Jacob's ladder has a Cy Young rung now

[EasyAce]

The voting writers wisely chose not to hold it against NL Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom that he could sue his team for non support
By Yours Truly



Jacob deGrom in his collegiate youth loathed the idea of becoming a pitcher despite being a light-hitting shortstop with a live throwing arm. So much so that he quit his tiny Florida summer league team—then managed by Mets managing legend Davey Johnson—because being made a pitcher for three weeks absolutely mortified him.

That was 2009. This is 2018. And if beating out the nonpareil Max Scherzer in a walk for the National League’s Cy Young Award this year is mortifying, deGrom can live with that. He got 29 of 30 possible first place votes; Scherzer got 29 of 30 possible second place votes. You guessed it: Scherzer got the first place vote deGrom didn’t get, and deGrom got the second place vote Scherzer didn’t get.

The kid who didn’t want to pitch in the first place was baseball’s best pitcher in 2018. Well, once upon a time a Brooklyn kid named Sandy Koufax preferred to play basketball. We know how that worked out for him.

DeGrom formerly wore his hair in the shoulder-length, corn-broom style that’s still favoured by such as his teammate Noah Syndergaard and by the Brewers’ sharp young relief pitcher Josh Hader. When Samson let Delilah cut his hair, he became weak as a newborn kitten. When deGrom, already an excellent pitcher, let his locks be shorn last winter, he became Samson.

Alas, Samson got more support from a forgiving God and His children Israel than deGrom got from his Mets this year. Samson finally brought the Philistines’ temple down upon them, and upon himself while he was at it. This year’s Mets usually let the Philistines escape. The Cy Young Award voters chose wisely not to hold that against him.

Despite seeming to do everything in their power to prevent it, the Mets couldn’t stop deGrom from becoming their fourth Cy Young Award winner, after Hall of Famer Tom Seaver (thrice), Dwight Gooden (once), and R.A. Dickey (once). Dickey knew only too well what it meant to pitch like an ace on a team of jokers.

“It was kind of the only thing going with the team at the time,” says Dickey, who wrote about it for the New York Post this week, remembering his 2012 Cy Young campaign. “For me it was something to be shared with the fans who had weathered a tough year. I feel like Jacob has treated it the same way. He’s been real humble about it.”

On the mound, the righthander is about as humble as a crocodile pit, and just as expressionless when consuming his meals at the plate or maintaining when he comes out of yet another game with yet another 50-50 chance of nothing to show for it except another gold star for his reputation.

“Whether the team made a mistake behind him, or whether it was the seventh inning and the Mets got men on base and didn’t score, you never saw his demeanor change,” says Gooden, who thought watching deGrom this year was like watching a video game performance. “As a pitcher and a human being, it’s only natural that you show some kind of facial expressions, but I never saw that from him.”

It only begins with recalling deGrom had 29 consecutive 2018 starts in which he surrendered three earned runs or less, the longest such streak in Show history, right down to his last start of the season, and he only surrendered three five times all year long. Maybe less if you account for those times his relief surrendered the third run.

Let’s dispose of the won-lost record issue right here and now, and not just because there have been two previous Cy Young Award winners to win only 13 games. (Fernando Valenzuela, strike-disrupted 1981; Felix Hernandez, uninterrupted 2010.) DeGrom’s was, yes, 10-9. And the old-schoolers to whom statistics are the blood poisoning and not the life blood of baseball would holler foul! over such a record winning such an award.

Now, listen up: If you consider that surrendering three earned runs or less is pitching well enough to win, deGrom had twelve games with no decision in which he pitched that way—and he was charged with three earned runs in two of them. Had the Mets won those games with him as the pitcher of record, deGrom’s won-lost record would have been (read carefully) 22-9.

Until this season, deGrom was probably the least hyped of the Mets’ previously-vaunted pitching youth. Syndergaard, Steven Matz, Zack Wheeler, and the since-departed Matt Harvey have gotten more play. It turns out deGrom is the best of the group and the least glamourised.

Harvey collapsed in a morass of health and psychological issues and is now trying to remodel his career elsewhere. Syndergaard can be a lancer one moment and a target the next. Matz and Wheeler haven’t remained consistently healthy enough to live up to their talent. DeGrom stands taller than any of that quartet have climbed so far.

He’s the Mets’ steady rider turned precision assassin. These years starting pitchers customarily work on five days’ rest. DeGrom pitched 21 times on four and six times on five. The kid who once would rather have had a castor oil on the rocks than pitch has become a young man whose only problem in taking the ball is holding him back.

“My thought process,” deGrom has told MLB Network, “was to take the ball and control what you can control.”

The National League’s 2018 leader in ERA (1.70—only the ninth pitcher in baseball since 1970 to have a 1.70 ERA or lower for a season), fielding-independent pitching (your ERA when your defense is taken out of the equation: 1.98), wins above a replacement-level player (at any position: 10), home run rate (0.4) and win probability added (6.0) did it while keeping enemy hitters to a sub-.200 batting average overall against him.

Hall of Famer Willie Stargell once said hitting against fellow Hall of Famer Koufax was like drinking coffee with a fork. Hitting against deGrom this year was like grinding coffee with a toothpick. When the Mets rewarded deGrom for his last start by finishing what he started, a 3-0 shutout of the NL East-winning Braves, Braves catcher Tyler Flowers could only shake his head. “I just want to watch the game on TV later,” Flowers said. “I know I didn’t get anything to hit. I think most of the other guys would say the same thing.”

“You hate to face him,” said Braves manager Brian Snitker, who’s just been named the National League’s Manager of the Year for taking the East about a year before the Baby Braves were supposed to do it. “It’s almost like you hope you can just play to a 0-0 tie ‘till he’s done.”

He’s only the second pitcher since the earned run became an official statistic in 1913 to have a sub-2.00 ERA, 250+ strikeouts, and -50 walks on a season. The first was Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez in 2000. The Mets were 14-17 in deGrom’s starts—and deGrom’s ERA just in those losses was 2.13. That, says the Elias Sports Bureau, is the first time any starting pitcher’s ERA in his team’s losses on a full season was under 2.35. DeGrom himself was charged with nine losses . . . and his ERA in those losses was 2.71.

Eight times in baseball history has a pitcher with 150+ innings pitched and an ERA under 1.70 in a season, and only two of them didn’t win Cy Young Awards: Zack Greinke (1.66 in 2015) and Luis Tiant (1.60 in 1968). El Tiante, in fact, led the American League with his ERA, his 2.04 fielding-independent pitching rate, his hits per nine innings rate (5.3), and his win probability added. (6.4) But he didn’t stand a chance against Denny McLain’s 31 wins. (Neither, as things turned out, did McLain himself.)

DeGrom was Martinez 2000, Bob Gibson 1968, and Koufax 1965-66 this season. The Mets treated him as if he was the late Anthony Young 1992-93, when that hapless but courageous pitcher lost 27 consecutive decisions. And yet deGrom talks aloud about signing a long-term extension with the Mets, and the Mets don’t seem unwilling to consider it.

That may make deGrom baseball’s version of the abused spouse. The one who lets the bastard come back after he promises for the umpteen hundredth time that he’ll never, never, never, ever do that again. But deGrom would probably hear the comparison and then find a real abused spouse to give his Cy Young Award if he thought doing so would truly heal her. 
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[DCPatriot]

Excellent piece, @EasyAce !

In the end, however, it's bullshit to give the Cy Young to DeGrom.

This is just another example of the realities of participation trophies.

[EasyAce]

Excellent piece, @EasyAce !

In the end, however, it's bullshit to give the Cy Young to DeGrom.

This is just another example of the realities of participation trophies.

@DCPatriot
It wasn't a "participation" trophy, it was recognition that the best pitcher in the National League this season didn't deserve to be penalised because his team didn't perform up to his standard. If Jacob deGrom didn't have the season he had Max Scherzer probably would have won the NL Cy Young Award---and probably by the same margin over Aaron Nola that deGrom won over Scherzer. (DeGrom got 29 out of 30 first place votes; Scherzer, believe it or not, got 29 out of 30 second place votes. You guessed it: Scherzer got the other first place vote and deGrom got the other second place vote. You kind of feel for Nola picking a season to come out as a great pitcher during a year baseball's best pitcher the past three or four years was beaten out by a usually excellent pitcher who went off the charts and beyond.)

There were two statistics that I think may have really cinched it for deGrom. Here they are for deGrom and Scherzer:

* Fielding independent pitching. That, as I said in my essay, is what your ERA would be if what your defense does behind you is removed from the picture. DeGrom's FIP for 2018 was 1.98---and it led the majors as things turn out. Scherzer's FIP was 2.65.

* Run support. Scherzer's team gave him far more and better chance to win than deGrom's gave him. On average the Nationals gave Scherzer 4.9 runs per start while he was still in the game and scored 5.4 runs per 27 outs for the entire games in which Scherzer was the starting pitcher. Well, if you're getting almost five runs a turn while you're in the game and you can't win, there's something wrong with you, anyway. Now, look at what the Mets didn't do for deGrom. The Mets on average gave deGrom 2.9 runs per start while he was still in the game and scored 3.5 runs per 27 outs for the entire games in which deGrom was the starting pitcher.

In other words, Max Scherzer took the mound knowing he had better than a 50-50 chance to win and Jacob deGrom took the mound knowing he had less than a 50-50 chance to win. Both pitchers were equally stingy per inning pitched, though Scherzer ended up leading the National League in walks/hits per inning pitched by the hair of his chinny-chin-chin---his WHIP was 0.911 and deGrom's was 0.912. That's so close you'd need effort to slide a sheet of paper between them. On the other hand, deGrom was better at Scherzer at avoiding walks: his walks per nine in 2018 was 1.9, while Scherzer's was 2.1.

Then, for deGrom, there was also . . .

* That 29-game streak of starts with three runs or less by deGrom. It's the longest such streak in major league history, by the way. And, as I noted, all season long he had only five starts in which he was charged with three earned runs including a few times when the Mets' bullpen or their dubious defense score the third run. (How intriguing is it that deGrom had such a 29-game streak . . . and bagged 29 of the 30 first place votes to win the award.)

The one thing that genuinely sucks about all this is that Max Scherzer was even better this season than he was in 2017 when he did win the Cy Young Award. It's hardly his fault that he had such a season when someone else had a greater season at all, never mind a season in which the guy was Martinez 2000, Gibson 1968, and Koufax 1965-66 but his team was a horror. Imagine how Juan Marichal must have felt in those seasons when a) the Cy Young Award was given to one pitcher across the board instead of one in each league; and, b) he pitched well enough to win three such awards but there was that little problem of a guy named Koufax in the league concurrently. (And it's no more Scherzer's fault that the Nats' season turned into Wackyland than it was deGrom's fault that the Mets' turned from that stupefying 11-1 opening to The Comedy of Errors.) Pitching at the same level for a better team deGrom likely would have finished with a 22-9 won-lost record if the Mets had won all his no-decisions, since he pitched well enough to win or better in those games. And Scherzer had eight games with no decision, in all of which he, too, pitched well enough to win. His won-lost record if the Nats had won those games for him? It would have been 26-7. For both pitchers it would have been the best won-lost records of their careers---and deGrom would still have won the Cy Young Award.

While I was at it, I looked up Blake Snell, the American League's Cy Young Award winner:

* Snell's 1.89 ERA balances against a 2.94 fielding-independent pitching rate. He wasn't close to either Scherzer or deGrom when it came to run prevention on his own devices, though he wasn't too far behind Scherzer.

* The Rays gave Snell 4.7 runs to work with per start on average while he was in the games he started and all game long in the games he started. And Snell didn't stay in games as long as either deGrom or Scherzer---he averaged 5.8 innings a start, against 6.7 for Scherzer and 6.8 for deGrom. Snell had seven starts of seven innings or (barely) more; Scherzer had 17 and deGrom had 21.

[DCPatriot]

@DCPatriot
It wasn't a "participation" trophy, it was recognition that the best pitcher in the National League this season didn't deserve to be penalised because his team didn't perform up to his standard. If Jacob deGrom didn't have the season he had Max Scherzer probably would have won the NL Cy Young Award---and probably by the same margin over Aaron Nola that deGrom won over Scherzer. (DeGrom got 29 out of 30 first place votes; Scherzer, believe it or not, got 29 out of 30 second place votes. You guessed it: Scherzer got the other first place vote and deGrom got the other second place vote. You kind of feel for Nola picking a season to come out as a great pitcher during a year baseball's best pitcher the past three or four years was beaten out by a usually excellent pitcher who went off the charts and beyond.)

There were two statistics that I think may have really cinched it for deGrom. Here they are for deGrom and Scherzer:

* Fielding independent pitching. That, as I said in my essay, is what your ERA would be if what your defense does behind you is removed from the picture. DeGrom's FIP for 2018 was 1.98---and it led the majors as things turn out. Scherzer's FIP was 2.65.

* Run support. Scherzer's team gave him far more and better chance to win than deGrom's gave him. On average the Nationals gave Scherzer 4.9 runs per start while he was still in the game and scored 5.4 runs per 27 outs for the entire games in which Scherzer was the starting pitcher. Well, if you're getting almost five runs a turn while you're in the game and you can't win, there's something wrong with you, anyway. Now, look at what the Mets didn't do for deGrom. The Mets on average gave deGrom 2.9 runs per start while he was still in the game and scored 3.5 runs per 27 outs for the entire games in which deGrom was the starting pitcher.

In other words, Max Scherzer took the mound knowing he had better than a 50-50 chance to win and Jacob deGrom took the mound knowing he had less than a 50-50 chance to win. Both pitchers were equally stingy per inning pitched, though Scherzer ended up leading the National League in walks/hits per inning pitched by the hair of his chinny-chin-chin---his WHIP was 0.911 and deGrom's was 0.912. That's so close you'd need effort to slide a sheet of paper between them. On the other hand, deGrom was better at Scherzer at avoiding walks: his walks per nine in 2018 was 1.9, while Scherzer's was 2.1.

Then, for deGrom, there was also . . .

* That 29-game streak of starts with three runs or less by deGrom. It's the longest such streak in major league history, by the way. And, as I noted, all season long he had only five starts in which he was charged with three earned runs including a few times when the Mets' bullpen or their dubious defense score the third run. (How intriguing is it that deGrom had such a 29-game streak . . . and bagged 29 of the 30 first place votes to win the award.)

The one thing that genuinely sucks about all this is that Max Scherzer was even better this season than he was in 2017 when he did win the Cy Young Award. It's hardly his fault that he had such a season when someone else had a greater season at all, never mind a season in which the guy was Martinez 2000, Gibson 1968, and Koufax 1965-66 but his team was a horror. Imagine how Juan Marichal must have felt in those seasons when a) the Cy Young Award was given to one pitcher across the board instead of one in each league; and, b) he pitched well enough to win three such awards but there was that little problem of a guy named Koufax in the league concurrently. (And it's no more Scherzer's fault that the Nats' season turned into Wackyland than it was deGrom's fault that the Mets' turned from that stupefying 11-1 opening to The Comedy of Errors.) Pitching at the same level for a better team deGrom likely would have finished with a 22-9 won-lost record if the Mets had won all his no-decisions, since he pitched well enough to win or better in those games. And Scherzer had eight games with no decision, in all of which he, too, pitched well enough to win. His won-lost record if the Nats had won those games for him? It would have been 26-7. For both pitchers it would have been the best won-lost records of their careers---and deGrom would still have won the Cy Young Award.

While I was at it, I looked up Blake Snell, the American League's Cy Young Award winner:

* Snell's 1.89 ERA balances against a 2.94 fielding-independent pitching rate. He wasn't close to either Scherzer or deGrom when it came to run prevention on his own devices, though he wasn't too far behind Scherzer.

* The Rays gave Snell 4.7 runs to work with per start on average while he was in the games he started and all game long in the games he started. And Snell didn't stay in games as long as either deGrom or Scherzer---he averaged 5.8 innings a start, against 6.7 for Scherzer and 6.8 for deGrom. Snell had seven starts of seven innings or (barely) more; Scherzer had 17 and deGrom had 21.

All good information.  And no doubt, true.

But there's a human element not figured into the equation.  Sabermetrics be damned.

Max Scherez shouldn't be penalized either.  The NATS sucked Fat Lady's a$$, too.

But he went out there with the pressure that they were still in it, albeit chasing...just more realistically than the METS.

What I'm saying is that Jacob went out there not giving a shit about the score.   Max wasn't afforded that luxury.

[EasyAce]

What I'm saying is that Jacob went out there not giving a shit about the score.   Max wasn't afforded that luxury.

No, Scherzer was afforded the luxury of knowing he went out there to pitch with his team more likely to score runs for him than deGrom's team was for him and had better than a 50-50 chance to win. DeGrom didn't have that luxury. He probably took the ball more than half the time thinking he had to pitch something close to a shutout to have a chance of even breaking even. Whatever their issues otherwise, the Nats were far better at putting runs on the board for Max Scherzer and anyone else taking the ball than the Mets were for Jacob deGrom and anyone else taking the ball, and Scherzer had a large pressure load removed from him before he threw his first pitch of any game.

As topsy-turvy/funhouse-to-nuthouse as the Nats were this season, they more time in legitimate contention this year than the Mets did. A team finishing two games above .500 is a better team than a team that finishes eight games below .500, and that's even with the Mets actually having a better second half than the Nats finally did. (The Mets in the second half: 38-30; the Nats in the second half: 34-32. It's easy: in a none-too-great NL East, the Mets' horrible first half at 39-55 blew them out of contention while the Nats' 48-48 first half kept them there one way or another. Nobody saw the Phillies looking as good as they did in the first half; nobody saw the Braves putting on the surge they put on when the Phillies ran out of fuel, and the Nats ran into enough front-office surreality to make dubious non-waiver and wavier-period deals that may have done as much as anything else to keep them from the postseason.)

There isn't a pitcher on the planet who goes out to the mound not caring about whether his team's going to support him while he's on the mound. He's going to go do his job and be professional but a pitcher who doesn't have in the back of his mind whether his team is going to back him with some runs on the board and some decent defense isn't human. If anything, there may well be more pressure on a pitcher for a low-scoring/weak-defense team to keep his team in the game. You don't need me to remind you how often you've seen a pitcher going out to the mound for a team that couldn't bribe its way onto the scoreboard trying to pitch like a major leaguer regardless and trying to keep the other guys from making for an even more impossible day or night. If anything, the fact that deGrom was so even-keeled on any day he pitched in the middle of that dissipation speaks even better of him as a competitor and a man.

[DCPatriot]

"UNCLE!!"   

[EasyAce]

@DCPatriot
 

I'll admit one thing---I'd love to see deGrom and Scherzer tangle against each other in a start in 2019. They didn't face each other in any game in 2018. Each faced the other's team twice; Scherzer got a win and a loss in his two starts and was charged with three earned runs in each, while deGrom faced the Nats twice, getting one no-decision and one win. In the no-decision he pitched well enough to win, charged with three earned runs two of which the bullpen surrendered after he came out of the game. (DeGrom came out of the game ahead 6-1, for a change; the Nats went on to win 8-6.) In the W, he was charged with only one run and it was earned.

That would be a duel to look forward to.

[DCPatriot]

@DCPatriot
 

I'll admit one thing---I'd love to see deGrom and Scherzer tangle against each other in a start in 2019. They didn't face each other in any game in 2018. Each faced the other's team twice; Scherzer got a win and a loss in his two starts and was charged with three earned runs in each, while deGrom faced the Nats twice, getting one no-decision and one win. In the no-decision he pitched well enough to win, charged with three earned runs two of which the bullpen surrendered after he came out of the game. (DeGrom came out of the game ahead 6-1, for a change; the Nats went on to win 8-6.) In the W, he was charged with only one run and it was earned.

That would be a duel to look forward to.

What's the status of DeGrom's contract at this time?

Would love to see them give up on Harper and go after Jacob or somebody with his talent/delivery.

[EasyAce]

What's the status of DeGrom's contract at this time?

Would love to see them give up on Harper and go after Jacob or somebody with his talent/delivery.

DeGrom is under Mets team control for two more seasons. He's talked about wanting to remain a Met by way of an extension and the Mets so far haven't said no to the idea. He was a non-waiver trade deadline rumour target for at least a month, and even I was somewhat in favour of that idea considering the Mets' need for farm replenishment. But it looks like Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil are turning out to be their best young major league players, and if Michael Conforto can continue improving the Mets can think of other people to move to fortify themselves without having to sacrifice deGrom (or Noah Syndergaard, the other most-frequent Met trade rumour at the non-waiver period) to do it.

The Mets could even afford to sign Bryce Harper long-term without surrendering deGrom (they need outfield help badly and Harper would be a solid fit for them, by age as well as ability) and with doing a long-term extension for deGrom---their payroll picture for the next few years is a lot more flexible than people think. From the look of it, deGrom is the one absolutely untouchable Mets pitcher with Syndergaard right behind him.

[DCPatriot]

DeGrom is under Mets team control for two more seasons. He's talked about wanting to remain a Met by way of an extension and the Mets so far haven't said no to the idea. He was a non-waiver trade deadline rumour target for at least a month, and even I was somewhat in favour of that idea considering the Mets' need for farm replenishment. But it looks like Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil are turning out to be their best young major league players, and if Michael Conforto can continue improving the Mets can think of other people to move to fortify themselves without having to sacrifice deGrom (or Noah Syndergaard, the other most-frequent Met trade rumour at the non-waiver period) to do it.

The Mets could even afford to sign Bryce Harper long-term without surrendering deGrom (they need outfield help badly and Harper would be a solid fit for them, by age as well as ability) and with doing a long-term extension for deGrom---their payroll picture for the next few years is a lot more flexible than people think. From the look of it, deGrom is the one absolutely untouchable Mets pitcher with Syndergaard right behind him.

It's going to be an interesting/compelling 2019 season.

[EasyAce]

It's going to be an interesting/compelling 2019 season.

One sleeper in the pack---Andrew Miller. When he came back from the DL at the end of August, he went forth to pitch almost like his old self; he had only one bad outing and that was his last one on 29 September. The Mets have two viable men in that bullpen morass, and taking a single-season flyer on Miller with a 2020 option might just be the play of the year for them. They already checked out his medicals and he came up good. He just might be a secret weapon for them if they take that flyer. (The fact that the Mets signing Miller might piss off the Yankees---who also checked out the medicals for the guy they traded a few years ago---is merely gravy.)

[DCPatriot]

One sleeper in the pack---Andrew Miller. When he came back from the DL at the end of August, he went forth to pitch almost like his old self; he had only one bad outing and that was his last one on 29 September. The Mets have two viable men in that bullpen morass, and taking a single-season flyer on Miller with a 2020 option might just be the play of the year for them. They already checked out his medicals and he came up good. He just might be a secret weapon for them if they take that flyer.

LOL!

I can't help but recall how Rafael Palmeiro would sit out a game when Randy Johnson started against them (Orioles).

It screwed him up for the entire week or more at the plate.

Can you imagine facing Jacob DeGrom thru 6-7?  Andrew Miller for 2+   A reverse image of each other.   Yikes!

Thank God Britton went to the Yankees.

[EasyAce]

LOL!

I can't help but recall how Rafael Palmeiro would sit out a game when Randy Johnson started against them (Orioles).

It screwed him up for the entire week or more at the plate.

He probably wasn't the only one who wanted to sit one out against the Big Unit!

Can you imagine facing Jacob DeGrom thru 6-7?  Andrew Miller for 2+   A reverse image of each other.   Yikes!

Thank God Britton went to the Yankees.

Not just deGrom to Miller, either, since Miller when he's healthy can go two or even three days at a time, two innings each, before he'd need a rest. And since he is a multiple-inning reliever, the Mets would have the option of getting a starter in trouble earlier out of there and handing the game to Miller for, say, the 6th through the 8th or the 5th through the 7th. Now and then they could even go to Miller if there's big trouble in the 4th and ride him through the end of the 7th. If his health is fully restored.

Britton's an open question now. He wasn't entirely back to full health when the Yankees landed him mid-season and it showed the rest of the way. If he's rested and fully healthy for 2019, he's a wipeout option for them. If he isn't fully healthy again, he's not the terror he was in his best Oriole seasons.

[GrouchoTex]

Excellent piece, @EasyAce !

In the end, however, it's bullshit to give the Cy Young to DeGrom.

This is just another example of the realities of participation trophies.

I am with you on this one @DCPatriot
If we can go back in time and give Nolan Ryan the Cy Young award in 1973, then I could go along with Jocob DeGrom receiving this year.
Similar circumstances, both with outstanding pitching for losing teams.
1973, Ryan has 2 no-hitters, 383 strikeouts (a record still not broken), and 21-16 record for a losing Angels team.

[EasyAce]

I am with you on this one @DCPatriot
If we can go back in time and give Nolan Ryan the Cy Young award in 1973, then I could go along with Jocob DeGrom receiving this year.
Similar circumstances, both with outstanding pitching for losing teams.
1973, Ryan has 2 no-hitters, 383 strikeouts (a record still not broken), and 21-16 record for a losing Angels team.

@GrouchoTex
Jim Palmer won the 1973 Cy Young Award but the American League pitcher who was really worthy of the award was probably Bert Blyleven, then with the Twins:

* Blyleven's fielding-independent pitching (2.32) was lower than his ERA (2.52)---and he led the league in FIP.

* Blyleven actually had a better strikeout-to-walk ratio than Ryan---3.85 (he led the league) to 2.36.

* Blyleven also led the league in ERA+---your ERA adjusted to ballpark factors, and his home park (Metropolitan Stadium) was a hitter's haven compared to Ryan's. (Old Anaheim Stadium.)

* Nolan Ryan in 1973 was worth 7.8 wins above a replacement-level player (though they didn't even have the stat, never mind use it as one among several guides, at that time). Bert Blyleven in 1973 was worth 9.0 WAR. (He'd have led the majors if it wasn't for Tom Seaver's 10.0).

* Neither the Twins nor the Angels had great seasons in an AL West still ruled by the Mustache Gang A's, but they weren't as bad as this year's Mets, either. The Angeles finished fourth and four games under .500; the Twins finished third and at .500. Even allowing the A's factor, the Angels were done in by their July and August (10-19, 12-14 respectively); the Twins, likewise those two months. (14-17, 11-19, respectively)

* Batters didn't hit safely as often against Ryan as they did against Blyleven, but Blyleven walked a lot fewer batters than Ryan---who led the league in walks as well as strikeouts. That was Ryan's wounding flaw: a typical Ryan game features low hits but a lot of traffic on the bases anyway because he was putting them on. 1973 was the second of three straight seasons in which Ryan led the American League in walks, and of his 162 walks only two were intentional. Blyleven in 1973 walked only 67 batters and four were intentional.

* Blyleven pitched nine shutouts in 1973 to lead the league. Ryan---who led the league with the same number of shutouts the season before---pitched four. And Blyleven walked fewer hitters per shutout than Ryan walked in his two no-hitters.

* So why did Palmer win the Cy Young Award in 1973? He led the league in ERA despite an FIP almost a full run higher; he had a .710 won-lost percentage (neither Blyleven nor Ryan were close to that, having almost identical won-lost records: 21-16 for Ryan; 20-17 for Blyleven); and, his team finished at the top of their division, though they'd lose the ALCS to the A's 3-2. (From 1969-84, League Championship Series were best-of-fives.)

It took Cy Young Award voters a good while before they finally figured out that sometimes the leagues' best pitchers weren't always on first place teams or even 20-game winners. And sometimes they got it wrong even when only considering the arms on the first place finishers: Vernon Law won the Cy Young Award in 1960 but there was actually a case that either St. Louis's Ernie Broglio---yes, that Ernie Broglio---or Detroit's Jim Bunning should have won the award. (Both men led their leagues in pitching WAR that year, by the way.) Bunning, though, wasn't a 20-game winner in 1960 and Broglio tied Warren Spahn to lead his league with 21, but Law's 20 were for the team who the National League pennant. The National League's ERA leader in 1960 was Mike McCormick of the Giants, but nobody was even going to think about a 15-game winner on a fifth place team in those days.

Since pitching wins were still considered the holy grail at the time, too, Palmer didn't lead the league with his 22 wins, but Wilbur Wood winning 24 for the fifth-place White Sox didn't register with such voters . . . especially since he had the anomalous parallel of 20 losses on the season as well, not to mention that his bread-and-butter pitch was the knuckleball, and pitchers who threw knuckleballs to any degree just didn't get that much Cy Young Award love until R.A. Dickey won the National League award in 2012.

(In the one-Cy-Young-across-the-board era, there's actually a case that, in 1962, Cincinnati's Bob Purkey should have won the award, but Purkey had two things going against him: a) Don Drysdale, who did win the award, pitched for a team that ended up in a playoff for the pennant; and, b) Purkey threw the knuckleball almost half the time in addition to a decent fastball and curve ball. When half or more of your repertoire is still considered a novelty pitch, and your team didn't win the pennant or finish close enough to it, you weren't going to get a whole lotta love from award voters no matter how good you were and---with Sandy Koufax missing a third of the season due to a finger circulation ailment after the All-Star break---Purkey may have been baseball's best pitcher on the full season but still considered a guy leaning on a novelty pitch a little too much.)

About Ryan's two no-hitters and 383 strikeouts in 1983: Yes, years in which you break records get you some consideration, but sometimes the voting writers learn lessons the hard way. When they voted Maury Wills the National League's Most Valuable Player in 1962, they looked like chumps. Because Wills might have broken Ty Cobb's longtime single-season stolen base record, but he wasn't even close to the league's best player; arguably, in 1962, either Willie Mays or Frank Robinson should have won that MVP. But the writers in '62 looked at the record and little else in voting the award. They did the same thing with Roger Maris in 1961 even though Mickey Mantle actually had a better case for winning the American League MVP that year. (Even Maris himself said as much.) Ryan might pitch two no-hitters and strike out 383 hitters in 1973 but it, too, didn't mean he was quite the American League's best pitcher overall, not when he led the league in walks as overwhelmingly as he did, it didn't.

[GrouchoTex]

@EasyAce

We will probably disagree on this point, forever, I am sure, but I will admit, this is a bit personal with me.
The first Major League game I ever went to had Nolan Ryan on the mound.
I had never seen anything quite like it or since.
He warm-ups would be caught in the pocket of the catchers mitt and sound like a rifle shot, all across the ballpark.
I was 9 years old, It was 1972, an he struck out 15, walked 4, and hit 2, about what you would expect from a 70's Nolan Ryan start.
In 1973, he wuz robbed!!!LOL

 

FYI, In Ryan's book, he wrote how close he was to a total of 5 no hitters that year.

[EasyAce]

@EasyAce

We will probably disagree on this point, forever, I am sure, but I will admit, this is a bit personal with me.
The first Major League game I ever went to had Nolan Ryan on the mound.
I had never seen anything quite like it or since.
He warm-ups would be caught in the pocket of the catchers mitt and sound like a rifle shot, all across the ballpark.
I was 9 years old, It was 1972, an he struck out 15, walked 4, and hit 2, about what you would expect from a 70's Nolan Ryan start.
In 1973, he wuz robbed!!!LOL

 

FYI, In Ryan's book, he wrote how close he was to a total of 5 no hitters that year.

@GrouchoTex
Oh, he could throw two lamb chops past a wolf, no question about it. I still remember how impressed I was watching Ryan save Game Three of the 1969 World Series for Gary Gentry with 2.1 innings of shutout relief to complete the shutout Gentry started to beat Jim Palmer and the Orioles. The fastball was a howitzer, no question about it. Ryan may have been slightly more impressive in Game Three of that year's National League Championship Series, when he took over for Gentry with two on and nobody out in the top of the third and the Mets in a 2-0 hole thanks to Hank Aaron hitting a two-run homer in the top of the first, with Gentry not having his best stuff on the day. Ryan went the rest of the way and surrendered two runs when Orlando Cepeda hit one out in the fifth with Rico Carty aboard. The Mets made the game 2-1 when Agee hit one out solo against Pat Jarvis in the third; Ken Boswell hit a two-run shot off Jarvis in the fourth to make it 3-2 (Cepeda's blast made it 4-3, Braves), Wayne Garrett (of all people) made it 5-4 with a two-run shot (Ryan himself was aboard on a leadoff single) in the fifth, a pair of RBI singles in the fifth and sixth made it 7-4, Mets; Ryan went the rest of the way to pick up the win.

And yet . . . and yet . . . Ryan struck out three in those 2.1 innings but he also walked two. He had a slightly better ratio there than Gentry, who walked five while striking out four but still keeping the Orioles to three hits and no score. (It didn't hurt that a) Tommie Agee made a pair of circus catches in center field to help save the combined shutout and b) Gentry himself hit a two-run double in the bottom of the third to make it 3-0, Mets; the final would be 5-0. Agee himself started the day's scoring with a leadoff homer in the bottom of the first.) But Gentry was a rookie and Ryan was a second-year pitcher, they both had about equivalent strikeout-to-walk ratios for their careers, and Ryan was one of those creatures who was pretty fortunate to be able to forge a career pitching major league baseball for 27 seasons that included a very short cup of coffee with the 1966 Mets.

Gentry's career ended up only seven seasons because he developed shoulder and elbow issues soon enough; his other wounding flaw was that, temperamentally, he couldn't get out of his own way. He was one of those kinds of competitors who could be his own worst enemy. Ryan overcame serious blistering issues on his throwing hand in his Mets years (I still remember how big a deal sportswriters made of Ryan soaking his hand in a solution of liquor and pickle brine to overcome those blister issues) and proved a lot more durable as things turned out, not to mention that temperamentally he learned a lot better about how to get out of his own way than Gentry did.

Funniest quote I ever saw about Nolan Ryan was from his Angels general manager, Buzzie Bavasi. Bavasi had infamously refused to re-sign Ryan as a free agent, saying publicly he could get two pitchers to go 8-7 each for a lot less money. (Ryan in his final Angel season was 16-14 in the won-lost department.) The Astros signed Ryan and made him baseball's first player to earn a million dollars in a single season with his deal. In 1981, Ryan pitched his fifth no-hitter to break another record Sandy Koufax held. (Four, including a perfect game, and all four in consecutive seasons, the perfect game being the fourth, which says something about practise making perfect.) Bavasi is said to have sent Ryan a telegram saying, "Nolan, I said I made a mistake not re-signing you. You didn't have to rub it in."

What you may not remember: Ryan had a chance to return to the Angels after his second Astros contract expired. Angels owner Gene Autry wanted to reverse Bavasi's old mistake and bring Ryan back for 1989. And he was willing to out-spend everyone else to do it. The prospect was killed when Ryan's wife---who once said Autry's wife, Jackie, was on the horn constantly promising to top any offer he got from any other team---told her husband she didn't want to uproot their family again, having re-settled very well in their native Texas. Hence did Ryan sign with the Rangers and finish his career with them.

I've seen a lot of pitchers show great stuff without becoming or staying great pitchers. Maybe the classic case was Dwight Gooden. He had that riding fastball but his curve ball was even better; the only curve balls I ever saw that were better than Gooden's curve were those thrown by Sandy Koufax and Bert Blyleven. (Blyleven's curve ball was his real bread-and-butter pitch.) Contrary to what you may have seen, what really put the kibosh on Gooden's path to the Hall of Fame was spring training 1986, when the Mets' brain trust, specifically pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre, inexplicably, told a pitcher who'd just ruled the National League in his first two seasons including a) winning the pitching Triple Crown in 1985 (wins, strikeouts, and ERA); b) leading the majors in those three that year; c) leading the majors with his 1.69 fielding-independent pitching (remember: that's your ERA when your defense behind you is taken out of the picture: Gooden's in 1984 was a staggering 1.69); and, d) and almost 4-to-1 strikeouts-to-walks ratio, that he didn't have enough stuff and that he needed to knock it off with the strikeouts. Think about that: an organisation whose lifelong metier is supposed to be developing top flight pitching told the best pitcher in the game at the time that his exploding fastball and monster curve ball---neither of which he threw hard physically (Gooden was one of the most elegant pitchers you ever saw on the mound and didn't muscle the ball up to the plate the way most power pitchers do)---were insufficient, and forced him to try developing pitchers he couldn't throw well, like a slider, a two-seam fastball, and a changeup, and Gooden came out of it a mess though it didn't show in his 1986 stats too much.

But he'd never be the same pitcher again. Stottlemyre's tinkerings were accompanied by assorted Met brassers advising him anything from cutting down on trying to strike out the world, shortening his leg kick, and anything else they could think of. ("Had New York's decision makers been present in 1506 when Leonardo da Vinci was painting the Mona Lisa," cracked Jeff Pearlman in his splendid book about the '86 Mets, The Bad Guys Won, "they would have insisted on a mustache and larger ears.") And Gooden was the kind of fellow who'd listen to anyone who talked to him, unfortunately. Listening to too many people got too deep into his head. (Including those who made a point of saying at any opportunity that it would be impossible for him or anyone else to do what he did in 1984-85, things they never told other great pitchers.) And, thanks to Stottlemyre, he suddenly developed so many release points as a result instead of staying with what got him there that no less than Gary Carter feared what actually came to pass: Gooden would develop shoulder issues that stayed with him the rest of his career. "I always thought they should have left Doc alone," Carter would remember. "Mel thought teaching him third pitches would be to his advantage. But he didn't need it. He needed someone to say, 'Hey, you've been successful. Just keep going at it.' But they didn't."  Backup catcher Ed Hearn was also alarmed: "I'm thinking, What the hell is this? He was a power pitcher with tons of movement and they're trying to teach him movement? What the hell for?" Gooden managed to strike out 200 in 1986 but it wouldn't be long before hitters began figuring him out enough to keep him from repeating anything like his 1984-85 seasons.

That's the real story of how Dwight Gooden went from Hall of Fame-great in his first two seasons to what he turned out to be: an excellent pitcher who was borderline great but was never again the Great Doc of 1984-85. It was, of course, easier to believe that Gooden's soon-to-be-too-well-publicised issues with cocaine and alcohol wrecked him, but the real story isn't that simple. He came out of spring training without what made him in 1984-85, and it was instigated by a pitching coach whose own career should have told him better. Mel Stottlemyre himself was an excellent pitcher who was borderline great but whose own career ended after eleven seasons with a dead arm. Too many hard-thrown overhand sinkers, a pitch you normally throw at three-quarters or sidearm, eroded his shoulder until, finally, and years before there came the surgery to correct it, a blown rotator cuff. Stottlemyre was notorious around the Yankees for constant tinkering with himself and it did him no good in the end. You'd think a guy whose own pitching career was that kind of object lesson would have thought about that when he had the best pitcher in the game under his coaching charge and avoid trying to fix something that wasn't broken.

[GrouchoTex]

@EasyAce

1989, I do remember that.
Ryan didn't want to leave Texas.
He really didn't want to leave the Houston area.
(Alvin, Texas is about 20 miles southeast of where I live now. In 1989, I lived about 20 miles northeast of Alvin.).
John McMullen, the owner of the Astros at the time, didn't want to pay Ryan enough to stay, figuring he was washed up by then.
Ryan wasn't 100% the Ryan of old, but he still had a lot in the tank, as he finished his career with 7 no hitters.
It left a bad taste in Ryan's mouth, and he went into the hall as a Ranger.
Now, son Reid Ryan is part of the Astros organization, and you can routinely see Nolan Ryan, sitting behind home plate with Ruth, during Astros games, especially during the play-offs.
He's still a hometown hero.

[Jazzhead]

Excellent piece, @EasyAce !

In the end, however, it's bullshit to give the Cy Young to DeGrom.

This is just another example of the realities of participation trophies.

I agree.  He was barely a .500 pitcher.   His win totals were barely in double digits.   

I know his stats were good but he didn't do the main thing starting pitchers are paid to do - win games.

Yeah, I'll admit to some sour grapes but the best starting pitcher in the NL last year was Aaron Nola.   Outpitched Scherzer twice and actually functioned as a team's elite starting pitcher as opposed to a guy with gaudy stats.       

[EasyAce]

I agree.  He was barely a .500 pitcher.   His win totals were barely in double digits.   

I know his stats were good but he didn't do the main thing starting pitchers are paid to do - win games.

DeGrom did everything he could to win games. You're going to say it's his fault the Mets were a terrible defensive team who also couldn't score for him while he was on the mound?

Yeah, I'll admit to some sour grapes but the best starting pitcher in the NL last year was Aaron Nola.   Outpitched Scherzer twice and actually functioned as a team's elite starting pitcher as opposed to a guy with gaudy stats.       

Nola was a great pitcher this season. Nola's fielding-independent pitching (ERA without defense factored in) was 3.01 against his 2.37 ERA, which tells me he was relying more on his defenders than either Scherzer or deGrom. Scherzer's FIP was 2.65 against his 2.53 ERA; deGrom's FIP was 1.98 against his 1.70 ERA. A pitcher whose ERA and FIP are under 2.00 is doing everything in his power to win games and doing it better than a guy whose FIP is a shave over 3 when his ERA is under 2.50.

And if you look at their ERA+ - your ERA adjusted to the factors the parks you pitch in against the league ERA average - Nola was slightly better than Scherzer adjusted to his ballparks (and he pitches in a more hitter friendly home park than Scherzer does) but deGrom was better than both even with deGrom's home park being a little more favourable to pitchers. DeGrom's 216 ERA plus led the National League; Nola (176) was a distant second and Scherzer (168) was right behind him.

And if there hadn't been a deGrom in the league this year, the Cy Young Award voting would probably have been a dogfight between Nola and Scherzer. I'm not sure which one would have won that dogfight, but considering that Nola's run support wasn't that much better than deGrom's and nowhere near Scherzer's, my nickel would have gone to Nola in that dogfight. Scherzer got almost five runs a start to work with from his team when he was still in the games; Nola got a sliver over three a start to work with while he was in the games. (DeGrom, remember, got just under three to work with while he was in his games; he usually went to the mound with one hand tied behind his back, figuratively, pitching for this year's Mets, while Nola went to the mound with a slightly better chance of survival going in, and Scherzer went to the mound practically in a Barcalounger knowing he had better than a 50-50 chance to win going in.)

[Jazzhead]

Nola's fielding-independent pitching (ERA without defense factored in) was 3.01 against his 2.37 ERA, which tells me he was relying more on his defenders than either Scherzer or deGrom

@EasyAce

Interesting stat, given that most observers (including me who saw most of his games) agree that the Phillies' defense this year was pretty darn bad.    So the Phillies defense helped Nola to the turn of more than a half run per game?   Seems a bit surprising to me!  Perhaps our ground ball defense was better than our fly ball defense, and Nola was more of a ground ball pitcher.   

Still, bottom line for me is that,  even factoring that DeGrom pitched to an ERA under two vs.  Nola's 2.37, the latter ain't too shabby and led to a full SEVEN more wins than DeGrom.   Garnering actual wins - a starting pitcher's primary job - sure as heck ought to count for something, IMO.   I'm not philosophically against SABRmetrics - far from it - but a win differential that great ought to trump DeGrom's somewhat superior numbers by the metrics.    As you pointed out,  the Phillies were hardly an offensive and defensive powerhouse along the lines of the Nats.   In terms of his actual value in the real world of baseball,  Nola not only pitched like an ace he actually WAS an ace.  DeGrom was only the former.   

[EasyAce]

Nola not only pitched like an ace he actually WAS an ace.  DeGrom was only the former.   

That the Mets couldn't (wouldn't?) win for deGrom didn't detract from him being the no-questions-asked staff ace. If you want to look at another metric, deGrom's win probability added was 6.0 in 2018---the best in the majors among starting pitchers. (Only Oakland reliever Blake Treinen was a pinch better, with 6.1.) Nola and Scherzer tied for second in the National League with 5.0; Blake Snell, who won the Cy Young Award in the American League, had 5.1. Meaning that nobody among 2018's starting pitchers gave his team a better chance to win in 2018 than deGrom did when he took the ball. (Measured strictly by the wins for which he was credited, Noah Syndergaard would be considered the Mets' ace . . . but his win probability added for 2018 was 2.4. His career WPA in four seasons is 6.3. DeGrom's? In five major league seasons it's 15.1. Like I said, other Mets pitchers among their young pitchers the past few years got more hype and ink but it turns out deGrom was the least hyped but best of the group.)

It says plenty more against the Mets that they squandered theirs and the league's best pitcher the way they did this year, even more so than what it said that the Mariners squandered Felix Hernandez in 2010, when Hernandez won the Cy Young Award with only thirteen wins. Hernandez, too, was light years better on the mound than his won-lost record shows for that season, and just like with deGrom this year the Cy Young voters were wise enough to look at the pitcher's actual whole performance instead of the wins for which his teams deprived him of credit.

[Gefn]

@EasyAce I do enjoy your writing

[EasyAce]

@EasyAce I do enjoy your writing

@Freya
Thank you!

[Jazzhead]

@EasyAce I do enjoy your writing

Dittos!    I always enjoy reading your pieces, @EasyAce