Sonny Gray's Criticism of Last Year's Rotation Shows How Far We've Come

[Nick Nelson]

After making his final spring tune-up start on Sunday, Twins starter Sonny Gray was blunt in expressing his view on the 2022 rotation and its shortcomings.

Lucky for him (and us), there's good reason to expect a big change in the season ahead.

Image courtesy of Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports

Over the weekend, we learned that Sonny Gray will not be the Twins' Opening Day starter – that honor will instead go to newcomer Pablo López on Thursday in Kansas City. Gray will, however, get the nod for the home opener a week later. There's little question he is viewed as the veteran leader on this starting staff, one year after establishing himself as its top performer.

As such, Gray's comments following his final spring start on Sunday are noteworthy. After throwing three shutout innings against the Red Sox, the 33-year-old opened up on a bit of a vent session regarding last year's norm of shorter outings for Twins starters.

“I don’t think we’re interested in going four innings and being happy,” Gray told reporters. “I feel like we had a group last year that was pretty content with going four innings, and [where] going four innings and five innings is considered a good start. I disagreed with that then, I disagree with that now.”

Gray was channeling the frustrations a lot of fans felt with last year's team. And those frustrations are understandable, even if they were often misdirected. 

There's no doubt that Rocco Baldelli generally had a quick trigger with starters in 2022, more so than ever before. But it wasn't due to some sudden philosophical shift on his part. As I see it, this tendency owed to two different factors:

The league in general has trended toward shorter outings for starters and more innings for specialized relief pitchers. 

The Twins had a particularly bad starting staff last year, with both Chris Archer and Dylan Bundy members of the rotation on Opening Day and all year long.

The first part is what it is, and it's not likely to change in the age of high-powered, optimization-obsessive baseball pitching strategy. Baldelli might be more apt than some others to embrace the analytical logic of "times through the order" penalties and matchup-based advantages, but he's hardly some outlier egghead on this topic. 

It's the way of the game. Last year, eight MLB pitchers threw more than 200 innings and one (Sandy Alcantara) threw more than 210. Twenty years earlier (2002), those numbers were 42 and thirty. 

Gray himself is sort of a poster child for the modern MLB starting pitcher. While an accomplished multi-time All-Star, and a guy who's rightfully earned "borderline ace" designation, Gray has averaged 140 innings per season over the past seven years, and has never topped even 180 during that span. He hasn't thrown a complete game since 2017.

That said, I don't think Gray's expectations for himself or others in the rotation are tethered to some outdated standard, even if some fans still long for the prototypical workhorse of yesteryear. He just wants starting pitchers around him who get the job done. Which brings us to my second point above: the Twins were just flat-out lacking in pitching talent last year.

To some extent, they deserve a bit of grace on that part. Losing Kenta Maeda to Tommy John surgery and trading José Berríos at the deadline left them in an extremely tough spot with no easy answers. The front office signaled early on that they might get experimental in terms of pitcher usage as a way to navigate this challenge, so no one should've been all that surprised that they basically did just that. 

Ultimately there were some fatal flaws in the execution of this plan, but that doesn't mean it a was conceptually bad idea. And anyway, what needs to be emphasized here is that it was a matter of circumstance: the Twins were in a uniquely bad position with their short-term rotation depth. 

Fast-forward one year, and the makeup of this unit is very different. Gray now has had a full, normal spring – no lockout-trade combo disrupting his buildup routine – so hopefully that helps lead him to a healthier year and continued excellent performance on the mound. Joe Ryan is now fully established as a quality mid-rotation starter.

On top of those two, you've got these additions to the mix: 

1. Tyler Mahle, who threw 180 innings in his last full season (2021),
2. López, who threw 180 innings last season, and
3. Maeda, who averaged 5.4 IP/start for the Twins before undergoing Tommy John surgery

These are hurlers who you can expect to pitch into the sixth inning with regularity, if healthy. That was never a particularly reasonable expectation for the likes of Archer or Bundy.

It's easy to read Gray's comment at a glance and say, "He's taking a shot at his manager and the way this staff was a run last year." In reality, I think what he's saying is, "It sure is nice to be surrounded by competent talent in the rotation  now."

While I'm sure he meant no specific offense to Archer with his comment, it's understandable how Gray might've been baffled (as we all were) watching the Twins go through an extensive orchestrated routine to get four mediocre innings out of the guy every fifth day.

The situation this year will be a far cry from that, which is one of the main reasons fans should feel confident in a significantly better on-field product in 2023.

 

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[Parfigliano]

Preach.

[Fatbat]

Gray is spot on.  The 2023 rotation as well as the next man up situation across the river is night and day better than last year. No one has to be a Nolan Ryan but for g-sakes, pitch 6+ innings. Its your j.o.b. 

[minman1982]

I wanted to check the performance of Archer and Bundy over the last few seasons to see what the Twins could have expected going into 2022. From Baseball Reference:

Archer last pitched more than 150 innings in a season in 2017. From 2018 to 2021, he pitched 287.1 innings in 62 starts. By my math that is about 4.6 innings per start over this time frame. 

Bundy's largest number of innings pitched in his career is 171.2 in 2018. If we use the same time frame (2018 to 2021), Bundy pitched 489.2 innings in 91 starts or 5.4 innings per start.

From 2018 to 2021, Archer and Bundy averaged about 5 innings per start. Expecting them to go six innings would have been completely unreasonable. Four to five innings per start was probably a reasonable ask for these two guys. The problem isn't one short start or one weak link. When the team has 51 games started by two guys like this, there is a lot of additional strain on the bullpen.

 

[GKuehl]

Paddack needing Tommy John definitely made the rotation even worse last year than it already was. I’m looking forward to seeing if he can impact this year’s team in the 2nd half. 

[Jocko87]

The 3rd time through the order stat seems incredibly messy to me.  It’s a lagging indicator of several other better predictive pitcher stats.  The number that jumped out to me from the article is 10 of the 12 6+ inning starts were Gray and Ryan. Pitch well, pitch more innings. 

[dxpavelka]

No, it shows how far we HOPE we've come.  HOPE is not a strategy.  The coming months will show how far we've come. 

[D.C Twins]

I hope Gray continues to hold Baldi accountable throughout the year. 

Not all pitchers are the same and not all starts by each pitcher are the same. 

You can't use one algorithm. Some days pitchers will have more stamina and easy/sustained velo while feeling goooood.

Let them roll through the 3rd and (GASP) 4th time through the order when that occurs.

I hope to see a little more situational awareness in game by Baldi this year with accountability provided by players and management if he cannot or will not improve in this area. 

 

[Yawn Gardenhose]

This "Bundy and Archer wrecked the 2022 rotation" narrative has been an interesting development to watch since the end of last season.

Bundy was the only pitcher the Twins allowed to face a lineup three full times through the order (i.e. 27 or more batters). He did this twice last season, in fact. So he gave the team the two lengthiest starts in terms of batters faced last year.

Archer had seven starts last year where he went 4 innings and had given up two or less hits. In six of those seven starts he gave up one or zero runs, and the other he allowed 2 runs. One of those starts he walked 6 and threw 90 pitches (his season high), but in the others he didn't top 80 pitches in any of those outings. One start he threw 63 pitches, another 62. He never faced more than 20 batters in a start and in four of these seven stellar starts he wasn't even allowed to face the lineup two full times through. Archer wasn't the most aesthetically pleasing pitcher to watch, but it's clear they didn't trust him at all, even when he was performing well. Seems like their philosophy of being deathly afraid of having a pitcher face a lineup a third time definitely ruled the day when it came to intentionally limiting his innings pitched. 

Not saying these guys were great or even good, but 1) they weren't awful and 2) the Twins absolutely used quick, needless hooks, particularly with Archer. What wrecked them from a pitching standpoint was a systematic approach of refusing to let starters face a lineup three times through which forced them into over-relying on a bad bullpen. Bundy and Archer were just two cogs in that system. 

I expect the starters to go a *little* deeper because I think they realized their foolishness in being so slavish to the math last year. I hope at least. But I don't expect six inning starts to be the norm for anyone. I think Maeda's closer to being toast than being a workhorse. For all the hype that Ober gets, he's never been allowed to crack 80 pitches a start at any level in this organization. I'll take the under on Lopez hitting 180 innings again. I'd actually bet the under on anyone on the staff qualifying for the ERA title (meaning 162 innings). But hey, I'd love to be wrong. 

[AlGoreRythm]

Has anyone claiming Rocco should've let Archer pitch a third time through the order looked at his career numbers after the second turn through?

I'll save you some hassle, they're quite bad.

It definitely stretched the bullpen thin having both Archer and Bundy pitching every 5th day, and having them one after the other for most of the season created a knock-on situation where they didn't have enough fresh arms throughout most of the season.

That doesn't mean things would've been at all improved letting those guys pitch through the order another time, especially Archer.

It was just overall a very bad situation, and I think the front office should've done more to shore up the rotation. I don't think they played the FA market right, but I think a lot of that was due to the lockout and non-normal off-season.

It doesn't excuse it, but I feel this off-season as well as getting Mahle at the trade deadline last year have been attempts at redemption that I can respect, even if I'm not particularly optimistic about Mahle's consistentcy (the lack of any reason for his shoulder issue bugs me).

Last year I put more blame on the front office than the players or manager. This year I feel the front office has done their job assembling a decent pitching staff, now it's in the players to perform and Rocco to put them in spots to succeed.

[gunnarthor]

I think this is where the Twins really will suffer (again). They want to be more like the Rays, I guess, but I just don't see it working. To me, this is just a strange philosophy for the Twins to embrace. The good Twins team of the 2000s major flaw was depth - they just couldn't overcome injuries like big payroll teams could. We couldn't add an established arm like the Yankees and Red Sox always could.

But this philosophy - have your best pitchers pitch less and less each game - means that we have to find more and more pitchers to carry the load. So we have to find a few Everyday Eddies or a bunch of AAA/AAAA arms we can shuffle between the majors and the minors on a, basically, weekly basis. This will - likely - expose the teams lack of pitching depth. And this team doesn't have good pitching depth.

[wabene]

Looking back at Archer's numbers now it may be easy to forget what it was like to watch him. He would reach a point where he just could not find the plate. I'd argue the reason those numbers look as good as they do is because they got all there was to get out of him. Bundy too. 

[weitz41]

I expect we'll get more length out of our starters this season. But I don't expect it to be a huge amount more.

As for last seasons rotation. IMO the FO got caught flat-footed before the lock out. It was a rather unique situation and I'm sure our FO wasn't the only ones who were surprised or unprepared for all the signings before the lock out. Which lead to a rotation that had Bundy as our #4 and Archer as our #5 starters.

Bundys #'s are about what you'd expect for a #5 or #6 starter and about on par with his career averages. The Archer situation just seemed like it was bound to fail. Pitch count, innings limit, time through the order and then throw in loosing the Wes Johnson at the end of June. 

This also lead to CC4 being on the team for the next 6-10 seasons.

[Karbo]

An avg. of 6IP per start should be the norm for these guys. Last year was horrible. It was like they said get me thru the lineup twice and take a shower, no matter how they were performing.

[CRF]

Gray is 100% right, but ultimately it's up to the pitcher to show that he can last more than 3-4-5 innings. If the pitcher is giving up hits/runs, giving up walks, has no command, and generally pitching lousy...he's not going to be in there very long. I sure would like to have this staff go at least 6 innings in most of their starts...that would mean that they're doing their job, and we're probably in the game. We'll see what happens this season. 

[Squirrel]

6 minutes ago, CRF said:

Gray is 100% right, but ultimately it's up to the pitcher to show that he can last more than 3-4-5 innings. If the pitcher is giving up hits/runs, giving up walks, has no command, and generally pitching lousy...he's not going to be in there very long. I sure would like to have this staff go at least 6 innings in most of their starts...that would mean that they're doing their job, and we're probably in the game. We'll see what happens this season. 

This. There were a few times I thought the pitchers were pulled too soon. I get limiting pitchers early on but into May and June they absolutely need to be left in longer. Gray made a similar comment last year, then the following week, had a bad outing and then did a mea culpa and said that he needed to do better. That is the crux … do better to earn more innings. I think we have a rotation that can do that. And we have a BP, imo, where the starters need to.

[wsnydes]

I was actually having this very conversation last week.  One of the points the two of us in the conversation made was that the rotation is constructed better to go deeper into games.  Between Bundy, Archer and the injuries, last year's staff simply wasn't good enough to go consistently deeper.  They were fortunate to ride that as well as they did for as long as they did.

[JW24]

I love the attitude here. The rotation, Gray especially, have a lot to prove this season, and it sounds like they all want to compete and win. It has been a while since the Twins had a staff that dominated opposing lineups, would really like for this group to expect long outings leading to a lot of Ws.

[miracleb]

Gray wasn't getting pulled after 4 innings when he had only 55 pitches thrown and was in control.  He was getting pulled because his pitch count was already high after 4 innings and was struggling.  NO ONE was pulled with a low pitch count and were in control.   Once they started to struggle,  Baldelli felt his bullpen would be more effective that the struggling starter.  

[BsuNemo]

7 hours ago, Yawn Gardenhose said:

This "Bundy and Archer wrecked the 2022 rotation" narrative has been an interesting development to watch since the end of last season.

Bundy was the only pitcher the Twins allowed to face a lineup three full times through the order (i.e. 27 or more batters). He did this twice last season, in fact. So he gave the team the two lengthiest starts in terms of batters faced last year.

Archer had seven starts last year where he went 4 innings and had given up two or less hits. In six of those seven starts he gave up one or zero runs, and the other he allowed 2 runs. One of those starts he walked 6 and threw 90 pitches (his season high), but in the others he didn't top 80 pitches in any of those outings. One start he threw 63 pitches, another 62. He never faced more than 20 batters in a start and in four of these seven stellar starts he wasn't even allowed to face the lineup two full times through. Archer wasn't the most aesthetically pleasing pitcher to watch, but it's clear they didn't trust him at all, even when he was performing well. Seems like their philosophy of being deathly afraid of having a pitcher face a lineup a third time definitely ruled the day when it came to intentionally limiting his innings pitched. 

Not saying these guys were great or even good, but 1) they weren't awful and 2) the Twins absolutely used quick, needless hooks, particularly with Archer. What wrecked them from a pitching standpoint was a systematic approach of refusing to let starters face a lineup three times through which forced them into over-relying on a bad bullpen. Bundy and Archer were just two cogs in that system. 

I expect the starters to go a *little* deeper because I think they realized their foolishness in being so slavish to the math last year. I hope at least. But I don't expect six inning starts to be the norm for anyone. I think Maeda's closer to being toast than being a workhorse. For all the hype that Ober gets, he's never been allowed to crack 80 pitches a start at any level in this organization. I'll take the under on Lopez hitting 180 innings again. I'd actually bet the under on anyone on the staff qualifying for the ERA title (meaning 162 innings). But hey, I'd love to be wrong. 

This absolutely hits it on the head. Bundy and Archer weren't terrible. They just weren't trusted. On their good days they should've been. What I don't think our statistically stuck management realized was sometimes making a change to what is perceived to be weakness (ie third time through) even though it's been done that way for over 100 years, causes a weakness to another... Ie our relief corp being decimated late in the year from being over used. Hopefully, even though they won't admit their mistakes from last year, management has learned from them. The side story is... If they haven't will any pitchers want to come here... 

[Trov]

I think last year was a combo of things, that hopefully will not be as extreme this year.  Twins seemed to pull starters much sooner than other teams, but it is not like a crazy amount sooner.  However, if we can get just 1 more inning per start it will help a ton.  First, early on I know team was trying to hold starters back because of short spring.  Then guys were hurt from time to time and would get shorter starts due to that.  Archer was always going to get short starts.  The team has adopted the try to limit 3rd trips through line up.  However, that is in part based on the situation of the game.  If we have large leads the team will let them go a 3rd time.  

The team also wants pen guys to start innings and not come into a mess of an inning if they can avoid it.  So they would rather pull a guy after 5 if he is in the 3rd time through, around 90 pitches, and a close game.  Mainly because they figure no way will they finish the 6th so they would rather have pen guy start 6th.  Also, the team does not want to warm a guy up and not bring them in too often either. 

Like it or not, we will continue to have shorter starts, but hopefully we can get more 6 inning starts as at least a norm. 

[Bigfork Twins Guy]

Gray and the other starters have total control of this.  Throw strikes, keep your pitch count manageable, and get outs and you will be rewarded with longer starts and be able to work through the lineup a third time.  It’s as simple as that!

[IndianaTwin]

Earlier this offseason, I did a pretty deep dive into how the Twins used their starters last year. In a nutshell...

1. In April and May, they used their starters pretty "normally," with a decent number of starts going well into the sixth and even some into the seventh (including Bundy, but not Archer). 
2. Nearly everyone got hurt and spent at least some time on the IL. A late May to early June stretch gave us Smeltzer-Sands-Ober-Archer-Gonzalez-Bundy-Smeltzer-Sands-Archer-Bundy-Smeltzer-Gonzalez-Sands-Archer.
3. When Ryan and Gray came back from the IL, there seemed to be a noticeable shortening of starts. It worked in the sense of Ryan-Gray-Bundy-Archer making nearly all their starts throughout the summer, with the No. 5 spot rotating through a number of guys (including the couple of starts they got from Mahle). While Archer made nearly all his starts, he never lengthened to the degree they hoped.
4. Some injuries returned, they fell out of the race in September, and gave some starts to young guys.

My conclusion was that they didn't plan to have shorter starts, but were forced into it by early season injuries. They pivoted subtly (and successfully) with their use of starters, but didn't have the bullpen horses to make it work. 

To me, it was the perfect storm of lockout, short spring training and injuries. I think this year's staff is much better structured to avoid a similar situation. 

[Fire Dan Gladden]

I thought we had moved past the "Sonny Gray needs to pitch more innings" argument.  Numbers don't lie.  The third time through the lineup, Gray's ERA jumps from something like low 3's to over 10.  Gray has pitched well the last few years because the Twins have protected him.  Period.

If you want to infer he is talking about the improved pitching staff around him, great.  Getting 5 innings from your starters instead of 4 will make a huge difference.  If Lopez is one of those guys that can be effective into the 7th, then fantastic.

[Swing Batter-Batter]

8 hours ago, D.C Twins said:

I hope Gray continues to hold Baldi accountable throughout the year. 

Not all pitchers are the same and not all starts by each pitcher are the same. 

You can't use one algorithm. Some days pitchers will have more stamina and easy/sustained velo while feeling goooood.

Let them roll through the 3rd and (GASP) 4th time through the order when that occurs.

I hope to see a little more situational awareness in game by Baldi this year with accountability provided by players and management if he cannot or will not improve in this area. 

 

Well said. I agree 100%.

[Nashvilletwin]

I love the attitude as well - primarily because Gray is publicly acknowledging and accepting on behalf of the starting staff what the FO’s strategy is this year: namely, this team is designed to live or die based on the starters.  Gray is basically saying to the FO and Rocco: “You know and we know how this team is built - so give us the damn ball and let us do our job”.

[Mike h]

So there is a computer that has all these statistics broken down every which way. When that can be paired up with AI so it can learn, then Rocco can retire and the computer can completely manage the game.  We may as well not put players on the field. Just play simulated games over and over. How fun

[JD-TWINS]

10 hours ago, Jocko87 said:

The 3rd time through the order stat seems incredibly messy to me.  It’s a lagging indicator of several other better predictive pitcher stats.  The number that jumped out to me from the article is 10 of the 12 6+ inning starts were Gray and Ryan. Pitch well, pitch more innings. 

Right - guys that are pitching well - look strong - have command, they keep pitching.

[terrydactyls]

The baseball season is over six months long.  That's about 190 days.  If a starter can't pitch the equivalent of one inning a day, then something is terribly wrong with baseball.  A seven inning start should be the goal for every starting pitcher and also for their manager.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

Throw strikes, minimize walks, let the best ML  fielding 3 outfielders and the best ML fielding SS, do their jobs (I can't believe I am advocating, "pitch to contact"). Tell Rocco you are NOT coming out of the game when he comes to talk and then back up your brashness by getting the next 3-5 batters out. The odds are in the pitchers' favor because 7 times out of 10, there will be an out, even if La Tortuga is pitching.