This Week in Mets: No, really, can Jacob deGrom challenge Bob Gibson? (2024)

“And really, what good are dreams if they come true?”
— “A Fan’s Notes,” Frederick Exley

Nobody in baseball history has been better through the first nine starts of a season than Jacob deGrom.

DeGrom’s 0.62 ERA through nine starts bests Juan Marichal’s from 1966 — finally, vengeance for the Mets on their long tormentor of the 1960s — after his seven shutout frames against San Diego on Saturday. DeGrom will take on the Padres again this Friday, and to hold the best-ever ERA through 10 starts, he’ll have to blank the Friars again: Marichal was at 0.59 through 10 in ’66.

“We’re witnessing something special here. The most incredible thing is he just keeps getting better every time he goes out there,” manager Luis Rojas said over the weekend. “Wearing the same uniform he wears makes you feel part of history. It’s just amazing.”

The thought that deGrom just might keep getting better, in perpetuity, first struck me early in the 2019 season. He had thrown 13 shutout innings to start the season, with 24 strikeouts. He had compiled a record streak of quality starts. What if he never had a bad start?

He had a bad start that night, allowing six runs to the Twins. Alas…

So there’s some trepidation in the following exercise, brought up last week by Joe Posnanski at The Athletic. What would it take for deGrom to post a qualified ERA better than Bob Gibson’s 1.12 from 1968?

Gibson’s 1.12 came in the Year of the Pitcher, when the major-league ERA was 2.98 and the average team slugged 100 homers on the season. Six other pitchers had season-long ERAs under 2.00 that season, although only Cleveland’s Luis Tiant came within a half-run of Gibson at 1.60.

This season has established echoes to that ’68 precedent, with pitching proving overwhelmingly dominant early. But while the league batting average is the same this year as then (.237), teams are averaging just about a full run more per game.

Let’s examine four different ways this season can play out for deGrom’s usage and what he would need to do to best Gibson. It’s worth noting up front: This remains exceedingly unlikely, but that I feel I can discuss this without being laughed out of hand shows just how remarkable deGrom’s progression the last few years and his season to this point has been.

1. In the first scenario, deGrom just gets to the 162 innings he’d need to qualify for the ERA title, which means he’d only throw 104 more frames this season. This would be bad news for the Mets, but pretty good news for the right-hander’s chances at history.

Over those 104 innings, deGrom could give up 16 earned runs and post a full-season 1.11 ERA. His ERA from here on out would have to be 1.38.

That’s the kind of stretch deGrom has already achieved before in-season. In 2018, he had a 16-start run (from April 21 to July 23) in which he tossed 106 1/3 innings at a 1.35 clip.

2. DeGrom is on pace right now to throw 181 innings this season, which is a bit low because he’s spent time on the injured list and been limited in a few of his starts. But in the second scenario, let’s imagine he ends up throwing only those 181 innings, which would be 123 more this year. How good would he have to be to stay below 1.12?

DeGrom would have to throw those 123 innings at an ERA of 1.32 to finish with an ERA at 1.09 for the season. While deGrom himself doesn’t have a stretch like that, a few other active pitchers do: Jake Arrieta, Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke.

In 2015, Arrieta beat that mark pretty easily, as his final 17 starts carried a microscopic 0.77 ERA over exactly 123 innings. That same season, Kershaw had a 17-start stretch over 129 innings with a 1.26 ERA, and his teammate Greinke’s first 19 starts over 131 1/3 innings came with a 1.30 ERA. (The Mets, you may remember, beat all three of those pitchers in the National League playoffs. DeGrom beat both LA starters in the NLDS.)

One year earlier, Kershaw had a 16-start stretch over 126 innings at a 1.14 ERA. It is notable that all four of those stretches took place in 2014 and 2015, when offenses performed much worse than they would from 2016 through 2020. This year, of course, offense is down again, significantly.

DeGrom wouldn’t be the first Met to have that stretch: Tom Seaver posted a 1.10 ERA over 131 innings (his final 15 starts) in 1971.

Other pitchers who did that between 1968 and 2014: Vida Blue (1971), Steve Carlton (1972), Gaylord Perry (1974), John Tudor (1985) and Greg Maddux (1998).

3. The Mets probably hope this scenario is the most realistic one: DeGrom experiences no health setbacks moving forward and makes 21 more starts over New York’s final 110 games. (Why 21? Because the Mets have 118 days left in their season, and in 2018 and 2019, deGrom took the mound, on average, every 5.625 days, and 118 divided by 5.625 is basically 21.)

Since the start of 2018, DeGrom has averaged 6.43 innings per start, which multiplied by 21 means he’d throw 135 more innings this season for a full-season total of 193. He’d have to pitch his final 135 innings this season at a 1.33 ERA to finish at the end of the year with a mark of 1.12. (His ERA would round up to 1.12 in this scenario; Gibson’s in ’68 rounded down.)

Again, Arrieta (2015) and Kershaw (2014-2015) are active pitchers who have done that over 135-inning stretches. Greinke just misses it, as does Dwight Gooden in 1985. But Seaver did it in ’71 for the Mets.

4. The final scenario is the most ambitious and thus the toughest for deGrom. What if the Mets looked to aggressively maximize deGrom’s innings the rest of the season? Beginning Friday, he could start 23 more times this season. And while he’s averaged those 6.43 innings per start since the start of 2018, he’s been newly efficient this season (more on that below) and could conceivably pack more innings into his usual pitch count.

DeGrom has averaged 99 pitches per start since 2018. This year, he’s averaging 13 pitches per inning. If the Mets let him throw 99 pitches on average and he sustained his current efficiency, he’d average 7.6 innings per start over those final 23, throwing 175 more innings to reach what we can all agree would be a pretty wild 233 on the season. (No pitcher has reached that many regular-season innings since 2014.)

DeGrom would have to throw those 175 innings at a 1.29 ERA, which is essentially seven innings with one run per start.

Only Perry, with a 1.28 ERA over 183 innings in ’74, has done that since Gibson. (Perry gave up nine runs his next time out.) Tudor came exceedingly close in ’85, with a 1.16 over 171 innings — but that stretch was bookended by bad outings. Seaver in ’71 and Gooden in ’85 came close as Mets, with ERAs of 1.38 over such a stretch.

Will it happen? Almost certainly not. As Posnanski pointed out, a single bad outing from deGrom would tank his chances. One five innings, five earned line would require four straight shutouts to balance it out. Of course, in 85 starts since the beginning of 2018, deGrom has allowed five earned runs three times, all of them in a six-week span of early 2019.

But can it happen? It’s not impossible. And really, that’s what deGrom has become so good at these last four years: He has altered our conception of the possible.

THE EXPOSITION

The Mets flew back from the West Coast with a winning record so far on the road trip, with a hard-earned split in San Diego over the weekend. New York is 29-23, 3.5 games clear of Atlanta in the NL East.

The Orioles have won four games in June already after compiling just five victories all of May. Baltimore ended its 14-game losing streak by taking consecutive series from Minnesota and Cleveland. The Orioles’ 21-38 record, though, is the worst in the American League.

The Padres’ split with the Mets came after they were swept at Wrigley Field. San Diego is 36-25, two back of the Giants, headed into a home set with the Cubs.

THE ESTIMATED PITCHING MATCHUPS

at Baltimore

LHP David Peterson (1-4, 5.89 ERA) vs. LHP Bruce Zimmermann (3-3, 4.96 ERA)
RHP Taijuan Walker (4-2, 2.17) vs. RHP Matt Harvey (3-6, 6.62)

vs. San Diego

RHP Jacob deGrom (5-2, 0.62) vs. LHP Blake Snell (2-2, 4.83)
LHP Joey Lucchesi (1-4, 5.79) vs. RHP Joe Musgrove (4-5, 2.33)
RHP Marcus Stroman (5-4, 2.41) vs. RHP Chris Paddack (2-5, 4.27)

WHAT CAN WE LEARN ABOUT THE METS THIS WEEK?

The two games I’m most interested in are the ones started by Peterson and Lucchesi. DeGrom, Walker and Stroman have been nails for the Mets so far this season. Lucchesi looks like he’s turning a corner, for reasons discussed below, but hasn’t done it for five innings yet. Peterson is coming off a one-out start in Arizona and facing an offense that, while mediocre overall, owns an .805 OPS against left-handers. How does he bounce back?

THREE QUESTIONS WITH A BEAT WRITER

Let’s chat with Dan Connolly, who covers the Orioles for The Athletic. I don’t know that we have any baseball beat writer who writes better features than Dan.

What’s been different for Matt Harvey since that start at Citi Field? Starting with that game, his ERA is 12.96.

I think he put a lot of pressure on himself in his return to New York, and things spiraled downward after that. Mainly, I think, it has been a recent struggle with his fastball command. He hasn’t walked many; he’s just not spotting his pitches the way he did in the first part of the season. He actually looked pretty good in his last outing, when he was supposed to be an opener and last one to two innings, but he felt so good — even on short rest — that he asked to pitch a third.

On the flip side, what’s clicked for Ryan Mountcastle in the last month?

Mountcastle is going to strike out. We know that. But last year he really improvedhis pitch selectionand recognition in the alternate camp and, when he got the big-league call, he was swinging at strikes and not chasing pitches. In the beginningof this year, pitchersexpanded the zone on him, and he fell back into old habits. Recently, he’s concentrated on not chasing again, he started to make more hard contact, and he said he feels a lot more confident at the plate in the past couple weeks.

What’s the best thing that’s happened for the Orioles so far this season?

Can I offer a three-way tie? It’s hard to beat Trey Mancini’s return from colon cancer surgery. A year ago he was still getting chemo treatments and now he’s competing for the AL RBI lead. Then there’s John Means, who, before he was placed on the IL Sunday with a left shoulder strain, was making an ascension into ace territory. But the most pleasant surprise has to be Cedric Mullins, who is playing Gold Glove defense in center, has nine homers and nine steals and is leading the AL in hits. That was boosted by his performance this weekend in which he reached base in 11 straight plate appearances and had nine consecutive hits, falling one short of Ken Singleton’s franchise record in 1981.

RECENT SERIES HISTORY

The Mets swept two from the Orioles at Citi Field last month. Five times in their history the Mets have traveled to Baltimore to play two games, and five times they’ve split the two, including in the 1969 World Series and in the shortened 2020 season.

New York and San Diego split their four games last weekend in southern California. The Mets took two of three from the Padres when they last met at Citi Field in July 2019.

I’m kind of amazed that the Mets have a losing record in their history against the Padres (247-252). New York has a winning record against just four National League franchises, though, all of whom joined the NL since 1993. San Diego is the closest they are to the .500 mark with any NL team.

INSIDE BASEBALL

Let’s look at an interesting split for Joey Lucchesi. It’s how he’s done in his last three outings compared to his first six.

Another interesting split for Lucchesi is how he’s done out of the wind-up versus out of the stretch this season.

Now let’s combine the two.

What changed?

Pitching coach Jeremy Hefner and the Mets noticed possible tells in Lucchesi’s delivery, from both the wind-up and stretch, that could tip whether he was throwing his two-seam fastball or his signature churve. Pitch tipping is bad all the time, but it’s especially punitive on someone with Lucchesi’s relatively limited repertoire.

So the Mets worked with Lucchesi on altering and simplifying both of his deliveries. He no longer goes over his head to start his wind-up, and he begins his motion out of the stretch with his hands at his belt rather than at his chest.

Here’s his changes to the wind-up, side by side:

And the stretch side-by-side:

“There was a bit of tipping going on,” Hefner said before Lucchesi’s start against the Padres last week. “So it was a little bit more about that than it was necessarily mechanical adjustments for performance. So we’re just trying to eliminate some of the tells that he was displaying. It’s something that we’ve been talking about for probably a month, and then just really felt like, due to the performance, other teams have probably figured it out. And so we needed to make an adjustment.”

“It’s minimized and simplified everything. My teammates and coaches were telling me I was just doing too much,” Lucchesi said after his start in San Diego. “I’m not changed, I just subtracted. I feel like I’m heading where I need to be.”

For a pitcher with his ERA, Lucchesi turns in an awful lot of 1-2-3 innings — 43 percent, or 11 percentage points better than Marcus Stroman. That 43 percent is better than 2018 Jacob deGrom. It was the other 57 percent of innings that were crushing Lucchesi, and he’s done a better job limiting damage in them of late.

Over his last three starts, Lucchesi’s allowed two earned runs on seven hits in 12 1/3 innings, good for a 1.46 ERA. He’s departed those three games up one, tied and down one — an improvement over his first three starts, when the Mets were three, three and one run behind when Lucchesi left.

New York is going to need that kind of effort from the left-hander throughout this month. For most of the season, Lucchesi has been the club’s provisional starter. His spot in the rotation was often TBA until shortly before the game as the Mets considered an opener or some other strategy. But starting with Friday’s series opener against the Padres, New York has just one more day off before the All-Star break. It will play 33 games in 31 days. It will need sixth and seventh starters beyond Lucchesi, and so it will lean on him to be more reliable each fifth day.

“It’s huge for us that Lucchesi’s doing this,” manager Luis Rojas said last Friday.

“Each good outing makes me feel that much better,” said Lucchesi. “It makes me feel good and builds my confidence.”

SOME CHARTS I’D ALREADY MADE FOR A DIFFERENT STORY AND WILL USE HERE

(This is taken directly from our MLB Power Rankings that I wrote with Chad Jennings for Monday.)

The most interesting aspect of deGrom’s success so far this season has been his efficiency. In 2020, deGrom was less efficient than he’d ever been in his career: The average plate appearance took 4.22 pitches, the average inning took 16.7 pitches. And thus, after averaging just about 6 2/3 innings per start over 2018 and 2019, he averaged only 5 2/3 per start last year. It may have cost him a third straight Cy Young.

This year, deGrom is throwing far fewer pitches even as he strikes out way more hitters. He’s punching out better than 45 percent of opposing hitters, which is an incredible mark for a one-inning closer to achieve. His strikeout rate is a quarter better than any other starter’s in the sport right now.

And yet, he’s become one of the game’s most efficient pitchers. The average plate appearance against deGrom is a half-pitch shorter than last year, down to 3.70. The average inning takes barely 13 pitches.

Is that latter number the best in baseball? Yes, that is the best in baseball — by a lot.

Can you pick it out? Here, let me help you. It’s the data point I can draw a whole circle around without a fancy stylus because there’s so much room between it and all the other data points.

INJURY UPDATES

Luis Guillorme started his rehab assignment in Syracuse last week, and he could be activated by the major-league team by the end of this week.

Albert Almora Jr. could be out on his own rehab assignment by the end of the week.

Jeff McNeil is closer to a rehab assignment than Michael Conforto, but there’s still no timeline for that.

Brandon Nimmo has been taking dry swings (swings without a pitch), with an eye toward swinging against soft toss and then batting practice before going out on a rehab assignment. I am used to hearing about throwing progressions more than swinging progressions, to be honest.

J.D. Davis is in a splint until the middle of this week. After that, he’ll be reevaluated and can potentially start ramping up his swing progression.

Carlos Carrasco has been working on strengthening his hamstring so that when he goes out on a rehab assignment, he won’t face any issues.

I LOOKED UP A STAT

Baseball’s impending crackdown on foreign substances will make, if it hasn’t already, amateur sleuths of us all. So naturally, as a video of deGrom adjusting his belt and touching his glove made the rounds on Twitter, I looked up how the spin rate on his four-seam fastball has evolved over time.

Here it is, year over year, compared to the league average:

Here it is, year over year, compared to the league average and to the four-seam spin rates of Trevor Bauer and Gerrit Cole — two of the pitchers most under the microscope for their year-over-year gains in spin rate:

Yes, it’s cherry-picking. But it also shows that while deGrom’s spin rate has gone up, it hasn’t made the kind of leap that has created so much suspicion around other pitchers. What I actually find most remarkable about deGrom’s chart is that his average spin rate was the same in 2018 as it was in 2017, and that was the year his performance improved the most.

Among the 319 pitchers who have thrown 100 four-seam fastballs this season, deGrom’s average spin rate is tied for 77th.

THIS WEEK’S MINOR-LEAGUE SCHEDULE

• Syracuse hosts Worcester (BOS)

• Binghamton hosts Bowie (BAL)

• Brooklyn hosts Hudson Valley (NYY)

• St. Lucie hosts Palm Beach (STL)

A NOTE ON THE EPIGRAPH

I’m putting this together just after learning that former Giants head coach Jim Fassel died on Monday. Fassel was extremely gracious with his time just a few months ago for my retrospective on the Giants’ 41-0 victory over the Vikings in the 2000 NFC Championship Game, and I was taken aback by how emotional he got when discussing that game — what it still meant to him.

And thinking about the Giants, of course, makes me think about “A Fan’s Notes.”

WHAT THE ATHLETIC IS TELLING YOU TO THINK

For the Mets, winning in June means winning with the healthy heart of their order.

PREDICTION TIME

Jacob deGrom’s season-end ERA will be higher than 1.12.

(Photo of Jacob deGrom: Mike Stobe / Getty Images)