Josiah Gray, the Washington Nationals' 25-year-old right-hander who came in a deal for Max Scherzer and Trea Turner, is headed to his first All-Star Game. How did he make the transition from a 5.02 ERA last year to a 3.30 ERA this year? Nats general manager Mike Rizzo said that while the club "saw a lot of great things from him last year," the development came from hard work over the offseason on mechanics and some new pitches and simply working to cut down on walks and home runs.
"In our exit meeting [last] year, what we had told him you can't lead the league in walks and home runs allowed and survive in this league. It's just impossible," Rizzo said on Wednesday during his weekly appearance with 106.7 The Fan's The Sports Junkies, which is presented exclusively by our partners at MainStreet Bank — Cheer Local. Bank Local. Put Our Team in Your Office.
"The walks were a big part of his struggles last year," Rizzo said. "And I think that he has learned that chasing a strikeout and throwing several more pitches each at-bat trying to get that strikeout is less beneficial than making your pitches and letting your defense work behind you. And if he can maximize your outs per pitches thrown I think you last longer in the games."
The GM added: "Attacking the strike zone and throwing more quality strikes is his main benefit this year. He's not walking nearly as many players this year, and he's keeping the ball in the park."
Gray's walk rate is still up as far as MLB standards go (in the upper quarter of big league pitchers, per Statcast) but he has seen his home runs per nine innings drop from 2.3 to 1.1 on the season. How did the Nationals do it?
"We did a lot of work with him this offseason, [pitching coach] Jim Hickey and he looked at a lot of film, a lot of video and kinda tweaked his deliveries, specifically, his landing foot to give him a little bit better command," Rizzo told the Junkies. "They went over and looked at the shape of his four-seem fastball and added kinda a two-seamer and a slider and he throws a cut fastball to a lefty, which gives him more weapons against lefties and righties.
"He made a big transformation this year. I think he's just scratching the surface. He's a very cerebral pitcher I think he knows his body and he knows how to maximize his physical abilities to get hitters out and I think that's just going to allow him to get better and better as his career keeps rolling on."
For the young right-hander, the All-Star selection comes on the back of two solid, winning outings, in which he allowed just one run on 10 hits (and five walks) over 11.1 innings pitched with 14 strikeouts. That came during a stretch when the club won six of eight. Of course, after dropping a pair of games to open up a four-game set with Cincinnati, the GM sees room for growth.
"Yeah, we're making progress. We're playing, for the most part, good, solid baseball," Rizzo said. "But like a lot of young teams, you can go in spurts of playing good baseball – having good at-bats, [playing] good defense, throwing good pitches, and that kind of thing – what I always tell guys, getting to the big leagues is a huge accomplishment... but staying in the big leagues is harder. It's hard to get to the big leagues, staying here is harder. And to stay here you have to be consistent. And you gotta bring it every day, and the great players are the guys that have the great focus. And it's not being focused in every game, it's being focused every pitch.
"And once these guys learn that it's pitch by pitch and not out by out or inning by inning. That's the secret. When you're zeroed in and honed in for 125, 130, 140 pitches a game you should be really tired, exhausted at the end of the game just because you're concentrating so much and that's what our young players have to learn.
"You've seen them have some brilliant streaks of playing really, really well and then just boot some balls, swing at some bad type of pitches, that type of thing and it all comes down to you have to train yourself that you have to focus: Every day, every game, every inning, every pitch. And that comes with experience. And when they get that experience I think you'll see this team play way more often like they did during that [winning] road trip."
The conversation began with some talk about the 2023 MLB Draft coming up July 9 - 11. The Nats have the second overall pick and will pick second in each round. Rizzo said the club's brain trust has been meeting each day in preparation and gave a quick rundown of how the process of the draft works with the director of scouting and scouts having a great deal of input on picks throughout the draft and how the decision will come together. Take a listen on the audio player above.
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