Tom Brennan - Jake deGrom, Future Mets Hall of Famer?

Tom Brennan - Jake deGrom, Future Mets Hall of Famer?

As we head into post-All Star Game baseball, I read an article talking about the likelihood that, due to shorter outings by pitchers and the 5 man rotation, the days of 300 wins for a starting pitcher to get in the Hall of Fame being a requirement has gone out the window, and 200 wins may not even be a minimum starting pitcher's standard for the Hall in the future.

The article goes on to discuss 2017 All Star Game starters Max Scherzer and Chris Sale as guys who may well be on a Hall of Fame trajectory despite the likelihood of getting lower career wins than most current Hall of Famers.

Which made me think:

Why not Jake deGrom as a future Hall of Famer?

Jake, in 93 career starts, is a fine 39-25, 2.91 career ERA.

He ought to have more career wins, closer to 50, but a weak offense and sometimes shaky bullpen pre-2016 left him with a lot of no decisions, unhelpful to aspiring Hall of Famers.

Heck, even this year, he was 2-1 with 5 NDs in his first 8 starts, leaving me screaming and deGrom at that point with only a very low 55 decisions in 84 career starts (65%). Happily, he has had 9 decisions in his last 9 starts, going 7-2, raising his career decision rate to a still pretty low 69%.

Jake's fine career 2.91 ERA has been inflated by two things:

1) his deteriorating performance in late 2016 due to an ulnar nerve condition that required surgery in early September.  Pitching great thru August 13, 2016, with a 2.30 ERA, his arm issues resulted in 16 earned runs in his last 15 innings (3 starts)  of 2016, rocketing his stellar ERA to 3.04.

2) Three uncharacteristically bad starts in 2017 amongst his 17 starts this year.  In those 3, he allowed 20 earned runs in 13 IP, and as a result his 2017 ERA is at 3.65.  My guess is it will be closer to 3.00 by year end.

Those 2 factors may be considered aberrations, in my view.

So - how does he compare to Max Scherzer? Pretty well. 

ERA? Max is a stellar 135-74, but his career ERA is 3.30, 0.39 higher than Jake's to date.

Career WHIP? 1.12 for Max, 1.12 for Jake, although Max's 0.78 this year is far better than Jake's 1.22 (mostly due to Jake's 3 bad 2017 starts).

Strikeout rate?  Max has 2,054 in 1,825 innings (10.1/9 IP), while Jake has 622 in 590 IP (9.5/9 IP).  Jake is not quite there, but very close.  And he is a great 10.5/9 IP this year.

Max's 4 years older than Jake and 145 decisions ahead of Jake...it is unlikely that Jake will have much more than 100 decisions in the next 4 years, much less 145 - if all goes well, let's assume 100 decisions, so he will still be low in career decisions by Max's age, even in an era where relatively low wins could get you in the hall of Fame. Jake has to pitch really well for a long time to come to get another 200 career decisions and with that real Hall of Fame consideration based on the required longevity factor.

Why so many fewer decisions for Jake than Scherzer? 

Jake was a month short of 26 when he debuted, a very advanced age for a hurler to try to someday get into the Hall. 

Why so late?  His first minors year at age 22 ended after just 26 innings with a need for Tommy John surgery that kept the converted college shortstop's career from really starting until a return to the minors just prior to his 24th birthday with a stellar 1 hit, 6 shutout inning effort with Savannah in A ball. 

In the next 24 months, he went from that first post-TJS start to the majors, an extremely fast climb for a Mets minor league starting pitcher.

That late MLB career start may well cost him the Hall of Fame, even if all goes well from here on out. 

But keep in mind that there is a pitcher in the Hall who went 165-87, 2.76 ERA, achievable career numbers in my opinion for Jake if the Mets have both solid hitting and a strong pen to support him in the years ahead.

That pitcher's name?  Sandy Koufax.

Long-term great health for Jake is the key - another guy with a great career start and Mets pedigree, Johan Santana, broke down physically and his Hall of Fame trajectory crashed and burned.  Same can be said for a Mets hitter, David Wright.  Great AND durable is essential for the Hall.

Here's hoping deGrom is a pitching Iron Man for the rest of a long career, and ends up in Cooperstown.  As a career Met!!

(Coincidentally, a very interesting Q&A article today in the NY Post about the same gentleman, Jacob deGrom: check it out)

http://nypost.com/2017/07/14/jacob-degrom-on-best-mets-moments-childs-health-scare-and-trade-talk/

FINAL NOTES:

1) TIM TEBOW (you may have heard of him) extends his hitting streak to 11 games, has a hit in both games of a DH win (2 seven inning games), the latter hit a walk off homer, much to the delight of the delirious crowd.  After 16 St Lucie games, he is .327/.421/.551, so I encourage you to draw up some revised prognostications regarding Sir Tim. 

I won't say I told you so.  Here is the surreal moment video:

http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/07/13/watch-tim-tebow-smacks-game-winning-home-run-mets-farm/

2) Masterful, dominating, overpowering CHRIS FLEXEN loses a masterful, dominating, overpowering no hit bid when he surrenders a homer in the 8th in his AA game.  Like Rosario and Smith, I that the think masterful, dominating, overpowering Flexen (5-1, 1.82 in 9 AA starts) is ready for his leap to the bigs right now.  Get him up here, and push Seth Lugo or Zach Wheeler immediately to the pen?