Jacob deGrom used to be the best pitcher in baseball, but arm injuries took a few years away from his career.
In the modern game of baseball, dominant starting pitchers like SP Jacob deGrom are rarer than lighting striking twice. Yet somehow, starters are surviving, at least for now. The standards are certainly changing from the heights of 300 strikeouts and 25-win seasons. Today, every moment of every game is magnified, so pitchers throw as hard as possible. Trainers closely analyze each nanometer of a pitcher’s arm movement for health concerns, and opponents study to find any tell to take him down. Batters then adjust their stances and swings to gain an advantage at the plate. The only real advantage pitchers have is that hitters only see them twice. After 100 pitches, they are done. There have always been flamethrowers, but today pitchers have tons of movement in addition to velocity.
With so much effort, something’s got to give. Which brings us to the epidemic of Tommy John surgeries shortening pitching careers. The human arm is not constructed to throw a ball as hard as players throw today. Starting from Little League, kids are learning to throw harder instead of craftier, as scouts are looking for the next SP Randy Johnson instead of the next SP Greg Maddux. Heat and movement get guys out instead of allowing balls in play. With batters swinging harder than ever to hit home runs, pitchers constantly work to force them into mistakes. This has become a constant battle of power versus power, leading to the highest strikeout totals in history. Every high-profile starter today must be a strikeout pitcher somehow in order to survive. deGrom is one such pitcher.
Career Arc
His story began perfectly but quickly ran into modern problems. deGrom was the 2014 Rookie of the Year, and the following season he led the New York Mets to the World Series. After two pretty good years, he closed out the 2010s with back-to-back Cy Young Awards. He seemed to be on the fast track to Cooperstown, but then the injuries piled up. In 2021, he missed half the year with a forearm issue. Then in 2023, he underwent Tommy John Surgery. Now, he is back to full strength for hopefully a solid stretch of time, but deGrom is still fragile. Pitching for the Texas Rangers, he is now 37 and has a finite amount of time left. They are even skipping his next start.
Making his MLB debut at 26 certainly didn’t help matters, as deGrom’s first TJ was back in 2010 in college. Yet his quick impact in the Majors helped fuel his rise to superstardom and give the impression that he joins the tier of SPs Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander. Even today, deGrom continues to dominate when healthy. But the times when that is the case are so rare it’s a wonder he’s pitching at all. Athletes never want to give up, and deGrom certainly won’t. But for all the injuries, there should be some reward for the pain or the knowledge that he couldn’t do anything better.
deGrom’s numbers show that his good days are great. His career K/BB rate of 5.37 is an MLB record at the 1500 inning threshold. His career ERA+ is an amazing 153, and his strikeouts per nine innings is a whopping 10.8. But the most unbelievable is a career WHIP of .988. Only two other pitchers have a career WHIP under 1.00, and both are in the Hall of Fame. They also pitched in the Dead Ball Era, which is to say it is not fair to compare deGrom to them side by side. But deGrom’s case will get stronger with time, as his flashes of brilliance remind people of his amazing peak.
The Promise Remains
There is still hope that deGrom achieves baseball immortality. He is less than 200 strikeouts away from 2000. Plus, three full seasons of pitching would see him reach 2000 innings. The biggest hindrance will be a low win total, as he is six away from 100. deGrom is not the modern-day SP Sandy Koufax, a man who threw four no-hitters and had three seasons with 300 strikeouts. deGrom, meanwhile, has had opportunities to right himself for good, and voters will have to consider that in the context of when he played. They will also need to consider his impact on the teams he played for.
Given the rigors and requirements of modern pitching, teams should be giving pitchers their flowers far more often than they are willing to do. Jacob deGrom is indeed a victim of this onslaught against starting pitchers, but more importantly, he didn’t get to show his peak as long as he could have. He was a valuable asset to a point who became a liability that coaches need to plan around. No team wants to worry about the constant possibility that deGrom could get hurt at any moment. But his impact on the game is immense, with hitters praising his ability. Yet as far as that talent bringing him a bronze plaque, well, that’s another story. Hopefully that ending is still a few years away.
When that day comes, voters will ask one simple question: given his brilliance at his peak, was everything deGrom did enough?
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