After producing a historic season that included the best ERA in Major League Baseball, New York Mets starter Jacob deGrom is the 2018 NL Cy Young Award winner.
DeGrom ran away with the award, earning 29 of 30 first-place votes to finish ahead of Washington's Max Scherzer, the runner-up, and Philadelphia's Aaron Nola.
It's the sixth time a Mets pitcher has won the award, and deGrom joins Tom Seaver (1969, 1973, 1975), Dwight Gooden (1985) and R.A. Dickey (2012).
Rays lefty Blake Snell won the AL Cy Young Award.
"It's awesome. Truly an honor," deGrom said on MLB Network. "Kind of speechless, honestly. ... I couldn't have done it without everybody."
The Mets are known for being a pitching-rich organization, and deGrom's 2018 campaign will go down as one of the best in team and league history.
He led MLB with a 1.70 ERA, the second-lowest ERA by a starter this century, and set two single-season records with 24 straight quality starts and 29 consecutive starts allowing no more than three runs. He'll carry both streaks into next year.
DeGrom also led all pitchers in slugging percentage against, OPS against, home runs allowed per nine innings and road ERA, among other statistics.
"I really do love competing. That's why we play his game, to go out there and compete," deGrom said in his interview with MLB Network. "Every fifth day it's your day and want to stay out there as long as possible and put your team in a position to win."
DeGrom persevered despite a lack of run support in almost all of his starts, and shoddy team defense often putting him in compromising situations. He also finished the season on a strong note, while Scherzer and Nola each faded in September.
"It was a historic season when you look at the whole picture," Mets pitching coach Dave Eiland said in a telephone interview Wednesday afternoon. "This guy was incredible. For people to say he did it without a pennant race is absolute, 100 percent garbage. Anybody that says that is somebody that's never been out there and competed, or somebody that wishes they were as good as him when they were out there."
So much of this Mets' season focused on deGrom and his quest to win this award, and the Mets' struggles highlighted the conditions deGrom pitched through.
Due to a lack of run support, deGrom did not win as many games as he should have, finishing with a 10-9 mark. He reached 10 only by winning his last two starts.
No starting pitcher had ever won the award before with fewer than 13 wins in a full season, and there was talk about whether deGrom's lack of wins would affect him.
DeGrom tuned out all that noise and just kept delivering gem after gem, and made it nearly impossible to not recognize that his win-loss record in no way reflected him.
The voters recognized deGrom's brilliance with the near-unanimous voting despite Scherzer striking out more than 300 batters this year.
"Everybody talks about win-loss record for a starting pitcher, they have no control over that," Eiland said. "A lot of times Jake went out, it was a one-man show and he was pitching with a lot of stress. One run could beat him. If a runner got on second, Jake knew it could beat him. He vary rarely had the luxury of pitching with a lead or a comfortable lead. You take that into consideration, it's quite incredible."
Winning this award comes at a fortunate time for deGrom since it will help him in arbitration and potential future contract negotiations with the Mets.
He appears to be open to an extension that will keep him with the team beyond 2020, but the Mets have not yet held negotiations with deGrom. Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen, deGrom's former agent, said he hopes to keep deGrom for the long term.
If an extension comes to fruition, the Mets will have a Cy Young winner anchoring their staff for years to come.
"I had the best seat in the house to watch Jacob's brilliance every fifth day," Mets Manager Mickey Callaway said in a statement. "His competitive spirit is unlike anything I've ever seen and simply the best season I've ever witnessed from a pitcher."
