I'm Not Saying Jon Gray Isn't Noah Syndergaard...

The Colorado Rockies have had a remarkable season, posting a 84-73 record en route to, according to PECOTA and FanGraphs projections, about a 70% chance of making the playoffs this fall. This is the most success the Rockies have had since 2009, with six miserable seasons sandwiched in the middle. What makes their success this year so interesting is that they have largely been without their ace pitcher, Jon Gray.

Jon Gray, the third overall pick in the 2013 MLB Draft and once one of the top pitching prospects in the game, impressed many in 2016. There was a lot to like, and I’ll have you consider this here:

It would be irresponsible to say Gray is already as valuable as Noah Syndergaard, who is arguably one of the five best pitchers in baseball. However, the comp has merit in the sense that Jon Gray is like Syndergaard-lite, which is still extremely valuable. (And what can we really rule out? Maybe he really is as good as Syndergaard.) Unfortunately for the twenty-five-year old, a breakout season had to be put on hold; he broke his foot in early April and didn’t pitch again until June 30. Fortunately for the Rockies, he’s back, and they did extremely well in his absence.

A foot injury is extremely difficult for a pitcher to overcome. Even after the bone recovers, it naturally takes time for a pitcher to find the rhythm in his delivery. As a result, there were hiccups in Gray’s immediate return to the mound. However, he’s certainly been dominant since July 25. In a span of 72 innings, he has the eighth lowest FIP in the game at 2.90, on the strength of 26% strikeout rate that matches his 2016 mark. According to FanGraphs, he has allowed the sixth softest contact in the game (24.6%); by any measure, he has been one of the ten or so most dominant pitchers in the game for the past two months.

He has been doing all of the same things that made him such a promising pitcher in 2016, but something new has stuck out to me. We know having a high ground-ball rate is a good thing. We especially know that a high ground-ball rate is a good thing when you call Coors Field home. Well, Jon Gray has an incredibly strong ground-ball rate (49%) going back to July 25. In fact, he’s been getting tons of ground-balls all season:

The data begins to normalize around Game Number 8 (better known to us as July 25), with that being the time he clearly put the injury behind him. Having such a strong ground-ball rate to pair with his already strong K-BB rates has been a blessing for the Rockies. In the second half (which includes some of Gray’s initial games coming off the injury), Gray has the sixth best fWAR total in the league, if you are wondering what all of this translates to. As for his season totals, he has accumulated 3.1 fWAR in 104.1 innings—which is a 6 fWAR player if we extrapolate that over a full season (that’s what Syndergaard did in 2016).

A dominant strikeout pitcher who is also a ground-ball pitcher is worth salivating over. Just for fun, I looked up starting pitchers since 2002 who have completed a full season with a grounder rate of at least 50% and a strikeout rate over 25%. The last pitcher to do so? Noah Syndergaard himself, in 2016. Jon Gray has a lot to live up to, and luckily for the Rockies, he’ll attempt to do so tonight, as they look to get closer to clinching their spot in the Wild Card Game—a game that Jon Gray is lined up to pitch.