The Metropolitan: Let's talk about Jacob
What does Jacob deGrom need to do to make the Hall-of-Fame?
🧓 by Jeffrey Bellone
I can’t decide if people are still interested in who gets elected into the Baseball Hall-of-Fame, or if it simply provides something to talk about in-between the time when the Hot Stove season calms down and when pitchers & catchers are due to report for Spring Training.
We will find out who the latest Hall-of-Famers will be tonight at 6:00 PM EST, or perhaps we will learn nobody has been selected, as some models predict.
The days of walking into a bar that looks like the set on Cheers, with the bartender sliding a cold one across the wooden tabletop as an intense debate erupts over who deserves to be enshrined in Cooperstown feels like a scene from a lost time, and not just because we are all stuck in our homes due to COVID-19.
Performance-enhancing drugs and an increased focus on character outside of baseball has turned innocent sports talk into larger discussions about fairness and the overlap between sports and society. Don’t get me wrong, these aren’t bad things to talk about; in fact they are extremely important, but I understand why people might be turned off from the annual Hall-of-Fame discussion, especially when you mix in personal vendettas made apparent on the ballots of individual voters.
Which is why I wanted to take a different approach in talking about the Hall-of-Fame today. Instead of focusing on who deserves to have their bust placed in the sacred venue based on accomplishments achieved several moons ago, I thought it would be more fun to look at whether a current Met could find his name etched in history someday.
Isn’t it more exciting to root for a player to be great while they are still playing, rather than analyzing the ballots of grumpy old men who evaluate their careers several years later?
In that spirit, let’s talk about Jacob deGrom.
Is there enough time for deGrom to build a Hall-of-Fame resume?
deGrom is an interesting player to monitor for the rest of his career. There is no debate about his current credentials — he is one of the best hurlers in the sport — but his late bloom might impact his ability to fill out a complete Hall-of-Fame resume. deGrom was 26 by the time he cut his teeth in the major leagues, an age by which Clayton Kershaw had already won three Cy Young Awards.
If we consider some of the career mile markers for starters to receive Hall-of-Fame consideration — 300 wins, 3,000 strikeouts — deGrom just doesn’t have nearly enough time (or run support) to get there.
He will turn 33 this upcoming season and he has only started 183 games. Dizzy Dean had the least number of starts by a Hall-of-Famer with 230, Candy Cummings had 241, followed by Addie Joss (260), and Sandy Koufax (314). All of them pitched at least 2,000 innings (Dean had 1,967). For deGrom to cross that threshold, he would need at least four more 200+ inning seasons, plus some change (he currently has 1,169 innings logged).
There is reason to believe the right-hander who burst onto the scene with long wavy hair still has plenty of miles left in his arm since he didn’t start pitching until his junior year of college and his mechanics are sound, as a scout recently explained to FiveThirtyEight:
An NL pitching development official agreed that deGrom may very well be younger in pitching years than his age suggests. He added that deGrom combines an ideally long, lean pitching build with exceptional mechanics.
“He has a lot of similar physical traits to Nolan Ryan, minus the cowboy strength,” the player development official told us. “Long limbs and exceptional mechanical efficiency. Pitchers who lack mechanical efficiency are more reliant on the creation of power to throw hard. When the guys in that bucket stop working hard they lose [velocity] fast, start getting injured, etc.”
What is the path for deGrom to make the Hall-of-Fame?
Let’s start with what he has already accomplished. deGrom announced himself to the league as the 2014 Rookie of the Year. Since then, he has made three All-Star appearances, won an ERA title, led the league in strikeouts twice, and has two Cy Young Awards.
Only ten starters have won at least three Cy Youngs, including Mets great Tom Seaver. If you believe both Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer are destined for the Hall, of those ten multiple-time award winners, only Roger Clemens (due to PEDs) is not a Hall-of-Famer.
However, there are several starters with 2 Cy Youngs who are not in the Hall, including former Met Johan Santana, who offers a cautionary example of a dominant starter who reached baseball’s heights, but couldn’t accumulate enough accolades to surpass the 5% voting threshold to keep his name on the Hall-of-Fame ballot past his first year of eligibility.
deGrom clearly still has work to do, even though among active starters only Kershaw has recorded a higher bWAR over the first seven seasons of his career. And if you consider deGrom’s ERA+ (which neutralizes league differences) between his 5th-7th campaigns as a starter, only Walter Johnson (219) was more impressive than the current Met (188)— read this statistic as deGrom’s ERA was 88% better than league average in that time.
So taking away age and focusing on what deGrom has already done, you find a pretty compelling story about a player who is on the trajectory towards reaching legendary status. And he is pitching his best baseball right now. It’s just a question of how long he can keep it up.
What does deGrom need to do to cement his legacy among baseball’s greats?
For deGrom, his candidacy as a Hall-of-Famer will depend on him proving that he was so damn good over a prolonged stretch of time that it doesn’t matter if his counting stats don’t add up to traditional Cooperstown totals.
He hasn’t built up enough “black ink” or “gray ink” on the leaderboards, which are two metrics Baseball Reference tracks in weighing Hall-of-Fame credentials. But for a period of time, hopefully a long enough one, he might be the best pitcher of his generation.
Sabermetrician Jay Jaffe came up with JAWS to measure Cooperstown worthiness. It takes a player’s career WAR and averages it with their 7-year peak WAR (which is not necessarily over consecutive seasons) and compares that value to the average Hall-of-Famer within each position. deGrom is easy because his career WAR is the same as his 7-year peak WAR. And as of right now, he falls short of meeting the usual standard.
What this all means is that deGrom needs to continue to be one of the best pitchers in the game over the next 4-5 years, while winning another Cy Young (or two) in that timeframe, to give himself a chance to make the cut on a future Hall-of-Fame ballot tally.
It’s not impossible. And if he performs the way he needs to perform, it could mean he is leading the Mets to a World Series championship, especially with a new team owner in place to make sure he has the requisite talent around him. It’s a lot more fun rooting for a player to become a Hall-of-Famer than debating whether he should be post-hoc, so let’s enjoy deGrom while we have him, and perhaps we are watching what would be a legendary late rise to Cooperstown.
MORNING BRIEFING
Below are the additional sections that were sent in the original email newsletter this morning. We later move the analysis section to the top of this page for linking purposes.
⏰ Catch me up in 60(ish) seconds…
🍎BACK AGAIN: Omar Minaya has found his way back to the Mets organization again, sort of. Mike Puma of the NY Post reports he will be “returning to the Mets in an ambassadorship role in which he will make appearances on behalf of the organization, also helping to reach out to the Latino community.”
SOURCES SAY: According to someone who knows him well, Minaya's role is strictly as an ambassador doing community outreach, and won't affect baseball operations.
🍎 BAUER WATCH: Speculation continues to swirl around the Mets and Trevor Bauer, with Andy Martino confirming earlier reports about New York’s interest.
PRICE TAG: John Harper confirms the cost of acquiring Bauer would be sky-high, either on a short- or long-term deal: “If you’re talking about a one-year deal it’s going to take more than $30 million,” one rival team executive told Harper via SNY. “Probably closer to $40 million because he’s going to want the highest AAV, and right now that’s (Gerrit) Cole at $36 million (a year).”
CHANGE OF PLANS: Harper also talked about the seemingly “mixed signals” coming from the Mets on their spending plans: “If the Mets were going to overpay for anyone, [George] Springer was the right guy. When they didn’t, it seemed to send the signal that Cohen would only go so far in first offseason as the billionaire owner. Then the [Trevor] Bauer talk started. Something changed. it’s just hard to know why exactly."
💰 CLEAR THE BOOKS: Andy Martino has been reporting the Mets have a trade lined up for Steven Matz if they sign Trevor Bauer.
🧓 JB’s TAKE: While the Mets could be looking to recoup an asset rather than just waiving Matz, his one-year contract is non-guaranteed, so the team could cut him loose by the middle of March and only owe him 30 days termination pay, which equates into roughly $834,000 of his $5.2 million salary. In other words, they don’t need to trade him to create more luxury tax breathing room, but obviously they would love to net something back for him in this scenario.
🗣 BRYANT SPECULATION: Buster Olney offered an indirect bit of information yesterday: “In the category of informed speculation: I asked one club official not involved in Kris Bryant talks where he thinks the Cubs third baseman will land. His guess is Mets or Jays."
🔝 TOP 3B PROSPECT: 21-year-old Brett Baty ranks as the 7th best third base prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline’s latest list.
SCOUTING REPORT: "The athleticism that made Baty a three-sport standout as a prep shows up on the diamond, and he showed improved agility and more speed last summer at the alternate site. He could develop into an average defender at third base, where his plus arm strength -- he was clocked at 92 mph off the mound in high school -- is an asset, though, overall, Baty will need time to develop on both sides of the ball to reach his ceiling."
🛑 MLB NEGOTIATIONS: It appears we won’t know for a while whether the designated hitter will return to the National League in 2021 as the players rejected the owners’ latest offer tying the DH to expanded playoffs.
🧓 JB’s TAKE: While we are several reports away from learning a real resolution to the DH issue, the longer it takes for a final decision to be made, the more the Mets have to operate in uncertainty in trying to build their roster that is uniquely situated to take advantage of the traditional AL role.
🍎 THE COHEN EFFECT: In a survey of 23 player agents, The Athletic asked about Mets new owner Steve Cohen, eliciting rave responses, such as “He’s the most inspiring owner I’ve seen in 20 years” and “I’m excited to see an owner actually getting out there and trying to compete.”
⚾️ The Arizona Cactus League requested Spring Training to be delayed due to rising COVID-19 cases in Maricopa County in a memo sent to MLB; however, the executive director later responded, ““If it is determined that spring training is going to start on Feb. 27, we’re prepared for that.”
⚾️ The Yankees and Red Sox made their first trade since 2014 with New York sending reliever Adam Ottavino and a prospect to Boston in a cost-saving deal.
⚾️ Dodgers “remain optimistic” they will re-sign free agent Justin Turner, although there are a few contending teams in the mix for his services on a longer-term deal, per Jon Heyman.
⚾️ Masahiro Tanaka is in talks with the Rakuten Eagles of Nippon Professional Baseball, per Sankei Sports in Japan.
⚾️ MLB will hold its first-ever pre-draft combine from June 20-28 in Cary, North Carolina, per Kiley McDaniel of ESPN.
🔗 What next for MLB expansion: Portland, Charlotte, even Vegas? by Eno Sarris, The Athletic: "It’s been almost 30 years since the last time the league expanded, and the American population has grown by about 70 million in that time frame. There must be major-league sized population centers that aren’t being served by major league teams right now, right? There also must be data that can help us figure out which cities check the right boxes — we might also figure out along the way which data matter more than others."
🔗 LISTEN: Mets FA target Jackie Bradley Jr. talks with former Met Collin McHugh: Possible next Mets CF Jackie Bradley Jr. joined the podcast of former Mets RHP Collin McHugh this week to talk about playing with joy, race in baseball and, yes, free agency. (TIP: Collin's podcast is always worth a listen, as he puts you in the clubhouse with his past and present teammates.)
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Am i the only person who writes comments ? I never see any other respeonses or any even to me comments. Especially when i keep saying the Mets are done for the year, Diaz and Matz stink and they will go 'maybe' for a 1 wildcard game on the road as built today.
Tremendous article guys. Just want to say that if DeGrom won another Cy Young, he’s getting in. As you wrote in the article, no pitcher who has won 3 cy’s, hasn’t gotten in, aside from Clemens obviously. If he wins 4!? He’s going down as one of the 10 best pitchers ever.