2025 was year-four of Kevin Gausman’s fourth year of his five year contract. In his first three seasons, he had a 38-30 record and a 7.4 BWar, in 93 starts, with a 3.45 ERA. 2024 was a step down from the other two, so we were interested in how 2025 would go. Was he aging? How would he do at 34?
| Age | WAR | W | L | ERA | G | GS | CG | SHO | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | IBB | SO | HBP | BK | WP | BF | ERA+ | FIP | H9 | HR9 | BB9 | SO9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 34 | 3.8 | 10 | 11 | 3.59 | 32 | 32 | 1 | 1 | 193.0 | 155 | 79 | 77 | 21 | 50 | 2 | 189 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 775 | 119 | 3.42 | 7.2 | 1.0 | 2.3 | 8.8 |
Baseball Reference has him at a 3.8 WAR (up from 0.9). FanGraphs 4.1 (up from 2.9), giving him a value of $32.8 million to the Jays.
He had a 3.41 FIP and a 3.77 xFIP.
Kevin’s BABIP was .262 (down from.281 last
year). 72.2% of his base runner were stranded (up from 70.3%).
His line drive rate was up a little bit (21.3% from 19.5 last year), ground ball rate down (36.7% down from 38.3), and fly ball rate much the same (42.0% from 42.2). 9.5% of fly balls hit off him left the park, up from 8.9.
His strikeout rate was up (24.4% from 21.4) still down from the from the 31.1 from 2023, but his walk rate was down (6.5% from 7.4).
Kevin’s soft contact was down a bit (15.1% from 13.6 last year) and hard contact about the same (36.2% from 36.3).
He was better vs left-handed hitters (.193/.247/.339), than right-handers (.238/.290/.374). For his career he’s been a little better vs left-handed hitters.
He was slightly better on the road (3.33 ERA, batters hit .195/.260/.313) than at home (3.86, 236/.279/.399)
Kevin was much better in the second half of the season (2.81, .201/.241/.321) than the first half (4.19, .228/290/.385).
Gausman by month:
- April: 6 starts, 2-3, 4.50. Batters hit .203/.265/.364, 4 home runs, 11 walks and 28 strikeouts.
- May: 5 starts, 3-1, 2.81. Batters hit .215/.221/.364, 4 home runs, 1 walks and 33 strikeouts.
- June: 5 starts, 1-2, 5.65. Batters hit .238/.339/.410, 4 home runs, 13 walks and 29 strikeouts.
- July: 5 starts, 1-1, 2.51. Batters hit .213/.292/.333, 3 home runs, 12 walks and 32 strikeouts.
- August: 6 starts, 1-3, 3.55. Batters hit .199/.231/.355, 5 home runs, 6 walks and 35 strikeouts.
- September: 5 starts, 2-1, 2.78. Batters hit .236/.277/.325, 1 home runs, 7 walks and 32 strikeouts.
The Jays were 17-15 in his starts. The team averaged 5.00 runs per game. They scored 2 or less runs 11 times in his starts and 3 or less 17 times. So while the average runs scored seems pretty good, they had games where they scored 12, 13, 14 and 20 runs, which brought up the average a lot.
Days of rest:
- 4 days, 8 games: 2.23, .215/.270/.282.
- 5 days, 19 games: 4.61, .241/.292/.409.
- 6 or more days, 5 games: 2.16, .125/.182/.286
I love seeing guys do well on normal rest
Times through the order:
- 1st: Batters hit .213/.261/.351.
- 2nd: Batters hit .220/.279/.351.
- 3rd: Batters hit .217/.266/.383.
- And he faced 8 batters a fourth time, giving up a .143/.143/143 line.
By Catcher:
- Tyler Heineman: 2.90, .185/.244/.290.
- Alejandro Kirk: 3.99, 234/.284/.396.
Kevin’s best start, by GameScore, was a 91, September 11, at home against the Astros. He went 9 innings, 2 hits, 0 earned, 1 walk and 9 strikeouts.
Worst start, a 22, June 19th, vs. at home vs. the Diamondbacks. 4.1 innings, 7 hits, 7 earned, 3 walks, and 4 strikeouts and 2 home runs.
He averaged 6.0 innings per start.
In the playoffs, he made 6 starts and had a 2-3 record. In 39.2 innings, he had a 2.93 ERA. He had some tough luck being up against Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the World Series
Kevin has become a much better pitcher in his 30s. In his 20s he had a 4.26 ERA and a 50-66 record, 11.6 bWAR in 203, 164 starts. So far, in his 30s, he has a 3.34 ERA, 62-47 record, 16.4 bWAR in 158 starts.
He’s moving up the Jays career leaderboard:
- 13th in pitcher WAR: 11.2.
- 6th in ERA: 3.48
- 16th in wins: 48 (11 more would put him in the top 10)
- 19th in innings pitched: 733.2.
- 7th in strikeouts: 793.
He used three pitches:
- Four seamer 53.7% of the time, averaging 94.5 mph, a little bump up from 94 last year.
- Split finger 37.6% of the time, averaging 84.9 mph, down from 86 last year.
- Slider 8.6% of the time, averaging 83.2 mph.
Last year he said that he was tired of hearing how much talent the team had, he wanted them to show how much talent they had. This year he got his wish.
