Who is he and where did he come from?

He’s Sonny Douglas Gray and, although he was born and raised in suburban Nashville, if you’d listened to his introductory press call yesterday, you would’ve thought he grew up in a triple decker off Dot Ave:

What does it mean, in his case, that he’s “more Boston than any other place”? Does he throw on a scally cap when he heads to Dunks to pick up an ice coffee on a 25 degree day in January? Is his Spotify feed nothing but Donna Summer, Bell Biv Devoe, and the Pixies? Is he late to work every single day because a train caught on fire somewhere? We’ll find out!

I’m willing to bet that he’s better than you think. Gray debuted in 2013. Since then, here’s a look at the top-10 pitchers in baseball per fWAR:

Yes, Gray has been the eighth-best pitcher of his entire generation, just a shade behind three no-doubt Hall of Famers (a fourth in Cris Sale??) and three other Cy Young winners.

I suspect there are very few baseball fans who realize that Gray has been that good, which is probably a function of the fact that he’s spent the vast majority of his career in small market hell. Gray had his best season with the Cincinnati Reds, his highest Cy Young finish with the Minnesota Twins (second in 2023), and has thrown far more innings for the Oakland A’s than any other team. He’s made just six postseason starts in his entire career, and the lone full season he spent in a big market — 2018 with the Yankees — was arguably the worst season of his career. If you were trying to design a career trajectory that would result in a great pitcher being largely ignored by the wider baseball word, you couldn’t do much better than copying Sonny Gray’s Baseball Reference page.

There are some red flags to consider. First, Gray is now 36-years-old and, as the chart above illustrates, he’s got a lot of innings in that right arm. Second, he posted an ERA+ of just 97 last season, the third-lowest mark of his career. And, third, his fastball velocity, which was never elite even during his prime, is dropping year over year and averaged just 92 MPH in 2025.

But, despite the league-average ERA+ last year, he remained elite in several key areas. He had the 11th most strikeouts in baseball last year and the sixth-fewest walks, in fact. And, as Jacob Roy explained yesterday, his fastball may not be as much of a problem as some people think, particularly since his best pitch is his sweeper while his curveball is also a plus offering (Gray called himself the best spinner in the game yesterday). His 4.28 ERA in 2025 was largely the result of the fact that he was terrible with men on base, but that’s not really something that’s been a problem for him in the past, which means it’s most likely small sample size noise.

I’m not saying you should pencil him into the 2026 All-Star team. The fact of the matter is that he’s at an age where it could all start falling apart for him very quickly and that’s concerning. But no one should be remotely shocked if he does perform at an All-Star level next year.

Tl;dr, just give me his 2025 stats.

32 GS, 180.2 IP, 201 K, 38 BB, 25 HR, 4.28 ERA, 3.39 FIP, 3.07 xFIP, 3.6 fWAR, 1.4 bWAR

Show me a cool highlight.

We’re just a few months removed from Gray throwing an 11-strikeout Maddux, people!

What’s he doing in his picture up there?

Spending a moment in the shadows to remind himself that he’s already survived the darkness that is being associated with the New York Yankees. Gray legitimately hated his time in the Bronx, says he never wanted to play there, and is excited to come to Boston because he can be himself and because “it’s easy to hate the Yankees” here.

What’s his role on the 2026 Red Sox?

When he was acquired last week, there was much consternation around whether he’s “the true number two” the Red Sox need behind Garrett Crochet or whether another big arm would be coming. Based on the recent leaks about Red Sox spending, I’m guessing Gray is it as far as big pitching acquisitions go. Whether he succeeds or fails in that number two role could be the defining question of the 2026 Red Sox season.