I don’t know what else I can say about Jacob deGrom’s season. Every fifth day … pull up the post from his last start. And the one before that. And the one before that. And the one before that. And the one before that. Now that you’ve clicked on every one of those (thanks for the page clicks, suckas!!!) you’ll pretty much get an idea of what deGrom’s night was like on Friday … only this time, he got run support!. In fact, we can go back 23 starts if you want (you can do it yourself if you’d like), because that’s how many have been declined by the overlords of Major League Baseball to be of a certain “quality”.
Jacob deGrom has held opponents to three runs or less in 28 straight starts. Nobody in MLB history has ever done that.
Jacob deGrom has thrown 23 consecutive quality starts. Nobody in MLB history has ever done that.
The 2018 NL Cy Young is really still an argument?
— Steve Gelbs (@SteveGelbs) September 22, 2018
deGrom stands alone in the realm of consistent quality. He passed Bob Gibson from 1968, and Chris Carpenter from 2005. The game was different in both of those seasons … certainly in 1968 when pitchers went deeper into games and the mound was higher, and seven pitchers had an ERA below two. Heck, 2005 is still pre-analytics. deGrom’s 2018 will go down as one of the best of all time. No, the NL Cy Young hasn’t been an argument for a couple of weeks.
The only thing left to talk about is the NL MVP award, and that’s because there isn’t a pennant race to take up our collective thought. Honestly, if deGrom gets a first place vote I’ll be thrilled. But MVP is going to go to a player on a contending team. I don’t have an issue with that. It didn’t stop Mike Petriello from making the argument.
The NL has a ton of good candidates. You can make a strong case for Christian Yelich or Lorenzo Cain of the Brewers, or Nolan Arenado or Trevor Story of the Rockies, or Javier Baez of the Cubs, or Matt Carpenter of the Cardinals, or Scherzer of the Nationals, or Goldschmidt of the D-backs. There are a lot of good cases, but unlike the AL, there may not be a great case, in that it’s something of a split field, with no one pulling apart from the crowd.
No one, that is, except deGrom. Let’s look at the NL WAR leaders for hitters only, and right now we’ll see Yelich (6.1 WAR) and Cain (5.4) at the top, well behind deGrom’s 8.3, and that enormous gap is sort of the point. All of the names we mentioned are having strong years, but a six-win season is usually more “very good” than “great.” In just the five seasons between 2013-17, 45 hitters had a six-win season — and that doesn’t even include pitchers. The NL has had at least one hitter put up a six-win season every full year dating back to 1927. This kind of year happens a lot.
For me, the validation of just having a season like this is enough. I’ll say it again: I’d be thrilled with one first place MVP vote. But I hope more for the embarrassment of deGrom’s 9-9 record … the embarrassment that should be exhibited by the rest of the team and the front office … will spur the Mets to give Jacob a little more support than what deGrom had from the rest of the roster.
Today’s Hate List
I loved those "The Normally Surehanded Anthony Rendon" novels when I was a kid.
— Greg Prince (@greg_prince) September 22, 2018
Not one of Random House’s best sellers.
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