Through seven starts, New York Mets ace Jacob deGrom has a miniscule 0.80 ERA. To simply say it's the best in MLB so far this season doesn't quite do it justice.
No qualifying starting pitcher in modern history has posted an ERA under 1.00 for a full season. Yes, we've only reached Memorial Day weekend, but not only is this the Year of the Pitcher, deGrom is a legit challenger -- a two-time Cy Young winner and arguably the best pitcher in the game. If he can stay healthy -- which, to be fair, has been an issue for him in 2021 -- who says he can't break Bob Gibson's record 1.12 ERA set more than 50 years ago?
We asked ESPN MLB experts Bradford Doolittle and David Schoenfield to take it from here. Let the debate begin.
Schoenfield: OK, Brad, it almost feels a little silly asking this so early in the season, but I'm not sure it really is such a silly idea given what we've seen from deGrom so far. Can he beat Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA for a season? (I know Dutch Leonard had an 0.96 ERA for the Red Sox in 1914 and I guess that's the record, unless you also count Tim Keefe's dubious 0.86 ERA for the 1880 Troy Trojans, but everyone considers Gibson's mark the one to beat.) I guess there are two issues here: Can deGrom keep pitching at this level? And can he actually get to enough innings to qualify? He has pitched 45 innings and the Mets have played 46 games, so he falls just short of qualifying for the ERA leaderboard.
Doolittle: You seem awfully dismissive of Dutch Leonard. Maybe it's because there were two early 20th-century pitchers named Dutch Leonard who had long careers, one lefty and one righty. The lefty has the record that you don't seem to want to acknowledge. But I will grant you ... the Bob Gibson mark is the one everybody shoots for. With everyone getting hurt this year, you do worry about the innings-qualifier issue but at least deGrom hasn't dealt with anything arm-related. Assuming he stays in the rotation from here on out, he'll be fine.
As for the 0.80 ERA being sustainable, the obvious and logical answer is no, no one can sustain that kind of an ERA under a starting pitcher's full-season workload. But then again, his FIP is 1.18. So, Dave, I ask you: Are we going through such an extreme time in baseball that something like a sub-1.00 qualifying ERA could really happen?
Schoenfield: The best pitchers in the game now are so hard to hit and strike out so many batters with ridiculous strikeout-to-walk rates that they allow a much lower on-base percentage than some of their famous Hall of Fame predecessors. DeGrom has allowed a .132 average and .170 OBP. Let's see, in 1968 Gibson allowed a .184 average and .233 OBP, so deGrom is well below those numbers. If you're not giving up baserunners, the other team can't score!
What really made Gibson so tough that year was that he allowed a .141 average with runners in scoring position. He also played in a time with fewer home runs (he gave up just 11 in 304⅔ innings). DeGrom has pitched 317 innings since the start of the 2019 season and allowed 29 home runs, so that's what makes a 1.12 ERA so impossible in 2021. He's going to give up SOME home runs -- and he's not pitching nine innings every game like Gibson did (28 complete games in 34 starts). It's worth noting that Gibson did have two starts with four earned runs and five with three, there is some margin of error. What do you think? Are we talking even a 1% chance of a 1.12 ERA here?
Doolittle: So far, the earned runs column in deGrom's game log looks like binary code -- all ones and zeroes. He has given up seven runs, four earned. He's already pitched at Coors Field -- that's where he gave up the three unearned runs -- and won't have to do that again. If he gets 22 more starts (a rough guess of how many he'd get if he stays healthy the rest of the way), he'd throw around 141 more innings, bringing him to 186 for the season. At that innings total, he could allow no more than 23 total earned runs to come in with an ERA under 1.12. So that's 19 earned runs over his final 22 starts and 141 innings -- a 1.23 ERA the rest of the way.
According to the handy new span finder at Baseball-Reference.com, the fewest earned runs deGrom has allowed over a 22-start span is 22. And that happens to be his active total: deGrom has given up 22 earned runs over his past 22 starts. So he'd have to not only keep up that career-best pace, but he'd have to pick it up a little. That's tough. If anyone could do it, it would be deGrom, or maybe Gerrit Cole, but damn. That would be something. Still, I'd give his chances at something like a half-percent. But if he did it ... what would that look like? What would have to happen?
Schoenfield: Hey, with the Phillies struggling to score runs and the Nationals offense not exactly clicking (at least until Juan Soto heats up) and now Atlanta's Marcell Ozuna out for a spell, deGrom is facing a lot of mediocre offenses in his own division. The Mets do have two series each against the Yankees and Dodgers, one against Toronto and a short two-game set in September at Fenway, so those project as deGrom's toughest potential starts.
If he does get to September with a chance at a 1.12 ERA, it would be absolutely historic. Maybe not on the level of George Brett chasing .400 in 1980 or the 1998 home run chase, but I think the pressure would amp up -- making it even more difficult. While a few old-timers would no doubt complain that he threw 120 or so fewer innings than Gibson, I think it would automatically vault deGrom's season to legendary status -- alongside Gibson, Sandy Koufax's 1965-66, Dwight Gooden's 1985, Greg Maddux in 1994-95, Pedro Martinez in 1999 (or 2000) and a few others. Even if he finishes just 11-2 because the Mets never score runs for him.
Doolittle: I agree. The thing about those legendary seasons you mentioned, they all happened during a multiseason run of dominance. You knew there was nothing flukey about it -- it was the marvelous product of a superstar performing at his absolute peak. DeGrom clearly fits that mold. While an ERA chase might not have quite the same magic as a run at .400, or a chase for a home run record, it would be fitting for the time we're in. Hits have never been harder to come by. DeGrom is one of a number of dominant 2021 starters whose strikeout-to-walk ratio looks outlandish by traditional standards. He's the best of them all, or at least the co-best, but he's also a product of his era. Sure, we have to sit through too many whiffs, walks and long flies. But at least we get to see Jacob deGrom at his best.