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Anthony Kay

2026
White Sox· LHP · throws L· 127.1 IP· 3.96 ERA· 1.33 WHIP· 565 BF
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Grade

How good he's been, and at what
Fbetter than 16% of pitchers at limiting bases
StarterCommand Artist

Rarely walks anyone and lets the defense work.

Kay is getting hit harder than most pitchers

The simulator expects 0.480 bases allowed per batter faced against him — better than 16th percentile of qualified pitchers. The soft spot is Strikeouts (16th percentile).

565 batters faced · data through 2026-08-22.

How to read this chart
Each spoke is a skill estimate adjusted for sample size (not raw season stats), so farther out = better. Spokes are the metric itself; ↓ marks a rate where a LOWER number is better. Percentiles vs. 464 qualified pitchers — 100+ batters faced, starters and relievers pooled.

Plays like…

Same archetype, nearest by rate — pick one to see him side by side with Anthony Kay.

Pitcher type

What kind of pitcher he is, next to the league

Pitcher type

Where he sits among qualified pitchers on the two skills that separate styles.

How to read this chart
Two skills separate pitching styles: finishing hitters without free passes (strikeout rate minus walk rate) and keeping the contact they do allow soft (hard-hit rate against). Every dot is a qualified pitcher this season; dot size tracks batters faced. Click any dot to open that pitcher's page.
 Anthony KayLeague medianPercentile
Bases per ball in play(lower = better).528.52816th
Walk rate(lower = better)8%9%65th
Strikeout rate(higher = better)19%22%16th

100th percentile = best in MLB.

Arsenal

What he throws, and what it does

Anthony Kay mixes his four-seam fastball (22%) and sweeper (22%). His best pitch has been the sinker, saving 1.1 bases per 100 thrown vs average, and his four-seam fastball runs 2.2 mph above the league norm.

Pitch mix & swing-and-miss

+62 bases better than a replacement arm this season

allowed 252 bases vs a replacement arm's 314 over the same batters faced

Replacement level is per-batter and can't be split by pitch type, so the bars below use league average.

All pitches

16.3 bases cost vs league average, across 2,246 pitches — 0.7 per 100.

Four-Seam Fastball
22%
95.8 mph · LHP median 93.6
19% whiffs · Lg median 21%
cost 0.5 per 1002.3 total
Sweeper
22%
82.8 mph · LHP median 81.1
35% whiffs · Lg median 30%
cost 2.0 per 10010.2 total
Sinker
18%
95.2 mph · LHP median 93.1
17% whiffs · Lg median 13%
saved 1.1 per 1004.3 total
Cutter
17%
91.6 mph · LHP median 88.1
21% whiffs · Lg median 22%
cost 1.8 per 1006.9 total
Changeup
14%
86.1 mph · LHP median 85.0
26% whiffs · Lg median 30%
cost 0.8 per 1002.7 total
Slider
7%
86.3 mph · LHP median 85.8
31% whiffs · Lg median 33%
saved 1.0 per 1001.5 total
How to read this chart
What they throw, how hard, and what misses bats — from pitch tracking, regular season only.

Mix by batter side

Four-Seam Fastball
17% vs LHH · LHP median 33%
25% vs RHH · LHP median 40%
Sweeper
32% vs LHH · LHP median 31%
19% vs RHH · LHP median 19%
Sinker
34% vs LHH · LHP median 38%
11% vs RHH · LHP median 22%
Cutter
11% vs LHH · LHP median 21%
19% vs RHH · LHP median 22%
Slider
7% vs LHH · LHP median 33%
7% vs RHH · LHP median 19%
How to read this chart
How the mix shifts against lefty and righty bats. Medians are among left-handed pitchers who throw that pitch at least 3% of the time — between 37 and 127 of them, depending on the pitch. Overall results by batter side are under Platoon splits.

Anthony Kay's pitch movement, 2026

3 of his 6 pitches have moved 2+ inches from their early-season shapes.

Compared with his own earlier outings this season, not with other pitchers — and after taking out the drift every pitch in the league shows through midsummer.

Anthony Kay's pitch movement, 2026-12012012in← glove sidearm side →more risemore drop
Four-Seam FastballFF
Rise 14.6 in
−1.1 vs Lg median
Break 6.7 in
−0.9 vs Lg median
Vs. early season steady
SweeperST
Rise 0.9 in
0.0 vs Lg median
Break −13.2 in
+0.7 vs Lg median
Vs. early season steady
SinkerSI
Rise 4.5 in
−3.9 vs Lg median
Break 15.0 in
−0.3 vs Lg median
Vs. early season steady
CutterFC
Rise 7.1 in
−0.5 vs Lg median
Break −0.1 in
+2.0 vs Lg median
Vs. early season changed
ChangeupCH
Rise 0.7 in
−3.3 vs Lg median
Break 15.2 in
+1.1 vs Lg median
Vs. early season changed
SliderSL
Rise −3.8 in
−5.6 vs Lg median
Break −4.6 in
−0.9 vs Lg median
Vs. early season changed
Early season → nowLg medianCurrent-dot uncertainty
How to read this chart
Each dot is a pitch's current shape — horizontal break (arm side vs. glove side) by induced vertical break (rise vs. drop). Both axes are in inches of break. The trail runs from this season's earliest tracked outings — the faint, thin end — up to today's solid dot; a trail with only a few segments just means fewer tracked outings. The soft halo around each dot is how far that dot could sit off on its own, just from ordinary outing-to-outing wobble. Don't read a long trail as proof on its own that a pitch changed. Every pitch in baseball loses a little break through midsummer and gets it back by September — the same shift two full seasons back agree on — and the trail shows that league-wide seasonal swing alongside whatever this pitcher did himself. The sentence at the top of this card has the league's share taken out, so it can read “has not moved” above a trail that looks long. That is the two marks measuring different things, not a mistake. A pitch counts as changed only once it sits at least two inches from its own early-season shape — a verdict about this pitcher against himself, never a comparison with anyone else. League median: the small hollow ring marks it, on the same two measurements. Where it sits far from a pitch's dot, a line joins the two — and on a wider screen the ring carries that pitch's code as well — so a distant ring is never orphaned; where it sits close, neither is drawn, because the pairing is already obvious. League median is missing entirely for a pitch marked *: too few pitchers throw it for one to be worth setting, so it is plotted without a reference ring. For the exact dates a pitch changed, see the by-appearance chart below.

By appearance

How the stuff has held up outing to outing

One point per outing — how his velocity, movement, and pitch mix have moved across the season, with league context for scale. Each pitch keeps the same color in every chart.

Platoon splits

How he fares against lefties and righties

Platoon splits (EB/PA allowed)

Better vs LHB than vs RHB by 0.043 EB/PA allowed (modeled).

50% probable range: +0.033 to +0.052

vs LHB155 PA0.444

vs LHB: shrunk estimate 0.444 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.426 to 0.461, based on 155 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.351 EB/PA. League median vs LHB: 0.454 EB/PA.

Raw vs LHB rate (0.351) is off this scale — small samples like this are exactly why the shrunk estimate (the dot) is the trustworthy number, not the raw one.

vs RHB412 PA0.486

vs RHB: shrunk estimate 0.486 EB/PA, 50% probable range 0.469 to 0.502, based on 412 plate appearances. Raw (unshrunk) rate: 0.528 EB/PA. League median vs RHB: 0.440 EB/PA.

Raw vs RHB rate (0.528) is off this scale — small samples like this are exactly why the shrunk estimate (the dot) is the trustworthy number, not the raw one.

0.4170.4410.4640.4880.511
← betterworse →
Below league medianAbove50% probable rangeHis raw rateMiddle half of the league

About the typical split for a lefty arm (median 0.039). Against righty bats he allows more than the league median — a genuine platoon vulnerability.

How to read this chart
  • Tap or hover any mark for its number, or tab to a row for all of them.
  • His raw rate is the unshrunk number against that side — small samples make it noisy, which is why the model pulls his estimate toward a more trustworthy value.
  • Middle half of the league” is the 25th–75th percentile of all pitchers against that side.
  • These are bases allowed, so lower is better. Weighted by how often he faces each side, the two splits average back to his modeled overall EB/PA allowed — not the xEB/PA headline at the top of the page, which folds in strikeouts and walks differently.
  • Shrunk splits beat raw splits on held-out seasons, most decisively at low batters-faced counts (relievers especially), and converge with the raw numbers as exposure builds.

Contact allowed

What hitters do when they connect

Batters go to the pull side off him most often, and that's where the hardest contact comes from.

Pull and oppo are relative to each batter's stance, so this pools all the hitters he faced.

Batted balls allowed

Where every ball hit off Anthony Kay landed this season.
How to read this chart
Dot color is estimated bases (EB) — what the contact was worth, regardless of what the defense did with it. So a dark hollow ring in the outfield is a crushed ball his defense ran down. Tap or hover a dot or a row to link the two, and use the ▶ links to watch a play on Baseball Savant.

Earned vs. actual

Batters have been credited about 6 fewer bases than their contact off Anthony Kay earned — his results have run fortunate so far.

Earned off his contact allowed206
Actually credited to batters200

over 390 balls in play · walks and strikeouts excluded on both sides

How to read this chart
Every ball in play is worth the bases its exit velocity and direction usually earn. Comparing those earned bases with the bases batters were actually credited shows whether his results have been lucky, unlucky, or fair.

ERA 3.96 · WHIP 1.33 · BABIP against 0.289 (Lg median 0.286)

Times through order

What happens the third time they see him

Best games

His biggest outings this year

Best games

His best outings this season by bases saved vs a replacement arm.

Multi-season trends · Anthony Kay

BB% down, K% up vs his previous season

Actual rates — what happened on the field, season by season.