We know that Jacob deGrom is the only pitcher in Mets history to win back-to-back CY Awards. But does that mean he’s put up the best two consecutive years in franchise history? Let’s use fWAR to check.
deGrom – 2018 (9.0) and 2019 (7.0) – 16 fWAR
Dwight Gooden – 1984 (8.3) and 1985 (8.9) – 17.2 fWAR
Tom Seaver – 1970 (8.3) and 1971 (9.1) – 17.4 fWAR
Not a huge surprise that he didn’t claim the top spot but the fact that he came in third is surprising, at least to me. Interesting that Seaver’s two best seasons both came in years where he did not claim the league’s top pitching honor. If we made that a condition, his best mark would be the combined 14.6 fWAR he had in ’75-’76.
Baseball writers are biased against the Mets. Consider:
No Met player has ever won MVP award
No Mets manager has ever been Manager of the Year.
They’ve been robbed of several awards, such as:
Bench over Koosman in 1968 ROY
Jenkins over Seaver in 1971 CYA
Sutcliffe over Gooden for 1984 CYA
McGee over Gooden for 1985 MVP
Sandberg over Hernandez for 1984 MVP
On that last one, I realize that all the metrics, old-school and advanced, say Ryno over Mex. However, I don’t think Mex’s defense was adequately valued, such as the way he would charge down the line and dare anyone to bunt towards first and the way he was literally without peer on the 363 DP – how do you adequately value the greatest defensive 1B in history?
There was a time when so-called intangibles were valued in the MVP vote. How else to explain all those light hitting SSs that won it?
Without Ryno, the Cubbies would almost certainly have won the division. Without Mex, the 1984 Mets were ground beef
Jenkins over Seaver was the biggest oversight.
FWIW – Jenkins had the higher fWAR in both ’70 and ’71
Just a couple of things concerning WAR and my memories of Seaver 1970-1971; Gooden 1984-1985; and deGrom 2018-2019.
Seaver’s August and September’s performance from 1970 was extremely disappointing yet his WAR was still 8.3. I would love to know what was physically or emotionally wrong.
BTW I was talking to a Red’s fan who comments about the Mets reads: gee you have a under performing organization given the team’s talent. I had no reply.
Gooden’s 2nd half 84 and the latter year’s performance was impeccable yet I expected a higher WAR.
And our current ace: his 7.0 WAR in today’s hitting environment gives me questions about the calculation of WAR.
An article written by Jim O’Malley on Seaver’s 1970 — https://mets360.com/?p=21096
That was a pretty good article!
When Pete mentioned Seaver and 1970, I remembered it instantly!
A major problem with using WAR as a comparison for pitchers of different eras is the that it doesn’t adjust for pitching workload.
IP is huge factor in WAR calculations, so pitchers back then were able to rack up bigger raw totals because they were able to push 300 IP.
If we convert to a per war basis:
deGrom :421 IP (26.3 IP/WAR)
Gooden: 494 IP (28.7 IP/WAR)
Seaver: 516 IP (29.7 IP/WAR)
It’s not surprising deGrom has the best rate as pitchers now are taught to go max effort basically every pitch whereas before it was about maximizing length of game. Comparing different players from different eras can be a thought fun exercise, but it’s hard to draw conclusions when the game is played so differently.
Pedro Martinez is one of my favorite pitchers of all time and if you told me I could pick any pitcher in history to start Game 7 of the World Series, I’d certainly pick him over anyone who did their pitching in 1966 and earlier.
It’s harder to pitch today than it was in 1966. It would be great if we could timeline things better. Picking numbers out of thin air, it it was twice as hard to pitch in 2000 than it was in 1966, that would make the comparisons easier.
Having said that, the fact that those guys in the 1960s were throwing 300 innings – even considering the inferior competition – is very valuable and we can’t pretend otherwise.
I don’t begrudge Koufax getting a 10-fWAR season in 1965 with his 335 IP. It just goes to show how great Pedro was in 1999 when he put up an 11.6 fWAR in 213 IP.
I think Pedro had the greatest arsenal and movement I have ever seen. He was really fun to watch.
Interesting comparisons to two of the Mets all time great hurlers. It’s hard to compare one era to another but having lived through all of the noted players playing days, there were more great players back then, as evidenced by all who went to the HOF and by the standards they were held to: 500 HRs, 300 wins, 3,000 Ks, microscopic ERAs, seasons with 100RBIs ( yes, I like the s), 100 runs scored, wins, saves, etc. Now a days all those thresholds are lowered to be considered great which is why Jake could take the Cy Young with the number of wins he had that would normally be associated with a good fifth starter. Don’t get me wrong as I believe he genuinely deserved it and on a good team he might have easily had 25 wins each year and then strongly matched up with the greats of all time. But he pitches for the thrown together Mets, a team that a decade later bemoans money lost in the Madoff Ponzi scheme and cries poverty as they don’t spend on talent that would fill the seats and in doing so give them a better return on their investment and be consistently in contention. These are the moments when I question my sanity as a Met fan from day one. But what the hell. I love the underdog. Would love to see Jake win a third in a row but come in with over 20 wins. That means the bullpen has to do its job once he gives his strong 7-8 innings. What a concept. Can’t wait for SP to start!
Look at Gooden 85 versus Clemens 86. Why did Clemens snag the MVP but not Gooden?
Writer bias.
I see where Grandal signed a 4-year deal. He thought he deserved more than the 4/$60 the Mets offered him and it turns out he was right. At a year older, he gets 4/$73.
I’d rather have the higher AAV that the Brewers signed him last year for his age-30 season than commit that much money for a catcher in years 31-34.
Good for Grandal. Fine player, but I think the Mets can get more value for their $73 million elsewhere. Maybe the only guy happier than Grandal today is Realmuto.
As Mets fans, we haven’t seen a lot of winners but we’ve sure witnessed some historically great pitching. Gooden’s ‘85 season was possibly the most electrifying thing I’ve ever seen in professional sports.