The two best pitchers in MLB’s open market: Jacob deGrom and Justin Verlander recently completed signings: the former signed a five-year, $185 million deal with the Rangers and the latter signed with deGrom’s old club, the Mets. contract of 86.66 million over 2 years.
The forms of these two contracts are very different, as to why, let’s see how scouts and major league executives evaluate these two famous contemporary players.
This article is taken from The Athletic Jacob deGrom or Justin Verlander? 10 scouts/leaders rate who they would prefer
＊The original text was written on November 26 before the signing of the two.
As the New York Mets expressed their willingness to re-sign deGrom and also met with Verlander, “The Athletic” polled 10 major league scouts and executives for the opinions of these two top pitchers: Regardless of the money Under the premise, that one of these do you want your team to have in the next two years?
Most of the responses were similar: This is a tough issue and a very, very tough decision. Because these two pitchers may be hailed as once-in-a-lifetime pitching wizards, but both free agents also have considerable risks. To pick Verlander, who will pass the 40-year mark in February but has a league-best 1.75 ERA in 175 innings after Tommy John surgery and won his third career Cy Young Award; he is still expected to sign in June of this year Just turned 35 and despite pitching just 156 1/3 innings in the last two seasons due to injury, is deGrom the most dominant pitcher in the league when healthy?
Further reading:2022 MLB Cy Young Award: Verlander Wins for Third Time, “Fish King” Alcantara Becomes First Cy Young Winner in Team’s 30-Year History
One person who took part in the aforementioned survey narrowed this complex conundrum to one question: When comparing two good pitchers with a small difference in strength, is “quality” more important than “quantity”?
“We should ask, is deGrom’s worth on the mound when he’s healthy enough to offset the damage he does to the team when he’s on the disabled list?” said the attendee. “Also consider the impact of his injury on rotation management. That is, the possible impact on the workload of other pitchers and the entire team, if it were me, I’d be willing to bet.”
Most people agree with this point of view. Since this poll is anonymous to avoid leaks about your team’s plans, it also allows the voting results to better reflect these people’s truest thoughts. Voting ended with deGrom leading Verlander 7-3.
“When you have a player like deGrom who is the best player in the league in all aspects of pitching, and he and Verlander have a similar deal in terms of price and length, I should sign deGrom who can change the whole team of players.” , said the participant himself.
“When he’s healthy, he’s invincible,” said a team executive.
“DeGrom is the best starting pitcher in the league,” said one scout, “he came back this year and still is.”
DeGrom, who returned from the disabled list on August 2, posted a 3.07 ERA in 12 starts, including one playoff game. During this stretch, he has a 42.7% strikeout rate and a walkout rate of just 3.3%. This K/BB% of 39.3 is even beyond the reach of Shohei Otani, who ranks first in the league in this data.
In 43 1/3 innings over his first 7 starts this year, deGrom posted strong 1.66 ERA and 1.38 FIP; however, at the end of the season, he reversed his previous performance and was hit with a home run frequency. Much higher than before, coupled with bad luck, took his ERA up to 6.00 in 21 innings starting in his last 4 games, and his FIP was only 3.68. However, none of the interviewees were concerned about deGrom’s performance during that time, and one interviewee blamed it on the fact that deGrom still hasn’t found the rhythm of him.
“He’s hit a low point, every player goes through that in a season,” said one evaluator. Pitching, that’s plenty of time for him to come out of that slump and let him finish the season on a strong note two months later. the same with any player. When you are in July you have a few bad shots Ideally it will be less likely to be used for magnification.
The same scout also said that both deGrom and Verlander have their merits, but if either pitcher can pitch 170 innings, he’ll choose deGrom.
