The two top pitchers in the MLB free market: Jacob deGrom and Justin Verlander have recently completed signings. The former signed a five-year, 185 million contract with the Rangers, and the latter signed with deGrom’s old club, the Mets. A huge short contract of 86.66 million in 2 years.
The forms of these two contracts are very different. As for the reason, let’s see how the major league scouts and executives evaluate these two contemporary famous players.
This article is compiled from The Athletic Jacob deGrom or Justin Verlander? 10 scouts/execs weigh in on who they’d prefer
＊The original text was written on November 26 before the signing of the two.
Because the New York Mets have expressed their willingness to re-sign with deGrom and have also met with Verlander, “The Athletic” surveyed 10 major league scouts and executives for the opinions of these two top pitchers: Regardless of money Under the premise, which one of them do you want your team to have in the next two years?
Most of the answers were similar: This is a hard problem, and a very, very difficult decision. Because these two pitchers can be hailed as once-in-a-lifetime pitching wizards, but both free agents also have considerable risks. To choose Verlander, who will break the 40-year-old 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 should still sign in June this year Just turned 35, and despite only throwing 156 1/3 innings in the last two seasons due to injury, deGrom is the most dominant pitcher in the league when healthy?
Further reading:2022 MLB Cy Young Award: Verlander wins for the third time, “Fish King” Alcantara becomes the first Cy Young winner in 30 years of team history
One person who participated in the above-mentioned survey reduced this complex conundrum to one question: When you are comparing two good pitchers with a small difference in strength, is “quality” more important than “quantity”?
“We should ask ourselves, is the value of deGrom on the mound when healthy enough to offset the damage he does to the team when he is on the disabled list?” the participant said. “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 would be willing to take a gamble.”
Most people agree with this point of view. Since this survey is anonymous to prevent leaks about their own team’s plans, it also allows the results of the vote to better reflect the truest thoughts of these people. The vote 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 are on a similar deal in terms of price and length, I should sign deGrom who can change the entire team. players,” said the same participant.
“When he’s healthy, he’s invincible,” said a team executive.
“DeGrom is the best starting pitcher in the league,” said one scout. “He’s back this year and still is.”
DeGrom, who returned from the disabled list on Aug. 2, posted a 3.07 ERA in 12 starts, including one playoff game. During this stretch, he has a strikeout rate of 42.7 percent and a walk rate of just 3.3 percent. 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 in his first 7 starts this year, deGrom posted a good score of 1.66 ERA and 1.38 FIP; however, at the end of the season, he reversed his previous performance and was hit with a frequency of home runs. Much higher than before, coupled with bad luck, led to his ERA as high as 6.00 in 21 innings of starting in the last 4 games, and his FIP was only 3.68. Still, none of the interviewees were worried about deGrom’s performance during that period, and one interviewee blamed it on the fact that deGrom just hasn’t found his rhythm yet.
“He hit a low point, every player goes through that in a season,” one evaluator said. 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. It’s the same with any player. When you’re in July you have a few bad throws 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 both pitchers can throw 170 innings, he will choose deGrom.
