Jacob deGrom Wins The NL Cy Young Award After Turning In One Of The Most Dominant Seasons We Will Ever See
I think or at least hope that everybody knew this was coming since we are in the year 2018 of our Lord and have brains advanced enough to realize how little pitcher wins should weigh into the Cy Young Award, which the always reliable Wikipedia says is given annually to the best pitchers in Major League Baseball (MLB), one each for the American League (AL) and National League (NL). You can make a case that an MVP from a losing team doesn’t make sense because the V stands for valuable and being valuable for a shitty team is different than being valuable for a playoff team. But the word “best” is pretty straightforward and deGrom was clearly the best pitcher this season*.
*Source: Anybody with a working brain and set of eyes, which is apparently 29 of the 30 voters
What Jacob deGrom did on a shitty team with even shittier owners is nothing short of remarkable. Fuck a Cy Young Award. Jacob deGrom deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for not killing anybody on the Mets for how often the lineup and bullpen let him down. I actually got sad before deGrom start because I knew somehow, some way the team would let him down yet again. You know shit is bad when you can’t even get excited for an absolute dominant pitcher on your team. deGrom knew he was going into every game overmatched and he still did his job every single time. It got to the point where you could give me one real stat about deGrom’s season and one fake stat and I wouldn’t know which was which.
Here are some super fancy stats for the sabermetrics Stoolies:
- Led the majors with a 1.70 ERA, which was the fifth-lowest mark since 1996
– His 0.41 HR/9 rate was second in the majors and led the NL. DeGrom allowed 10 homers, while likely Cy Young runner-up Max Scherzer allowed 23.
– His 8.8 fWAR was the highest among qualified pitchers
– Had a 0.69 WHIP with runners in scoring position, while allowing just 19 hits to the 126 batters he faced
– Allowed three runs or fewer in 29 consecutive starts as he finished the season — the longest single-season streak in MLB history
– His 0.91 WHIP was tied for best in the NL (with Scherzer), and trailed only Justin Verlander 0.90) for the best in baseball
– Pitched to the most soft contact in the majors (25.2 percent)
– Led the NL with a 1.99 FIP
– Had a career-high 269 strikeouts (second-best in the NL, behind Scherzer and his MLB-leading 300), including 11 double-digit strikeout performances
– His 216 ERA+ led the NL and was the fifth-best since the turn of the century
And a perfect commercial straight out of the slimiest politicians campaign on the planet
Absolutely stupid stuff. How do you not give a guy with THAT resume and this commercial the Cy Young? Because Max Scherzer got a bunch of wins, strikeouts, and pitched 3 more innings? Fuck outta here! Jacob deGrom may have gone 32-0 if he pitched for the Nats. I thought cutting that wonderful flow and pitching with a cranky elbow early in the year would be the end of the great Jacob deGrom we all knew and loved. Instead he delivered one of the greatest seasons we will ever see and was the best pitcher in all of baseball. And he was rightly rewarded for it. Good thing the Mets bought low and locked deGrom up to a contract before he added a comma to his worth and his agent was hired as GM of the team.
I love Jacob deGrom. I hate the New York Mets. Buy a goddamn shirt and support the brightest part of our summers.
