It was made official on Wednesday, six years to the day that R.A. Dickey won his incredible Cy Young award: Jacob deGrom was recognized justly for his 2018 season with the award for the best pitcher in the National League … which was what he was. For all the arguing myself and others have made regarding his candidacy, the voters were all like “dude, calm down … we agree with you” as deGrom got 29 out of first place 30 votes. (John Maffei of the San Diego Tribune voted deGrom second to Max Scherzer, and yet I’d like to talk to him about why Miles Mikolas was third over Aaron Nola on his ballot.)
https://twitter.com/MattCommins/status/1062858455562641409
Thankfully, the award doesn’t get smaller because only 29 voters gave him first place.
If this says anything about how pitchers are valued, it’s that the trend that has its roots in Felix Hernandez in 2010 have taken hold with Jacob deGrom in 2018. Strikeouts are cool, but run prevention is king. Say what you want about advanced stats, but they did their job in this case. While I consider myself old school (yes, I think runs batted in still holds some significance beyond “the clutch gene”), newer ways of isolating what a pitcher has control over and what he doesn’t has given voters a clearer picture of what a good pitcher is. They used those stats (like FIP which deGrom had a huge lead in despite Scherzer having more strikeouts, a key component of FIP), and they used perspective. Good on them, and good on Jacob deGrom for having such a great season and not killing anybody in the process.
Now as long as we behave and not say a word when Walker Buehler is 6-7 with a 1.45 ERA and Noah Syndergaard has 350 strikeouts and a 2.00 ERA in three more innings, we’ll be fine. That, and Brodie doesn’t trade deGrom this winter for the next Noah Syndergaard, who most likely doesn’t exist.
But congratulations to Jacob. Remember that you can get his Cy Young bobblehead on April 7th. #Marketing
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