Patrick Reddington at Federal Baseball recapped a recent appearance of Josiah Gray on MLB Network Radio where Gray mentioned that he has been working on his changeup this offseason. He expects to show it to Hickey in spring training, and hopes to throw it 8-10% of the time. The article has Gray's description of the grip (split) and how he hopes it will move by "gyro[ing] out a bit" (I'm lousy with this, but that's more or less a straight drop).
“It starts — I pronate really well,” Gray said, “... but I don’t have that ability to turn it over like Devin Williams, or at least I don’t think I’ve tapped into that ability yet, so as of right now I’m trying to just spread out the fingers a little bit more, so kind of just like split-change, splitter, whatever it may be, and just throw the ball like a fastball, and letting air or gravity take over and have some drop to it. So I’m not saying it’s going to be Kevin Gausman’s, but if I could throw his splitter that would be a big win.”
The change is a pitch that Fangraphs was graded as an
MLB future value of 50 back before 2021 (40 current value at the time) but which he pretty much abandoned in 2023. Gray throws a lot of pitches, including a cutter he added last year. Last year, he threw 5 pitches at least 10% of the time, per FG's Pitch Info (which
they say is based on Brooks Baseball's pitch classification) - Slider 36.9%, 4 seam - 18.3%, sinker - 15.7%, curve - 15.4%, and cutter - 11.9%). He had a drop in strikeout rate in 2023, but looking at the contact info, it looks like he may have traded some swing and miss at balls out of the strike zone for contact.
Taking a look at Gray's 2024 projections, they tend to have him lose some of his "luck" that allowed his 2023 ERA to be under 4 and a run better than his FIP. He had an 80% strand rate for runners on, and a low HR//FB rate (11.5%), so he tended to "pay" less for his his high walk rate (11.5%) and WHIP (1.46). The projections expect a bit better walk rate and a bit better K%-BB%, as well as a bit better BABIP, but more homers (High 20s/low 30s vs 22 last year) and lower strand rate (70% - more normal).