The Anti-deGrom | Baseball Bits

[Music] jacob degrom has a reputation he's currently the best pitcher on the planet but the pitcher win eludes him his new york mets teammates are often to blame the narrative suggests they don't give him any run support but have we considered that maybe jacob degrom just has bad vibes he can't do analytics on bad vibes i've tried baseball is a zero-sum game if degrom is getting unlucky in the win and loss columns there must be someone out there who has experienced the opposite the anti-degrom enter drew hutchison in 2015 he was tapped as the unlikely opening day starter for the toronto blue jays what happened next was truly remarkable against all odds he finished with a win-loss record of 13-5 three years later degrom would finish with a record of 10 and 9. the numbers on your screen are the key to this video let's start with the win column [Music] drew hutchison re-emerged for the blue jays in 2014 after recovering from tommy john's surgery initially he appeared to be an unorthodox choice to open their season against the yankees in 2015 but marcus strowman was sidelined with injury and mark burley's struggles at yankee stadium were already well established so the 24 year old hutchison went to the bronx and went to work carving up one of the classic but also very weird mid 2010's yankee lineups with 6 innings of one run ball hutcheson collected his first win of the season his best performance came in may when he tossed a complete game shutout in just 96 pitches this feat is known as a maddox and it's something that jacob degrom has never accomplished in august he got himself a cheapie facing the twins he allowed an rbi single to miguel cenote in the top of the first then my dear friend trevor ploof stepped into the batter's box how does he look better now than when he played it's probably the foolish baseball t-shirt he's wearing anywho ploof hammered a two-run double to the right center gap putting the blue jays down three to nothing but toronto's lineup came to play josh donaldson hit a two run homer in the bottom of the first and with the bases loaded jose batista hit a grand slam in the bottom of the second giving toronto a lead edward and carnacion padded said lead with a three-run blast of his own hutcheson struggled in the fifth inning allowing four more twins to score but he got through it despite allowing seven runs in total he finished the game with a win jacob degrom's rendition of a cheap win looked quite different on august 13 2018 he took on the yankees in the third inning a bad throw from jeff mcneal allowed austin romine to score in giancarlo stanton to reach second base aaron hicks came up to the plate and singled scoring stanton and tying the game at two runs apiece coincidentally much like with drew hutcheson joey batts came to the rescue the mets legend hit a two-run blast off luis severino putting his team back on time the grumm allowed an additional run in the fifth but that was it in six and two-thirds innings he struck out 12 yankees and allowed three runs two of which were earned why bring up this game it was degrom's only win in 2018 in which he allowed multiple earned runs not a lot of room for error five days later degrom tossed a complete game of his own versus the phillies but he allowed an unearned run and took 108 pitches to do it so he failed to reach the heights of drew hutchison's complete game maddox what have we learned so far i think we've learned that drew hutchison is a winner with the x factor that's how he won 13 games while jacob degrom only won 10. yeah x factor and uh the will to win that's a good one [Music] in a study of wins and losses no decisions can be the most telling outcome of them all drew hutcheson pulled off one of the great no decision heists versus the red sox in fenway boston batted around in the first inning including back to back home runs by pablo sandoval and mookie betts then in the third inning dustin pedroia got one of his own hitting one over the monster and that was the end of hutchison's day in two and a third innings he allowed eight runs but the game was far from over in the top of the seventh not only did the blue jays bat around every hitter in the lineup reached safely the red sox ended up using three different pitchers in the inning but none of them could stop toronto from scoring the blue jays exited the seventh with a 13-8 lead which they would not relinquish what did drew hutchison get for his efforts no decision baby most of degrom's no decisions have been a tragedy by comparison perhaps none worse than eight innings of shutout baseball versus the phillies in july he carved through that lineup like butter but he still wasn't able to secure the win the mets eventually broke through in the 10th inning winning the game still degrom was stuck with the no decision as for the losses we could stay here all day and talk about unfortunate degrom starts he took an l for seven innings of one run ball versus the braves that would be most pitcher's worst loss but it might not even be his worst loss against the braves that season he allowed two runs in eight innings in a different start against them the mets lost 2-1 with degrom driving in new york's only run of the game in 2018 jacob degrom had a 2.71 era in losses that's the lowest era in losses since pedro martinez in 2000 in terms of his cumulative era of 1.70 that's the lowest era for any starter with nine losses since 1968 the year of the pitcher and look it's a well-known thing that jacob degrom went 10-9 with the 1.7 era but equally impressive is drew hutchison going 13-5 with a 5.57 era 5.57 that's the highest winning percentage for any pitcher with an era over five and a half in mlb history how does this happen it's dead simple run support in 2015 the blue jays let ml be in scoring by just an outlandish margin no one else came close and you gotta keep in mind when you see those other offenses struggling to score runs this was the season that prompted the introduction of the juiced ball at the all-star break toronto's offense was powered by three sluggers the mvp josh donaldson jose batista and edwin encarnacion they had other good players but the bulk of the offense came from those three bats one example of their dominance would be wrc plus a stat which looks at the triple slash of average on basin slugging and normalizes that into a park adjusted number where 100 is average the 2015 blue jays had three of the top 10 hitters in all of major league baseball by wrc plus this trio of batters provided drew hutchison with the best run support any pitcher received in the 2010s for every 9 innings pitched by drew hutchison the blue jays scored 7.9 runs by the way look at the prevalence of 2019 on this list that was the absolute peak of the juice ball era but still drew hutchison's on top and this doesn't even account for the other forms of support hutcheson received like his teammates whispering encouraging things into his ear hey buddy you're doing a great job out there so now we turn our attention to jacob degrom and i think the prevailing question is simple was jacob degrom's run support as bad as it seemed the answer is for the most part yes between the 2018 and 2019 seasons degrom had the lowest run support of any pitcher with at least 300 innings for every nine innings pitched by degrom the mets scored just 3.81 runs indeed the league's best pitcher received the league's worst run support he followed up his 10 and 9 2018 with an 11-8 2019 of course that didn't stop him from taking home back-to-back sai young awards although zach brenke's 2009 and king felix's 2010 had done most of the heavy lifting this stretch really cemented the fact that the pitcher win doesn't matter in today's mlb not when the top starters average between 6 and 7 innings per game and certainly not when the new york mets exist just as a concept but if jacob degrom can get credit for that shouldn't drew hutcheson his 2015 season made as much a mockery of the pitcher win-loss record as degrom grankie or king felix ever did he went 13-5 with a 5.57 era to their credit the blue jays also recognized that the wins and losses were a mirage without the need for a fifth starter they briefly demoted hutcheson to aaa when he had a 12-2 record he was also left off their playoff roster entirely by that point david price had joined the team and marcus strowman was back from his acl injury still drew hutchison gutted his way through a difficult season and got by with a little help from his friends in 2015 the toronto blue jays went 18 and 10 in games started by true hutcheson in 2018 the new york mets went 14 and 18 in games started by jacob degrom [Music] jacob degrom may have won back to back cy young's in 2018 and 2019 but now he's a different beast the new jake is defined by his absurd velocity in september of 2020 he struck out 14 rays and seven innings of work but what made this start remarkable is that he didn't throw a pitch less than 91 miles per hour we're not just talking fastballs here people we're talking about sliders and changeups thrown over 91 miles per hour oh by the way he took a loss for that game in 2021 he's throwing even harder on june 5th against the padres he threw 33 pitches over 100 miles per hour that's the most triple digit pitches in a game in the pitch tracking era and now he's finally unlocked the secret to run support which is to just do it yourself through his first 12 starts of the season the grom has allowed four earned runs as a pitcher while driving in six with his bat if he can just stay healthy he's capable of producing a season that would rival bob gibson's 1.12 era or pedro martinez's 291 era plus and even though his career counting stats won't impress anyone he may just be our alien pitcher you know the pitcher you'd want on the mound when the aliens challenge us to a game of baseball after they come from outer space or the bottom of the ocean which leads to my next point we don't know what's going on at the bottom of the ocean the official channel stance of foolish baseball is that we shouldn't be mapping stars millions of light years away until we figure out just what the heck is going on at the bottom of the ocean it's on our own planet people the so-called aliens could easily come from there sorry about that look there's more to the story with drew hutcheson as well despite his struggles with a 5.57 era in 2015 his ratios and strikeouts walks and homers generated a 4.42 fip he had other peripheral stats that were even more optimistic after his wild 13-5 ride hutchinson was unable to break through to the blue jays rotation again he bounced around seven different organizations in a span of three years while jacob degrom was establishing himself as the best non-underwater pitcher on the planet true hutcheson experienced the destabilizing roster churn that we expect our gladiators to just put up with but his winning ways persisted while degrom's mets flopped in 2020 hutchison played andy ball pitching for the milwaukee milkman champions of the american association he used that as a springboard back into affiliated ball he's currently playing for the toledo mudhens the tigers aaa team maybe he'll reappear in the big leagues for the first time since 2018. let's take it back to the beginning drew hutcheson the young and unlikely opening day starter for a terrific blue jay squad before his big day in yankee stadium a reporter asked him point blank for his best attribute on the mound hutcheson kept it simple i think i'm a winner i think he's right [Music] thanks for watching if you want to support the channel and see your name in the credits like this head on over to patreon.com foolish baseball also big thank you to maxo for the music [Music]

Channel: Foolish Baseball

Views: 365,101

Keywords: jacob degrom, drew hutchison, degrom, hutchison, jacob degrom mets, drew hutchison blue jays, mets, blue jays, anti-degrom, anti degrom, 2018 jacob degrom, 2021 jacob degrom, josh donaldson, jose bautista, edwin encarnacion, jacob degrom losses, mets run support, milkwaukee milkmen, american association, drew hutchison highlights, jacob degrom highlights, mlb, baseball, foolish baseball, baseball bits, degrom cy young, drew hutchinson, degrom run support, run support

Id: kBXoIU_YhqQ

Length: 13min 50sec (830 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 26 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/narenare658]

i’ve been waiting for foolish to make degrom video for so long

[u/zamansky]

I think the run support seems much worse than for other pitchers because Jake doesn't get the cheap wins. Usually a pitcher will lose some hard luck games 1-0 or 2-1 but they'll also win some starts where they get shelled but the offense comes alive 6-5 or similar.

Since Jake just doesn't give up that many runs he can't get a cheap win like that :-)

[u/[deleted]]

fuck this guy. His little dig against the mets halfway through a really dumb video with a bunch of bullshit context was enough for me. I wonder if this jerkoff is a Yankees fan