For a Purple Sox group with years of devastating pitching accidents, the enchantment of including a starter like right-hander Sonny Grey, acquired from the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday, was clear:
A confirmed monitor report of placing up excessive inning and strikeout totals all through his 13-year profession.
“When you consider what Sonny has been on this league, it’s a man who’s pitched on the entrance of rotations, and you understand, these issues that we predict pitchers carry from 12 months to 12 months, issues like strikeout charges and stroll charges and skill to remain off barrels, he excels there,” stated Purple Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow. “We’re actually enthusiastic about including a man that’s coming off back-to-back 200-strikeout seasons, and shouldering a major workload.”
Because the begin of his first full MLB season with the ’14 Athletics, Grey has averaged 194.9 innings and 195.3 strikeouts per 162 video games. During the last two seasons in St. Louis, the perennially-underrated righty pitched to a 4.07 ERA over 60 begins, with 404 strikeouts throughout 347 innings. He’s coming off a 180.2-inning, 201-strikeout ’25 season through which he ranked within the 93rd MLB percentile in BB% and 79th MLB percentile in Okay%.
The ’25 Purple Sox had one pitcher exceed 166.2 innings: Garrett Crochet, whose 205.1 frames led the American League. He was additionally the one Sox pitcher greater than 124 strikeouts; he led the majors with 255, and was the primary Purple Sox pitcher to achieve 200 since Chris Sale and Eduardo Rodriguez in 2019.
“Sonny is a really proficient main league pitcher,” stated Breslow. “The seasons that he’s put up fairly constantly point out that to be the case.”
Grey’s pitch combine, which features a four-seam fastball, sweeper, curveball, sinker, cutter, changeup, slider, and a little-used gradual curve, was additionally an enormous draw. Although his fastball velocity isn’t what it as soon as was, his breaking pitches proceed to be elite weapons. For the primary time since 2021-22, he elevated his curveball utilization, a part of his 97th MLB percentile rating in Breaking Run Worth.
“He’s a man whose secondaries make up a major a part of the arsenal,” stated Breslow, “and significantly, like sweeper and curveball are simply two actually, actually good pitches. And you’ll take a look at the whiff charges and the chase charges on the sweeper and say like, that is the inspiration of a very robust arsenal.”
