and one more out needed to complete a fifth inning, Gray just needs to get Acuña out one more time.

3rd Time Through

Instead of dropping curveballs in to Acuña like he did the last time around, Gray “leaves fish to find fish” - he abandons what worked for the sake of changing. In this case, he reverts to this first-inning approach. He muscles up and buries a slider below the zone that Acuña might’ve chased if it were a little more competitive. After falling behind 1-0, Gray lets his fastball do its thing and we all close our eyes for a second before Acuña unloads:

Acuña smokes a ball on down the third base line, but Ildemaro Vargas and Joey Meneses team up to turn into an out and Gray gets through five innings with a pitch count of 76. He’ll get the opportunity to head out for a sixth and final inning of his 2022 season.

Gray finishes that sixth inning by retiring three hitters in order. No, he didn’t transform into someone who hits all targets and finishes all breaking balls. He hit on some, and missed on some - which is just how development works. I’ll close with one final pitch (his first of that sixth inning). This was the only down/away fastball target to a right-handed hitter that Gray hit that night. I say that not to bash his performance, but to highlight what he has the potential to do:

On to 2023

If you’re one of the few remaining Nationals fans who is looking forward to watching the 2023 club, it might be a nice time to try to appreciate the little things. If you catch Gray on the mound next year, consider some of these developmental points - how many “front-hip” two-seam fastballs did he nail to left-handed hitters on a last night? More than last week? How many sliders were executed below the zone? How many first-pitch curveballs landed for strike one? These are skills that won’t be developed overnight, but over months and years of repetition and timely feedback.

Speaking of repetition, consider how many times Gray goes right back to a “feel” pitch, like the curveball. It’s common to see a younger pitcher want to double, triple, or quadruple up on a developing pitch in a game setting - Gray did it often in this start, and you’ll see this a lot when a pitcher is learning a changeup or a curveball. That’s okay to do in the minor leagues, but big league hitters will make you pay for it. Gray’s manager wants to see more changeups from him, so keep an eye out for the sequences and situations Gray attempts to work that into game action.

The Nationals have added to their major league operations and player development groups, and it is likely the responsibility of one or multiple staff members to be tracking these types of things. To follow along at home, you’ll just need a feed of the game and an interest in watching from the field level.

1. If you’re interested in following along via video, this MLB film room link should work.