Jacob deGrom Deserves to win the Cy Young Award

BY: Justin Raley, Baseball Analyst 

Yes, you read that title correctly. How can a guy with only 9 wins take home the Cy Young award? The award is given to the best pitcher in the NL, NOT the pitcher with the most wins. Wins and losses in a pitcher’s record is almost entirely dependent on their team’s performance. It isn’t Jacob deGrom’s fault that he is on one of the worst teams in baseball. He has had a stellar season that hasn’t been represented by his 9-9 record. He owns an MLB best 1.77 ERA, an NL best 0.445 home runs per 9 IP, and as of Friday night set a major league record with his 23rd consecutive quality start. He has 251 strikeouts, a 0.95 WHIP, and a batting average against of .202. Granted, some of these stats he doesn’t lead the NL in, due to the great seasons that Aaron Nola and Max Scherzer are having. deGrom has been the most dominant pitcher in the game all year. Scherzer and Nola have been roughed up multiple times. Yet, Jacob deGrom continues to go out there and give quality starts, if not fantastic starts, every time he pitches. He should not be punished for not winning a ton of games. It isn’t his fault that if he gives up 1 or 2 runs then he basically will lose. He doesn’t have the luxury of relaxing and just pitching like Nola and Scherzer have, who both pitch on above .500 teams. I still think that wins are a good statistic. It still is a wild thing to see a pitcher win 20 games in a year. In this case, I do not side with the wins stat. Imagine if deGrom were on almost any other team. Put him on the Braves, the Cardinals, heck even the Rays. He could easily have 12 to 20 wins and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation if he deserves the Cy Young. The voting will be very close between deGrom, Scherzer, and Nola but in my mind, Jacob deGrom is the clear-cut NL Cy Young winner.