After Sonny Gray was dropped from the Yankees' rotation in early August, he was basically placed on double-secret probation -- except because he played in New York, it wasn't really a secret. Gray allowed seven runs in 2⅔ innings to the Orioles on Aug. 1, and in the nine weeks that followed, he pitched a total of nine times, for just 26⅔ innings.
Gray is 29 years old and apparently in excellent health, and yet it was like he was placed in bubble wrap and stowed away for the winter trade market. Through the years, the Yankees have seen examples of players who, for one reason or another, just weren't comfortable playing in the Big Apple. Ed Whitson is the most-cited example, but there have been plenty of others, and the Yankees determined this was Gray's issue. It seems Gray might have reached that conclusion as well.
General manager Brian Cashman has made no secret that he's going to move the right-hander.
And the Yankees should do OK in the forthcoming deal, rival evaluators believe, because the numbers that tell the story of Gray's situation are so unusual.
Gray's ERA in road games last season reflect the kind of pitcher he was before Oakland traded him to the Yankees in the summer of 2017: He had a 3.17 ERA and just three homers allowed in 91 innings.
At Yankee Stadium: a 6.98 ERA, with 11 homers allowed in 59⅓ innings.
His velocity readings indicate no regression in stuff -- his average fastball velocity of 93.3 mph was the highest in his career. Even when Gray was going through his worst times, the Yankees would see the same nasty stuff that prompted them to deal for him: His ground ball rate of 50 percent was the seventh-highest for any pitcher with at least 130 innings. His swing-and-miss rate of 10.1 percent was higher than in any of his full seasons with Oakland.
But his confidence in that stuff just wasn't there, some in the organization thought during the season. Maybe that was about the reaction he heard at Yankee Stadium -- the booing. Maybe it was like a pitcher's version of the yips, with Gray throwing a pitch while expecting the worst. In 2016, Gray threw fastballs on 61.5 percent of his pitches; in 2017, 55.1 percent.
Last year: 35.1 percent. That's the sixth-lowest rate of any starting pitcher in the big leagues, and a lot of those around Gray on this leaderboard are older pitchers who are at the stage of their respective careers when they have to rely on off-speed stuff, like Gray's teammate, CC Sabathia.
For the team that acquires Gray, then, there would seem to be quick and easy fixes, in addition to whatever he gleans from a change of scenery as he enters the final season before he becomes eligible for free agency. In the eyes of some rival executives, it is that relatively short window of team control that will affect Gray's trade value and what the Yankees get in return more than his brutal 2018 performance in Yankee Stadium.