If you needed a reminder, Sonny Gray is still the Cardinals ace

For a player who produces as consistently as Sonny Gray has in recent years, the narratives surrounding him often delve into polarizing territory for one reason or another.

His performance on Friday night against the Cleveland Guardians, a magisterial one-hit shutout, a Maddux on 89 pitches while striking out 11 hitters, was a true oxymoron in pitching. How can a guy be so efficient while being so dominant with wipeout, swing-and-miss mastery? Sonny did it, guiding the St. Louis Cardinals to a 5-0 win.

It was another example that assists a baseball fan or analyst in dictating a label for the veteran Cardinal starter.

Ace.

Look, the ace of a staff is the best pitcher on that staff. Numerically, generally speaking, there are roughly 30 of those at a time in MLB. I say roughly, because I realize the definition of an ace may differ from person to person.

For example, a team that has multiple starting pitchers ranked in the upper echelon at the position aren’t forced to declare their ace—they’ve got two of them, great luxury to have. I’m simply acknowledging that possibility as a way to show that I realize where some variations on ace-hood might come about. 

Does every team have an ace? I’ve seen that opinion out there, and I could get on board with it in a broader sense of the term. Even if a pitching staff isn’t great, somebody’s got to be their ace, their number one. He might not be an ace elsewhere, but he’s an ace on that team at that time.

But for some, the definition is more stringent, relative to whether a pitcher could fill the role of true number one on a contending team. Whether one would carry confidence in that pitcher taking the mound in Game 1 of a postseason series.

For some, being an ace is about more than being the best pitcher on your team.

When it comes to those conversations, I generally prefer to set aside narrative and emotion and the way you might ‘feel’ about a player and let the numbers guide the story—because over the course of time, numbers tend to tell the truth.

So here’s a number.

Since joining the St. Louis Cardinals in 2024, Gray ranks 9th among qualifying MLB starting pitchers in Fangraphs Wins Above Replacement (fWAR). He’s 11th if you count all starters, which we should, as Cole Ragans and Paul Skenes narrowly miss the threshold for qualification from an innings standpoint, but have managed to accumulate more WAR despite fewer innings pitched.

So, 11th. Only 10 starters in MLB have been better than Sonny Gray, per fWAR, since his Cardinals contract began.

If you expanded the data to include everything since the beginning of 2023—2.5 seasons of baseball—only three pitchers in the sports have racked up more fWAR than Gray.

The list is Zack Wheeler, Tarik Skubal and Logan Webb.

You’re not questioning whether any of those guys are true aces, are you?

How about Chris Sale, Dylan Cease and Framber Valdez? Because those are the remaining three names, in addition to the above four, who have accumulated 10.0+ fWAR since the start of 2023. Those are, cumulatively, the top pitchers in baseball over the past three seasons.

If these guys aren’t considered ace starters, I feel like somewhere along the way, we altered the definition beyond recognition.

And by the way, there are plenty of recognizable names that you don’t see on this list.

Spencer Strider, Kodai Senga, Gerritt Cole, to name a few. Those are ace-caliber names, absolutely. But isn’t part of the idea when we’re identifying pitchers worthy of the ace label that these are the guys we’d want taking the ball for our favorite team in a playoff game? The work that Sonny Gray puts in, behind the scenes, between his starts, is one of the biggest credits to him as a pitcher at this stage of his career.

To pitch in the big games, you have to be available for the big games. Gray’s durability over the past three seasons signals his growth and wisdom. He’s gotten more out of his body between ages 33 and 35 than arguably any other three-year stretch of his big-league career.

Though his time with the Cardinals hasn’t come without rocky outings on occasion, Friday night was the latest glimpse into the precedent he has consistently set. The ability to regroup, the ability to improve and the availability to provide quality for his team over a sustained duration.

It’s not always sunshine and roses, but the overall numbers don’t lie, either. Sonny Gray has been one of the best starters in baseball the past few years—the ace of the Cardinals in the truest sense of the word.