Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Newsletter Excerpt, April 27, 2021 -- "Jacob deGrom"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for nearly 25 years.

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"As great as deGrom has looked, it’s 16 starts. It’s Jake Arrieta’s 2015 second half, or Mike Scott’s 1986 second half, or maybe Bret Saberhagen’s 1987 first half. I don’t mean to dismiss deGrom, but to make the point that deGrom’s case as “best pitcher ever” is hinged on two very, very small samples with six months of rest between them and ten months of rest preceding the first. Since the start of 2020, he has a 1.76 ERA, a 1.84 FIP, a 237 ERA+ and a 42% strikeout rate...in 97 innings. We simply need to see a full season of this to consider deGrom against Martinez and Clemens."