For the second-consecutive season, New York Mets ace Jacob deGrom has won the National League Cy Young Award, beating out Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals and Hyun-Jin Ryu of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Given to the NL’s top pitcher, deGrom had another historic season on the hill in Queens.
Despite an 11-8 record for a Mets team that fails to give him proper run support, deGrom finished second in the majors with a 2.43 ERA while leading the NL with 255 strikeouts.
His 0.971 WHIP (Walks and hits per inning pitched) was fourth in the majors and his WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of 7.9 led all MLB pitchers and trailed only Cody Bellinger, Alex Bregman, Mike Trout, and Marcus Semien.
While deGrom was a favorite for the award throughout most of the season, his finish all but solidified his second Cy Young Award.
The 31-year-old did not allow a single run in his final 23 innings of work in 2019 while going eight-straight starts in which he went seven innings or more. No Met had done that since Al Leiter in 1998.
His ERA since May 22? A slim 1.89.
DeGrom also became just the third Met in franchise history to post two consecutive seasons of 250-plus punchouts, joining Tom Seaver and Dwight Gooden.
That’s quite an answer to his incredible 2018 season when he posted a 1.70 ERA with 269 strikeouts.
He’s arguably been the best pitcher in baseball over these past two seasons and he has the numbers to back it up. In the 64 games he started dating back to the start of 2018, he has a 2.05 ERA, a WHIP of 0.941, and 524 strikeouts.
Suddenly, he’s on the fast-track to the Hall of Fame.
He holds a career 2.62 ERA with 1,255 strikeouts over his first six MLB seasons. That puts him on a 12-year pace to reach the 3,000-strikeout mark, which is a benchmark (along with 300 wins) for many Hall-of-Fame pitchers.
Now with a second Cy Young Award in hand, deGrom is the 20th pitcher in MLB history to win the award multiple times.
He’s just the 10th to win it in consecutive seasons:
CONSECUTIVE CY YOUNG AWARD WINNERS
Sandy Koufax: 1965-1966
Denny McLain: 1968-1969
Jim Palmer: 1975-1976
Roger Clemens: 1986-1987, 1997-1998
Greg Maddux: 1992-1995
Pedro Martinez: 1999-2000
Randy Johnson: 1999-2002
Tim Lincecum: 2008-2009
Clayton Kershaw: 2013-2014
Max Scherzer: 2016-2017
Jacob deGrom: 2018-2019
Five of those pitchers are in the Hall of Fame while Kershaw and Scherzer are already expected to be in consideration for Cooperstown when their playing days are over.
A three-time All-Star in six years, an ERA title, a Rookie of the Year Award, and now two Cy Young Awards — deGrom will join them one day, too.
