Jacob deGrom is the art of pitching elevated to its highest form. He is to pitching what the Lamborghini Veneno is to production cars: the finest, most expensive model ever built with such jaw-dropping power on such a lightweight chassis that had you not witnessed it in motion you would regard such a combination as impossible.
Mookie Betts of the Dodgers was not wrong when after facing deGrom last week he decided, “He’s pretty much the best. Maybe the best to ever pitch.”
Betts was talking pure stuff. deGrom throws the fastest four-seamer of any starting pitcher in recorded history (99.3; minimum 200 pitches, since 2008) and the fastest breaking pitch of any pitcher in recorded history (93.0-mph slider). With all that velocity, his command is so impeccable he has struck out 55 batters and walked only three this year. At age 34, deGrom belongs with 20-year-old Dwight Gooden and 27-year-old Pedro Martínez among pitchers with the best pure stuff I have seen.
