Over at the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s (imaginary) headquarters, we call this “Awards Week.”
Yet this specific week, here in 2018, feels bigger. Maybe we should call this one “Anarchy Week.”
And remember it fondly for the ages.
Barring a stunning development, the Mets’ Jacob deGrom will win the NL Cy Young award Wednesday evening, the announcement airing live on the MLB Network, and he’ll make history in the process. The right-hander’s 10-9 record will give him the fewest wins by a starting pitcher who has captured this honor.
Combined with Shohei Ohtani claiming some history of his own Monday night, when he earned the AL Rookie of the Year trophy over the Yankees’ Miguel Andujar, deGrom’s expected coronation will create quite the different look for these long-cherished decorations. And they’ll spark more debate and discussion, which rarely ranks as a bad development.
If you didn’t know deGrom’s win-loss mark, you’d pose zero objections to his getting the gold. He paced his league with a 1.70 ERA, 216 ERA+ (which factors in ballparks) a 1.98 FIP (a predictive measure that strips all balls in play from the equation) and 0.4 home runs per nine innings. His 9.6 wins above replacement (as per Baseball-Reference.com), 269 strikeouts, 217 innings pitched and 5.848 strikeouts-per-walks all ranked second, with two-time reigning NL Cy Young recipient Max Scherzer leading the latter three counts by a hair.
DeGrom’s wins? He tied five other pitchers for 22nd place. One of those five, Giants right-hander Chris Stratton, tallied a 5.09 ERA.
Wins for pitchers long have been ignored by those who analyze the game seriously, and if the Mets accomplished anything in 2018, they ensured that the statistic will henceforth be regarded as the tchotchke that it is. If you followed deGrom’s season at all, you know how remarkably consistent both he and his teammates with bats were on the days he started. The Mets scored three or fewer runs in 21 of deGrom’s 32 starts, and he gave up three or fewer runs in 31 of his games. As a point of comparison, Scherzer received three or fewer runs of support in 12 of his 33 starts, and he permitted three or fewer runs 29 times.
The 30-year-old will serve as a worthwhile successor to Seattle’s Felix Hernandez, who won the AL Cy Young in 2010 with a modest 13-12 mark. King Felix displayed the folly of relying solely on traditional statistics to determine greatness, and deGrom will advance the cause.
Just as Ohtani did on Monday night. The Yankees Universe vented upon the expected disclosure that Andujar, who put together a superb rookie season, and Gleyber Torres, who could have won the honor in his own right many a slower season, both fell short to the Angels’ wunderkind. Ohtani participated in a total of 114 games, 104 hitting and 10 pitching, trailing Andujar’s 149 and Torres’ 123.
However, most of those Yankees fans were on the right track two years ago when they stumped for their guy Gary Sanchez, who made a strong rookie case for himself despite playing in only 53 games. While Sanchez finished second to Tigers pitcher Michael Fulmer, who compiled a nice freshman year, he merited serious consideration because quality trumps quantity. The same logic applies to Ohtani, and don’t forget Andujar remained such a defensive liability at third base that he didn’t start the Yankees’ final game of the postseason.
We’re looking deeper into these awards, capitalizing on the new thinking, learning from our mistakes. DeGrom is set to be the worthy beneficiary. Even as he faces likely questions about his future with the Mets and about his agent Brodie Van Wagenen turning into his general manager when he holds a celebratory news conference Wednesday night, deGrom can revel in being an inadvertent pioneer, an inspiration to others who take different, often lonely paths to greatness.
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