DeGrom’s win total belies his greatness
Despite pitching one of the best seasons in baseball history, Jacob deGrom barely notched his 10th victory of the year in his final start of the 2018 season. Soon after, he told Jeff Wilpon, the New York Mets’ chief operating officer, that he had reached his goal for the season — perhaps because he thought he needed double-digit wins to make a serious case for the Cy Young Award.
“No, you didn’t,” Wilpon recalled telling deGrom, who finished 10-9. “There’s no way 10 wins is your goal. If we had played a little bit better, you would have 20 wins easily, and the Cy Young wouldn’t even be in question.”
As it turns out, DeGrom’s campaign was so dominant — in 217 innings, he posted a major leaguebest 1.70 ERA, the sixth-lowest qualifying total since the pitcher’s mound was lowered in 1969 — that wins did not matter. He won the National League Cy Young Award on Wednesday with 29 of 30 firstplace votes despite a lower win total than any previous starter to win in a non-strike season.
The previous low was Felix Hernandez, who won the American League Cy Young Award in 2010 with a record of 13-12.
DeGrom, 30, topped Philadelphia’s Aaron Nola and ended the reign of Washington’s Max Scherzer, who won the award in 2016 and 2017.
Pitcher wins are not as valued as they used to be because they don’t always adequately reflect individual ability, and deGrom provided a stark example of that disparity. The Mets’ streakiness on offense was not his fault, and the bullpen and defense were among the worst in baseball. Because of that confluence of factors, the Mets (74-84) went 14-18 in deGrom’s starts this season.
“In years past, I got in my own head, overthinking things when it didn’t go as planned and trying to do too much instead of trying to take it one pitch at a time,” he said late in the season. “That was my focus this year. Looking back now, it’s kind of crazy that there wasn’t really a hiccup.”
Since 1908, only three pitchers have finished a season with a sub-2.00 ERA, at least 250 strikeouts and 50 walks or fewer: Christy Mathewson (1908), Pedro Martinez (2000), and deGrom.