He won the Cy Young, and I'm proud for him. I just don't think he should have got the award. Max Scherzer should have got it. Oh, I know, it's all the new metrics in use, and they've decided win totals don't matter that much. But they do matter, they just aren't the be all and end all. Jacob will surely win a Cy Young another year, and will probably deserve it more. Maybe next year. He's a bit of a late bloomer, but he's coming into his own.
Jacob deGrom
Rising Major League star, Jacob deGrom
New York City is the place for a man to be should he wish to make himself into a baseball superstar, and this is where Jacob deGrom finds himself. No, he's hardly the only superstar pitcher in the very competitive National League, but he probably does have the longest hair. I remember a day when the great Don Mattingly was benched for his hair in New York City. Yeah, the Yankees are a different team. Lets thank the heavens for that, nobody is sweating young Jacob for his long hair on the New York Mets.
That he is pitching at all is something not so new to our long haired ace pitcher. He'd thought himself a shortstop. He's not the only such person in the National League to be a staff ace and originally a shortstop, our friend Zack Greinke was once in the same boat, and he's come out just fine.
Stetson University was the place Jacob was drafted from. It was his junior year there in Florida when his beyond the pale right arm brought to the attention of the team how Jacob might be best suited to standing on the pitching mound, throwing bullets past batters. Jacob can reach back and throw the gas, he can, mid to high 90s on the gun he throws the fastballs.
Jacob deGrom's filthy nasty pitches
He stands six feet and four inches tall, yet he only weighs one hundred and eighty pounds. Because he is so lanky and is tall, the long hair makes him appear somewhat like a young, right handed Randy Johnson. He's not the only long and tall, and long haired rocket arm for the New York Mets, they've also got young Noah Syndergaard in their World Series rotation.
Our Jacob deGrom is a power pitcher. His four seam fastball is regularly above the power pitcher's threshold of 95 miles per hour. Though he struck out over two hundred hitters in 2015, he's not a guy who's forever gunning for the strikeout. He throws a heavy two seam fastball a lot too, and this pitch will forever be coming a tick slower than the four seam fastball, and is often hit into the dirt, as a ground ball can sometimes be turned into two outs with one pitch via the double play.
Jacob deGrom has a standard repertoire of pitches, but his fastballs are above average. Also exceptional is his change-up. He throws a curveball and a slider. He throws both of these pitches hard and fast. They break downward swiftly, and induce a lot of ground ball outs. His strikeouts are primarily a result of the blazing four seam fastball, or the deceptive change of pace or change-up.
Jacob deGrom's rookie season was in 2014, and he had a fine season then too. Twice that year he won Rookie of the Month. When the year ended he'd win the National League's Rookie of the Year award. What stands out the most with Jacob in the baseball realm of statistics is his superlative earned run averages. After two seasons of Major League Baseball, Jacob deGrom is sitting pretty with a career earned run average of just 2.61. These are numbers super ace Clayton Kershaw would admire.
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