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Jacob deGrom Better Throw A No-Hitter Soon

Front entrance of Inatome steakhouse, with a spiral japanese garden design in the sand

Jacob, you’re on notice. I NEED a no-hitter this season. You’re welcome to outsource this if you like, but it’d be cool if it was you, another notch in your belt for that Hall Of Fame quest.

We all remember Johan Santana’s no-hitter, obviously. Almost nine years ago. As of this writing, there have been 32 more. The New York Mets 0 since then is already below average. No Nohan post is complete without the writer’s personal story, so I’ll share mine. We were out to dinner at a hibachi place, Inatome in Valley Stream, for my mother in-law’s birthday. As one does, I was peaking at the game via the MLB At Bat app on my phone, just checking in mostly. 

I don’t think I even noticed the no-hitter until the 6th. Needless to say I was less and less invested in dinner. We left at the bottom of the 8th, and I listened in the car to Howie Rose. I remember intersections, waiting for specific lights, because I really wanted to focus and for some reason the anxiety I felt at each intersection as I deflected some of my attention to and from the road solidified these memories. I dropped everyone else off and sat in the car and listened to the last two outs, and then a bit of the aftermath, and then went inside and watched SNY. 

It’s been almost nine years. It’s time. That was a great night, but there was fun and lore around the Mets not having a no-hitter too, and now that we’ve got one, I need more. Radio producer Chris Majkowski’s “Not Tonight Boss” after every opposing first hit of the night was fun. There was a lot of talk about hitting the 8000 game mark without one, and the daily counting became a ritual. No-hitters are mostly flukey, given the nature of batted balls and how it’s easy for them to just find grass even if they weren’t particularly well hit. There was no shame in not having one, it was just one of those weird statistical quirks that makes baseball fun. Jacob deGrom’s 15 strikeout game had two hits, one a soft hit that just found a hole, and a second that Brandon Nimmo probably should’ve fielded. It was a more dominating game than Santana’s no-hitter. Game of inches as they say. 

The Padres Joe Musgrove pitched a no-hitter this year, meaning now EVERY team has at least one. It’s time for the often pitching-rich Mets to start to rack these up. It doesn’t have to be deGrom, I’d happily accept one from any Mets pitcher or even a combined no-hitter! Those are fun too! It’s 2021, the Mets rotation is stacked, and they need to start delivering.

Actual cake we had that night
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The Incredible Hitting Mets Pitchers

I’ve pretty much come around on DH for all over the years. I’d prefer pitcher’s bat but it just seems that no one really takes it seriously, so let’s get a batter that’s actually trying. It seems like a farce most of the time. Plus David Wright may have been able to extend his career if it was DH only a few years ago, and the juiced ball would’ve been kind to Wright’s hitting profile.

So it came as somewhat of a shock to see just how well the Mets are doing as pitchers at-bat this season. I don’t know if this is a quirk of the Mets pitchers just being really super athletic and good, or if there is some extra batting practice going on, but they’re really doing quite well. 

Mets pitchers as a group have 1.7 fWAR, which is way more than the second place Dodgers at 0.5 fWAR. That’s a not-insignificant contribution from the Mets pitchers at the plate. They are the only NL club with a positive wRC+, at 32, which means they are 32% of an average MLB hitter, which is probably way better than you think a typical pitcher is. Jacob deGrom and Zack Wheeler are at 0.6 fWAR each, or more than every other team’s entire rotation. 

The Diamondbacks have five home runs, though only a 0.1 fWAR overall, from their pitchers, the Brewers have two, and the Mets have six. This means that only one other team has more pitcher home runs than Noah Syndergaard or deGrom. 

Thor in particular is swinging for the fences. He’s got three singles, 1 double, and 2 home runs. The average distance of his contact is 225ft, which is 50 ft further than Jon Lester, who’s second, minimum 10 results. Lester and the Cubs do edge the Mets slightly in average exit velocity, 78.6 mph to 77.8.

There have been 23 plays by pitchers classified by Statcast as Barrels, or ideal contact, and the Mets have six of them. Syndergaard has three, Zack Greinke actually has five himself for the lead, and Madison Bumgartner is the other pitcher with more than one, with two. Greinke with three home runs is the only non-Mets pitcher with more than one. 

Mets pitchers can swing some wood! Who knew!

Special shoutout to Stephen Matz, the fourth guy who’s contributing value here. Stephen Matz also is the fastest pitcher in baseball, as far as Statcast can be trusted in measuring something that’s fairly small sample. 28.9 ft/s puts him in the top 8% of the league, or 53rd. That’s also 5th for 28 year olds. Statcast doesn’t really put the pitcher’s on the leaderboards, but of the Mets position players, only Amed Rosario at 29.2 ft/s is faster. 

Something to keep in mind if the Mets are looking for late-game pinch runners for the playoff run or postseason.

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I’m Not Dead, Think I’ll Go For A Walk

Losing Jacob deGrom for an unspecified amount of time is bad no matter how you cut it.  Losing one singular player, even perhaps the best player, is not catastrophic in baseball.  It’s way too soon to close the casket on this season, or act like we’re going to close the casket, especially when we don’t even know deGrom’s timetable.  Let’s give it a few days at least? The Mets had two of the best pitchers in baseball, but the good news here is that they still have one. Noah Syndergaard is still awesome.

 

It is still a huge blow though, the Mets depth in pitchers was, and is, pretty large, but none of them have stood out. It’ll need to be more than Thor, maybe some decent Wheeler and Vargas starts, and then hope. Between Seth Lugo, Robert Gsellman, Steven Matz, and even Matt Harvey and some of the AAA depth, there’s some potential for quality innings and competitive starts, the Mets just need to find it.

 

The real issue right now is the bats, and getting more offense from some of these guys. Especially with another quality pitcher down, you’d like to score even more runs to account for it, and I suspect the Mets will hit more than they have lately, though the lineup isn’t without it’s own concerns, particularly at catcher.

 

So losing deGrom is a concern, but it’s way too early to panic and there is still a lot of decisions to be made, games to be played, and wins to be had. If you still believe the Nationals are the best team in the division, the Mets still have a nice lead. The Braves and Phillies might be playing well for a month, but there’s no reason to think these teams are this good, even if they were underestimated in the offseason.  It’s time to hold serve, and get back to some winning baseball.  We’ll know more about the holes we need to patch, or repair, in a few weeks.

 

 

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Jacob deGrom Wins IBWAA Rookie Of The Year Award

Kathy Willens/AP The little-known Jacob deGrom turns plenty of heads in his Major League debut.The IBWAA, of which I am a member, is the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America and released the results of their Rookie of the Year balloting today. I can’t speak to how it mirrors the official award, but I’m happy with the result.

 

Los Angeles – The Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA) announced the winners in the Rookie of the Year category Monday, with the Chicago White Sox’ Jose Abreu winning the group’s American League award, and Jacob deGrom, of the New York Mets, being selected in the National League.

Jacob deGrom received 105 first place votes and beat out Billy Hamilton by 130 points.

My ballot:

  1. Jacob deGrom
  2. Billy Hamilton
  3. Travis d’Arnaud

and AL:

  1. Jose Abreu
  2. Kevin Kiermaier
  3. Collin McHugh

Jacob deGrom was a no-brainer for me, and though it may be tinged with a little home-town favoritism, it can’t be understated how good Travis d’Arnaud was after his demotion, and at a critical position.