A Thread for Starting Pitchers That Are Jacob deGrom

fwiw ten pitchers have won at least three cys. the only ones who *aren't* in the hall are scherzer, kershaw and clemens

I think the rule-of-three when it comes to Cys or MVPs is 100% if PEDs aren't involved.

(If they are, even the rule-of-seven doesn't work.)

Good test for deGrom tonight, promises to be exciting.

First 8 pitches: all 100 MPH

That terrible 3rd strike call aside, I was just laughing at the glory of it.

Mets booth said that Dwight Gooden has been scheduling his week around Degrom starts.

Gooden and I have something in common then!

It wasn’t drugs?

Nah, never touched that!

I checked in every few innings online last night. I take it he loaded the bases at one point; that's how precarious and improbable chasing Gibson is--one bad pitch can set you back weeks.

There was an error in that inning so I believe the first run would have been unearned. Also Degrom has in the past been super adept at escaping bases loaded jams unscathed.

Not especially meaningful, but:

https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/private/t_16x9/t_w1536/mlb/cdobiao2scbuwhrunhrq.jpg

Only four innings, but I can't resist:

A Thread for Pitchers Who Are Doing Really Well and Are Jacob deGrom

I have a classic second-guess. Snell walks two guys to load the bases with one out, he's upset over a call, and the next batter swings at the first pitch; check swing, inning-ending double play.

0.58 at the moment.

I'm actually watching. I hardly ever watch baseball anymore. I just fiddle with numbers and spout opinions.

You should watch baseball more often in my opinion, especially Vladdy Jr.

but yeah every deGrom is fun to watch at this point, feels like post-season.

I don't understand that Snell balk.

What a guy!

I mean, he almost fakes out the infield on the first pitch, then with two strikes he turns into Rod Carew.

0.56 now

6 innings, 80 pitches, 1 hit, 10 K, no walks, 3-0 lead. Unless he asked to be taken out, this seems premature by an inning, at least.

It's probably one of those post-shortened season precautions.

rojas gonna rojas

The Mets' announcers said deGrom's ERA is the lowest through 10 starts since Marichal in '66 (0.59--his 10th start was a 14-inning shutout!). Marichal's next three starts: 3 ER (9 innings), 6 ER (4 innings), 6 ER (6 innings). He finished the year at 2.23 over 307.1 innings.

I will take VHS's advice and go watch Vlad--3 for 3, double, HR, walk.

Mets suck

Tendonitis

Didn't realize he's starting tonight against the Cubs. Had to laugh at the latest mlb.com graphic (partly at myself, who's every bit as guilty):

"How deGrom Can Pass Gibson: 20 more starts + 19 more earned runs = 1.09 ERA (assumes an average of 6-1/3 innings per start)"

Which is kind of like saying "How X can pass Y: hit a HR every game for the next three weeks." I think it was the hospitalized kid in the Seinfeld episode who created the graphic.

He has struck out 4 of the first 5 batters?

Yes, he has struck out 4 of the first 5 batters.

5 of the first 6 now, but that last guy--a .156 hitter--took him to 11 pitches. So he's thrown 34 through two innings.

let's go starting pitchers who are named jacob degrom, let's do this

Two out, runner on third, knocks in the first run of the game and keeps his average above .400. It's almost comical.

Yeah it’s kind of expected now

Ominous--out of the game after 3 perfect innings (8K).

It's just gonna be like this all season huh

DeGrom and Ohtani should be allowed to take steroids for health reasons, for the good of the sport and my mental health

I have this horrible feeling that they'll just shut him down for the season at some point, and it'll be like Williams and Gwynn and Griffey and the Expos in '94 in the what-could-have-been department. But worse.

right shoulder soreness

yeah you could really tell he wasn’t right when he struck out his seventh straight hitter lol

You have to wonder if he was going strikeout ten in a row on a way to no hitter or something. But these small scares also feel like the risk of being so otherworldly. Like, humans aren’t supposed to be doing this.

it makes me wonder if he’s soft tbh

Even if he keeps pitching more or less regularly, it'll probably be close as to whether he even qualifies for the ERA title. Mets have 101 games left; he's at 67 innings, so he needs 95 more. If he got 18 more starts, he'd need to average 5+ per start--not a huge margin of error with him, it would seem. (If he were a hitter going after a batting title, he'd have enough of a cushion that he could fall short of the AB--they'd assign him the necessary 0-for, and he'd still win. Doesn't work for pitchers.)

he's at 0.54 ERA after 67 innings. i'm not so interested in the full season record, at the moment, because injuries happen.

but who else has had a comparable stretch over that shorter amount of innings (67 IP)? the only one i could think of was jack flaherty, who has a 0.70 ERA over a 64 inning stretch from 7/21/21 - 9/8/21. or, cherrypicking that, a 0.50 ERA over 54 innings from 8/1/21 - 9/8/21.

it seems like there would be relievers who approach this? someone with a baseball-ref subscription could probably figure this out in 2 seconds flat

7/21/21 - 9/8/21. or, cherrypicking that, a 0.50 ERA over 54 innings from 8/1/21 - 9/8/21.

all of those were from 2019, sorry

what year is it

EndofTwinPeaks-TheReturn.jpg

Did you check Gibson's '68 game log? He must have had a comparable stretch.

And Bubic, Eovaldi and Crochet

Tarik Skubal and his AL leading k/9 are going to be up there, would expect Crochet to be too even though he’s looked kind of mid (except from the back).

i'll have to take a closer look at his stats...

* opens incognito window *

yeah skubal and a few others are ahead of fried in fwar but fangraphs doesn't give enough credit to pitchers who reliably get batters out with outs other than k's

I did notice this when I looked at the box score last night:

https://www.mlb.com/news/jacob-degrom-records-zero-strikeouts-vs-blue-jays

That's just how formidable the Blue Jays lineup is.

Deadliest AAAA lineup in baseball

https://www.mlb.com/news/jacob-degrom-pitches-6-innings-in-rangers-win-over-orioles

Will be exceptionally hard to keep up with Skubal, plus there are four or five others ahead of him in bWAR, but he's having a great season (wasn't really keeping up with him till I saw the piece above). I will root for him to win that third Cy. I have a feeling that'll be the only way he gets into the Hall, even though two and a lifetime ERA of 2.49 ought to be enough.

He’s lost so much time/momentum, as this is the first time he’s appeared in over 15 games in a season since 2019 (that does include the Covid season though). Not being able to pitch during the season when your team wins the World Series also stings as a missed opportunity for post season heroics.

He still has some work to do, but I'd say there are two historical headwinds at his back (I might be mixing metaphors there): an increasing appreciation of peak vs. career, and the rapidly diminishing importance of pitcher wins.

If he retired this year and got voted in, I don’t think it would be right. Would almost feel like the voters took pity on his injury misfortunes and remembered the loudness of his peak while ignoring how short it actually was.

Something from my FB wall: "His 2.52 career ERA is the second lowest of any AL/NL pitcher with at least 100 starts in the Live-Ball Era (since 1920)."

"His" meaning Kershaw. Only because we've been talking about him, I knew right away who #1 was: deGrom (2.49, 235 career starts).

was just telling a friend that i'm sort of relieved he's having a good season (didn't even need to be great, but i'll take it). i really think he belongs in the hall and i figured he just needed two more "good seasons" to fill things out a little and that could be enough.

if he has a couple more seasons like this one, he’ll definitely get in, as it stands right now he would certainly get a lot of support based on his peak. Due to better understanding on this sort of thing and modern usage limits, the days when a pitcher needed to get a certain number of wins or Ks to get in are going to be in the past. Which is why Chris Sale will make it, and why I think someday they’re going to correct the mistake they made with Johan Santana. I do think to make it an easy trip into the HOF for deGrom, he might need to get into that 130 to 140 win range.

Kershaw's career ERA would be lower than JdG's if CK had retired after 2023 (2.48).

I think even the most peak-years HoF voter will expect a base level of some stats… probably strikeouts more than wins, and JdG is closing in on 2000. Should also be getting 100 wins soon. Probably about 1.5 healthy years away from 50 bWAR. Santana is around 52 iirc - but his (Santana) ERA/FIP/WHIP numbers are not even close to guys like DeGroom and Kershaw