joker. DeGrom.
DeGrom. joker.
You can order them however you like now that Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom are finally at the front of the Mets’ pitching rotation. Everyone would be almost every other team’s No. 1 starter, and either way you don’t really choose the order of the team’s rotation or the pitchers’ projected stats; Most often you choose the phraseology for an idea. Or a fantasy.
From 2016 to 2019, the National League’s four Cy Young Awards all went to Scherzer (then a Washington National) or deGrom (previously a career Met). From 2016 to 2019, only two NL pitchers racked up 20+ wins over substitutes: Scherzer (27) and deGrom (24). With Scherzer and deGrom as a couple, it’s easy to imagine they make a great team that only gets bigger. How could they not?
The last two weeks have given us a glimpse of what they can be and it’s been quite spectacular. Scherzer and deGrom — in that order so far — have started games three times in a row, and while deGrom is still building his stamina, they’ve mostly lived up to their math: 37⅓ innings, 25 hits, six runs earned, three walks… and 50 strikeouts.
However, let’s put the brakes on, albeit slightly, what this means for the Mets’ improvement.
For one, the Mets’ record after Sunday’s 6-0 win over the Philadelphia Phillies was 75-40, something few outside of New York talked about, mostly because the Los Angeles Dodgers were even better. But the Mets’ .652 win rate was just short of the pace for a franchise record (set by the 1986 championship team, which won 108 games). No matter what kind of player you add to a .652 team, the team probably won’t play any better (because of the math, which isn’t actually complicated).
For another, Scherzer and deGrom have been co-aces for two weeks, and it’s not fair to expect another two uninterrupted months just yet. DeGrom missed half of last season with an elbow injury and the first four months of this season with a shoulder injury. Scherzer was on the injury list with a strained oblique muscle in his first season with the Mets after signing a record-breaking contract from mid-May to early July.
Together, they could – finally – become the leading pitching duo in the major leagues (although Philadelphia’s Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler have a claim to that). But they would have to avoid the injury list, which hasn’t come naturally to either of them in recent years.
But what if Scherzer and deGrom can stay healthy and in the Mets’ rotation? What if they could serve just as well as they did during their Cy Young season or on shorter stretches since? Have we ever seen anything like her?
In terms of deletions, we probably don’t have any. Among the many hundreds of pitchers with at least 1,000 innings in their major league careers, deGrom and Scherzer rank fourth and fifth in strikeouts per nine innings. But that’s primarily a function of this high-strikeout era; The three pitchers ahead of them in the career strikeout rate are also active this season. Likewise the No. 7 and 8.
The pitcher with the 6th best strikeout rate in history?
Hall of Famer Randy Johnson. And it’s Johnson by whom all pitching duo fantasies must be measured. Because there’s never been a more dominant pitching teammate pairing than Johnson and Curt Schilling, who reached their co-ace peak in 2001 and 2002 with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Which is not to say that Johnson and Schilling are the only names that come to mind.
For a few seasons before becoming a New York Giants legend, Christy Mathewson was outclassed by teammate Joe McGinnity, whose nickname was Iron Man.
For a few years in the 1950s, Cleveland’s pitching staff included four would-be Hall of Famers, three of whom were in their prime. Among them was Early Wynn. In 1956, he and Herb Score could have made a solid argument that they were the top two pitchers in baseball.
In the 1960s, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale were often referred to as a unit and in superlatives by the Dodgers. But Drysdale never came close to matching Koufax’s peak (the latter’s real competition came from National League rivals like Bob Gibson and Juan Marichal).
From 1975 through 1977, Angels teammates Nolan Ryan and Frank Tanana both won exactly 50 games and placed first and second at the majors in strikeouts. (Tanana wasn’t remotely close to Ryan, and nobody else was close to Tanana.) But in the mid-’70s, Ryan was still hitting far more batters than anyone and wasn’t generally considered on par with other MLB stars like Tom Seaver or Jim Palmer and Steve Carlton.
In the 1990s, MLB’s top duo usually consisted of Greg Maddux and one of his Atlanta teammates who was having his best season: Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, or even a year-old Denny Neagle. But during those years of dominance, there was never really a reason that another Atlanta pitcher should become the best (or second-best) of the game. If it wasn’t Maddux, then it was Roger Clemens or Pedro Martinez or Johnson.
Johnson, who first rose to stardom in Seattle, signed as a free agent with the Diamondbacks after the 1998 season. In 1999, just into the franchise’s second season, he won his second Cy Young Award as the team shot to the playoffs. In 2000 he acquired his third Cy Young; Midway through that season, Arizona traded for Schilling, the Phillies’ ace that proved good (but not great) on the track. Arizona finished third and manager Buck Showalter – 22 years before he got a dugout for Scherzer and deGrom’s show in New York – was fired.
In 2001, Johnson won his third consecutive Cy Young Award and fourth overall. But his 21 wins weren’t enough for the league lead, as Schilling won 22. That fall, Johnson and Schilling combined for nine postseason wins as the Diamondbacks rolled to a World Series championship, topped by Luis Gonzalez’s walk-off single against Mariano Rivera in Game 7 against the heavily favored Yankees. Johnson and Schilling ended the election of Cy Young with a double…and then did it again the next year, with Johnson winning his fourth straight win (no one has won more than three in a row).
In 2003 things fell apart. While both Johnson and Schilling still had good years ahead of them – despite being in their late 30s – neither of them was healthy all season in 2003 and both ended in losing records. However, in those first two glorious seasons, they were the top two pitchers in the major leagues and had all the awards and stats — wins, strikeouts, ERAs, and wins over substitutes (retroactive) — to prove it.
Major League Baseball had never seen anything quite like it, and perhaps never would again. For Scherzer and deGrom to even come close to matching Johnson and Schilling, they need to stay healthy for the rest of this season and next and do something spectacular at least in October. And all while pitching like never before. And, of course, they’ve both pitched huge before.
The good news for the Mets? Almost every World Series-winning team in history hasn’t had the two greatest pitchers in the sport, or even two really great pitchers. There are plenty of other ways to win, and the Mets were able to find them while waiting for their aces to return.
Rob Neyer is the author of several books on baseball including The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers, written with Bill James. Neyer’s latest title, The Umpire Is Out: Calling the Game and Living My True Self, is a collaboration with former umpire Dale Scott.