Mets’ deGrom joins elite group with 2nd straight win
Shortly after pitcher Jacob deGrom signed a contract extension worth $137.5 million with the New York Mets on the eve of opening day in March, his father, Tony, waited for him inside the Diplomat Room off the lobby at the RitzCarlton in Arlington, Va.
Tony deGrom considered his son’s accomplishments a day before he would start the Mets’ opener: rookie of the year in 2014, World Series runner-up in 2015 and the 2018 Cy Young Award winner. The elder deGrom believed his son’s most recent accomplishment would not be his peak.
“I think he’s capable of winning a few more Cy Youngs,” Tony deGrom said. “If you look at his history, he has a lot less wear on him than most guys his age, so I think he’s capable of winning a few more.’’
The father proved prophetic Wednesday night. Jacob deGrom, who battled through a tough stretch in April and overcame what former Mets manager Mickey Callaway called a “barking” elbow, won the National League Cy Young Award and became the 11th pitcher to claim the prize in consecutive years.
“It doesn’t feel real yet,” deGrom said on a conference call from his family’s home in Florida.
“If you had told me when I first came up that this was going to happen, I probably wouldn’t have believed you.”
He has maintained this year that he could not imagine becoming a member of such an exclusive club. Sandy Koufax, Denny McLain, Jim Palmer, Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Tim Lincecum, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer have each won the award in back-to-back years.
“You knew Jake was going to be a pretty good pitcher,” said Mets pitching coach Phil Regan, who worked with deGrom in the minors before rejoining him in the majors in June. “To win two Cy Youngs puts you in elite company.”
Though deGrom, 31, was not as sharp as in 2018, when he posted a 1.70 ERA, he concluded the 2019 season with 23 straight scoreless innings. His 255 strikeouts were the most in the NL, and his 2.43
ERA ranked second behind the 2.32 of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Hyun-Jin Ryu, who finished second in the voting. Scherzer, of the Washington Nationals, finished third. Just as in 2018, deGrom won 29 of the 30 first-place votes; Ryu received the other first-place vote after going 14-5 and striking out 163 batters.
DeGrom finished with an 11-8 record, but the voters again showed no inclination to penalize him for a low victory total, which would surely have cost him a shot at the award in the years before analytics took hold in baseball and diminished the value of win-loss records. At 10-9 in 2018, deGrom had the lowest win total of any starter to capture a Cy Young Award.
DeGrom is one of four Mets to have won the Cy Young Award. Tom Seaver (1969, 1973, 1975),
Dwight Gooden (1985) and R.A. Dickey (2012) are the others.
DeGrom saw plenty change around him in the last year. His former agent, Brodie Van Wagenen, became the Mets general manager before the season. Despite overseeing deGrom’s first Cy Young campaign, the pitching coach Dave Eiland was dismissed in June, when the starters and the bullpen were struggling and the team was 35-39. The staff had a 4.67 ERA, which ranked 20th in the majors, and 16 blown saves, which ranked last.
Regan replaced Eiland, and deGrom returned to form in the second half of the season.
“I feel like I was trying to better what I did in 2018,” deGrom said of the lackluster start. “I had to focus on what I was trying to do, not what I’ve done.”