It's 2021 and Jacob deGrom still deserves his own thread.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Luis Rojas marvels at how deGrom shows up for Spring Training half a year after last season ended and hits 99MPH on the radar, effortlessly. "It's ridiculous", sez Rojas.



And in an article for The Athletic published two days ago, deGrom sez he feels better than ever and that there's no reason he can't seriously compete for another Cy Young award.

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

ESPN's Buster Olney on his Baseball Tonight podcsat was making predictions. Both Buster and his guess had Jake for Cy Young, but also for MVP. They think he'll be that dominant.



Tough for a pitcher to get that award, especially in a league with so many great hitters.

[Edgy MD]

It's the preponderance of offense that should frame the value of the very best pitchers.



To me, it's hard for pitchers to win MVP because of (a) tradition, ( prejudice, © traditional prejudice, and (d) artificial usage restrictions.

[batmagadanleadoff]

If it was up to me, pitchers would win the MVP way more often than not and way more often than they actually do. Starting pitchers who make almost all of their starts face 800, 900 batters a season. That's a coupl'a hundred more than the number of plate appearances everyday position players get in a season.

[batmagadanleadoff]

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=58781 time=1616873912 user_id=68]
If it was up to me, pitchers would win the MVP way more often than not and way more often than they actually do. Starting pitchers who make almost all of their starts face 800, 900 batters a season. That's a coupl'a hundred more than the number of plate appearances everyday position players get in a season.

[dinosaur jesus]

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=58783 time=1616875666 user_id=68]
=batmagadanleadoff post_id=58781 time=1616873912 user_id=68]
If it was up to me, pitchers would win the MVP way more often than not and way more often than they actually do. Starting pitchers who make almost all of their starts face 800, 900 batters a season. That's a coupl'a hundred more than the number of plate appearances everyday position players get in a season.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Seaver finished second to Willie McCovey in 1969.

[batmagadanleadoff]

dinosaur jesus wrote: =batmagadanleadoff post_id=58783 time=1616875666 user_id=68] =batmagadanleadoff post_id=58781 time=1616873912 user_id=68] If it was up to me, pitchers would win the MVP way more often than not and way more often than they actually do. Starting pitchers who make almost all of their starts face 800, 900 batters a season. That's a coupl'a hundred more than the number of plate appearances everyday position players get in a season.

So to answer the question -- Jake for MVP? Why not? He's the best pitcher in the NL and reports are that he's getting better, or at least not declining. But the reality is that a pitcher has to have a historical season to win the MVP. Like what Gooden did in '85. Or two years ago Jake. /sarcasm

[batmagadanleadoff]

What drives me nuts is when I hear or read about position players griping that pitchers shouldn't win the MVP because they already have their own award. That's like saying that Marcell Ozuna shouldn't be recognized as last season's NL HR leader because Ozuna had already won the 2020 NL RBI crown.



Of course, the thing to do is to create an award with the prestige of the MVP award but for non-pitchers only. (Then watch the old school writers/voters fuck it up by voting for an MVP that won neither the Cy Young award nor the new award for non-pitchers only).

[smg58]

I don't like preseason predictions. I'm also worried that throwing 100+ mph will take innings away from DeGrom and give them to the pen, which will help neither his MVP chances nor the Mets. And that's assuming he doesn't blow his arm out. You want the MVP? Give me 240, kick it old school, and show them how it's done.

[ashie62]

I have no problem voting a pitcher 1st for MVP.



I would however be looking for old school IP CG and more than a few shutouts.

[Edgy MD]

I'd settle for middle school.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Pretty cut and dry over at The Athletic:

Cy Young Award: Jacob deGrom Second place: Trevor Bauer Third place: Aaron Nola Dark horse: Walker Buehler Jacob deGrom is the best pitcher in baseball. Period. He's a future Hall of Famer. He has the nastiest stuff in the game. His command and control are off the charts. This used to be a race but not anymore. If deGrom stays healthy, he will win his third Cy Young Award.

https://theathletic.com/2480286/2021/03/29/mlb-award-predictions-for-2021-bowden-on-ronald-acuna-jr-s-time-to-shine-the-best-roy-race-in-years-and-more/https://theathletic.com/2480286/2021/03/29/mlb-award-predictions-for-2021-bowden-on-ronald-acuna-jr-s-time-to-shine-the-best-roy-race-in-years-and-more/

[Benjamin Grimm]

From 2014:



http://archives.thecranepool.net/21200/f1_t21274.shtmlLet's Make a Trade Today

[Edgy MD]

Should I merge the MVP thread into this?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Edgy MD wrote: Should I merge the MVP thread into this?

Sounds like a good idea. (Let's keep this title, though.)

[Willets Point]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: From 2014: http://archives.thecranepool.net/21200/f1_t21274.shtmlLet's Make a Trade Today

Sweet Jesus that was a bad trade proposal!

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: From 2014: http://archives.thecranepool.net/21200/f1_t21274.shtmlLet's Make a Trade Today

Whoops



In my defense he'd only just come up and was considered the lesser of Montero-Sydergaard-Wheeler-Matz comers at that time. I had a thing about Didi, if you look hard enough you can also find me advocating we cough up Syndy for him

[TransMonk]

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/31142014/2021-mlb-season-preview-power-rankings-best-worst-case-most-exciting-player-all-30-teamshttps://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/31142014/2021-mlb-season-preview-power-rankings-best-worst-case-most-exciting-player-all-30-teams



David Schoenfield picks Jake as the Mets' most exciting player and also states he will win MVP as his "bold prediction". I'm not sure if he was Buster Onley's guest mentioned above at the start of the MVP talk.

[Ceetar]

these guys are mostly just filling columns, but floating the idea of deGrom as MVP gives it legs that it wouldn't if someone floated it in September. Gives people all year to be swayed whereas otherwise they might not even consider it until they'd already mentally decided on someone else.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Jacob deGrom is leading all NL hitters and pitchers in bWAR.

[G-Fafif]

[kcmets]

That's a golden tweet

[MFS62]

That should be on a t-shirt we would wear until they score some runs for our favorite motherfucker.



Later

[G-Fafif]

[batmagadanleadoff]

He's only four starts in, but still, no matter how you measure them, deGrom's on pace to fan 400+ batters this season.

[G-Fafif]

Bumgarner and Tatis named co-NL Players of the Week. DeGrom comfortable with Pitcher of the Age.

[G-Fafif]

Michael Baumann of the Ringer on Jacob deGrom as a) the best player in baseball; a pitcher on a potential unlikely Hall of Fame track.

Since deGrom's first Cy Young season in 2018, Baseball-Reference credits him with 22.1 wins above replacement, five more than second-place Aaron Nola and therefore tops among pitchers by far. Add in the 1.4 bWAR deGrom has chipped in at the plate, and you get a total of 23.5 bWAR. Baseball-Reference WAR isn't gospel; it's just one version of one approach to player evaluation. And the time scale of this thought exercise—starting with the best season of deGrom's career—clearly puts him at an advantage; 2018 was the year when deGrom emerged as one of the best pitchers in the world. For most of his career to that point, he wasn't clearly the best on his own team. Then there's the fact that this is a strange moment to try to pick on Trout, who as of this writing is hitting .426/.539/.820. Even with all that said, though, here are the bWAR leaders among position players since 2018: 1. Mookie Betts (22.3) 2. Trout (21.1) 3. Alex Bregman (18.4) 4. Matt Chapman (16.8) 5. Trevor Story (16.2) The question of whether deGrom is the best player in baseball is one of those early-spring reactive talking points that pops up year after year to tide us over until the bounces start to even out. Even the ludicrous hot streak deGrom is on through four starts (50 strikeouts with just one earned run and 16 base runners allowed over 29 innings) might have been camouflaged if it had happened in August. But even if the answer to the question is “no,” as it probably will be until Trout either starts to show signs of age or retires to go home and farm tomatoes, this isn't a silly proposition. There's more to deGrom's run of success than your garden-variety low-data hot takeism. It doesn't take a detailed statistical or biomechanical analysis to appreciate what deGrom is doing; anyone with even a cursory understanding of the rules of baseball can see how dominant deGrom has been this season and how easy he's making it look. So far in 2021, deGrom is leading all MLB starters in ERA (0.31) and average fastball velocity (98.9 mph), and is second in strikeouts (50) and opponent expected wOBA (.189). My favorite number attached to deGrom this year is his strikeout rate of 49.5 percent. Not only because he's striking out basically half of the batters he faces, but because such a feat has been achieved only by one-inning relievers like Aroldis Chapman and Craig Kimbrel. DeGrom, by contrast, is facing an average of 25 batters and change every start. Imagine Usain Bolt running his 200-meter world record pace for a full mile. But the greatest testament to deGrom's success is the fact that he's now considered a legitimate Hall of Fame candidate.

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2021/4/28/22406514/jacob-degrom-hall-of-fame-case-metshttps://www.theringer.com/mlb/2021/4/28/22406514/jacob-degrom-hall-of-fame-case-mets

[Frayed Knot]

But the greatest testament to deGrom's success is the fact that he's now considered a legitimate Hall of Fame candidate.

Even though he is, at this moment, still two seasons short of even being eligible for the Hall of Fame.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Lotsa deGrom-themed number crunching over at fivethirtyeight.com (written before last night's Red Sox game):



https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/jacob-degrom-is-outdoing-even-jacob-degrom/https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/jacob-degrom-is-outdoing-even-jacob-degrom/



Excerpts:

But deGrom's misleadingly mediocre win-loss records also underscore another big theme of his career: how much the Mets have failed to capitalize on one of the greatest arms in baseball history. In deGrom's 187 career starts, the Mets have spoiled 24 outings in which he had a Game Score of 60 or better by losing while scoring two or fewer runs. That share — 12.8 percent of deGrom's total starts — represents the highest rate of spoiled starts for any pitcher in history with at least 20 total games meeting that criteria:

Beyond his superlative pitching skills, Jacob deGrom's most impressive trait might be his ability to raise the bar ever higher for himself. The college shortstop turned ninth-round pitcher turned elbow-surgery survivor won the National League's Rookie of the Year honors in 2014, but he wasn't content merely to feature next to the other New York Mets fireballers — he had to outpitch them. He didn't stop at posting a sub-2.00 ERA over a full season (like he did in 2018), either, or at winning a second-straight Cy Young award (like he did in 2019) or even at striking out nearly 40 percent of opposing batters (like he did in 2020). Whenever you think deGrom has reached his peak, he finds another level of greatness.