Erica Lay - All Hail King Jake

I want to preface this by saying – Noah Syndergaard is an unbelievable talent; I’m incredibly glad he’s a Met. He’s young and fun and I trust him in a big spot. He touches 100mph on the gun with regularity and throws a wicked array of secondary pitches. But, for me…

Jacob deGrom is the unquestionable ace of this staff.

I love stats. I love the story that they tell. I love comparing stat lines across players and years to find a glimmer of hope or a harbinger of future potential. Or sometimes, to understand why we should’ve seen a downfall coming. But not all stories need stats to be understood. Some stories are so good, you just have to appreciate them without analyzing them.

That’s how I feel about Jacob deGrom. The deGrominator. Jake.

When Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler were making their much-hyped MLB debuts in 2012, deGrom was a 24 year old pitching in A ball. In 2014, the year deGrom made his MLB debut – and won the Rookie of the Year – he wasn’t even a top 10 prospect in the Mets system and on some prospect lists wasn’t even mentioned in the top 20.

So what makes deGrom so great?

DeGrom throws gas. He doesn’t hit 100mph like Syndergaard, but his four seam fastball averages a very healthy 96 mph.

His pitches move. I mean, they move a lot. If you need to understand how much movement deGrom gets on his pitches, go back and watch Devein Mesoraco’s first game catching deGrom. Mesoraco seemed to have a tough time gauging just how much deGrom’s pitches were moving and clanked a few.

DeGrom’s secondary stuff is nasty – not only because of movement and velocity, but because of the speed differential. Here are the averages on deGrom’s pitches:

Four Seamer - 96mph

Sinker - 95mph

Slider - 91mph

Change - 89mph

Curve - 82mph

For my part, I think deGrom lives in that perfect sweet spot when it comes to speed differential. There’s enough difference to slow down (or speed up) the hitter’s bat, without there being so much of a difference that a hitter can easily adjust to the off-speed pitch if he’s looking for the fastball.

DeGrom is an absolute beast on the mound. Harvey always got all the attention for his “bulldog” mentality but, if you ask me, deGrom is every bit the intense competitor that Harvey is/was. deGrom could pitch 7 innings, give up a single run and still manage to be completely unsatisfied. He never stops working to improve. And somehow, he does. He’s still getting better. And deGrom’s intensity comes without the arrogance of Harvey. This isn’t a knock on Harvey, just a fact.

Now, these are the things that make deGrom great, but there’s more to his story. There’s one trait that makes deGrom positively special. He can pitch.

I’m not talking about his ability to throw 96mph or the movement on his pitches. I mean the fact that deGrom can get outs when he doesn’t have his best stuff.

Remember game 5 of the NLDS in 2015?

DeGrom had reached his career high in innings pitched (at that point in his career). He was running on fumes by the time game 5 rolled around. You could tell from the start that he had next to nothing. He gave up two runs in the first inning and I thought we were going to need to go to the bullpen early. But deGrom somehow managed to make an adjustment, utilizing what little he had to power through and give us five scoreless after the first. Six innings, two runs. And we went on to the NLCS and, eventually, the World Series. I was amazed at how he worked through that game – under constant duress but never breaking.

Despite the presence of Harvey and despite the raw power and talent of Syndergaard, for me, that’s the moment when deGrom became the ace.

The ability to adjust to diminished skills is a rare quality in a pitcher (or in any athlete). Look at Harvey for reference. As soon as his velocity dipped and he no longer had the same bite on his pitches, he was lost. I don’t see that happening to deGrom.

It drives me crazy when I hear people talk about trading deGrom at the deadline. His mix of talent, determination, intelligence and drive doesn’t come along often. He’s a true ace.

I realize he’s 29 which is old in baseball years. But deGrom’s amazing ability to stay in games when he doesn’t have his best stuff makes me think he’ll age better than other pitchers. As he ages, I can see deGrom morphing into a Greg Maddux or Bartolo Colon type pitcher – one who can use what he has to get outs without being overpowering.

If we're lucky, Syndergaard will develop into this type of pitcher; but deGrom is already there.