Nobody threw a baseball harder and with better command than the Rangers’ Jacob deGrom. Since his breakthrough season of 2018, deGrom owned the hardest fastball among all MLB starters (97.4 mph average), the hardest slider (92.0 mph), the best strikeout rate among pitchers with 500 innings (12.3 per nine innings), the best strikeout-to-walk rate (7.03) and the lowest batting average allowed (.187).
It was pitching elevated to its highest form. With power and command never before seen, deGrom pushed right up against the physical limits of the human body—and eventually through it. His brilliant career is on hold again, if not entirely in doubt, because of a second Tommy John surgery, the latest in a series of breakdowns.
deGrom will turn 35 next week. Second Tommy John surgeries, known as revisions, require longer, slower rehabs. Recent studies show the average time between a revision and return to a major league mound is 20.76 months. Success rate (return to form) is lower for revisions than initial surgeries: between 33% and 78%, as compared to between 80% and 95%. Only 29% of revisions led to pitching more than two seasons in MLB.
In a best-case scenario, deGrom will not pitch again in the majors until the end of next season—and more likely given his age and history, not until 2025. Whatever thin chances he had of making the Hall of Fame are all but gone.
deGrom has thrown 1,356.1 innings. There’s only one starting pitcher in the Hall of Fame with fewer than 2,000 innings: Dizzy Dean (1,967.1). Dean won 150 games; deGrom has just 84 wins.
It is more likely that deGrom will be remembered as a “what if?” rather than “what was.”
The history of pitching is filled with Cooperstown detours, from legendary hard-throwing prospects (Steve Dalkowski, Rick Ankiel) to dominant pitchers stopped by injuries (Herb Score, J.R. Richard, Don Gullett, Mark Fidrych), to phenoms who did not age well (Fernando Valenzuela, Dwight Gooden, Hideo Nomo, Kerry Wood, Tim Lincecum), to the tragedy of lives cut short (José Fernández, Darryl Kile).
Where does deGrom rank among the greatest pitching careers never fully realized? Everybody has a favorite legend who never reached full potential, but let’s look at it analytically. Let’s dismiss flashes in the pan and find those that proved greatness over an extended period (we will set the bar at 100 career starts) but did not last long enough to be worthy of Cooperstown (fewer than 1,500 innings).
Now let’s rank these nearly great pitchers according to ERA+. You’ll find greatness stopped by injuries, war and ... emery boards?
In countdown order, here are the 13 most bittersweet pitching careers that stopped short of Cooperstown:
13
Babe Ruth, 122 ERA+ (1914–35)In his fifth full season, Ruth made his last start as a regular in the Boston rotation on July 25, 1919, throwing a complete game 13-hitter in a 7–5 win in which he faced 39 batters, which means he threw about 140 pitches. The Babe was one of the best pitchers in baseball over a five-year window. From ’15 to ’19, Ruth ranked sixth in wins (87), seventh in ERA (2.16) and eighth in complete games (104). But he gave up pitching because of the physical toll, and because he was an even better hitter, yielding his moundwork midway through ’19 to set the new major league home run record with 29. He was well on his way to Cooperstown as a hitter.
12
Johnny Rigney, 122 (1937–42, ’46–47)Life in 1941 was good for Rigney. He was a fixture in the rotation of his hometown team, the Chicago White Sox, and he married Dorothy Comiskey, the daughter of the club owner, Grace Comiskey. But then Pearl Harbor happened, and Rigney enlisted in the Navy in ’42. He returned to the White Sox four years later—with a sore arm. He was never the same, making only 18 starts before he was done.
11
Josh Johnson, 124 (2005–13)The first pitcher to undergo three Tommy John surgeries, Johnson made two All-Star teams and won an ERA title with the Marlins in between surgeries No. 1 (2007) and No. 2 (’13). There was no MLB comeback after No. 3 (’15). In ’05, the year he reached MLB at age 21, Johnson absorbed a 33% innings jump.
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10
Mark Prior, 124 (2002–06)At age 22 in 2003, two years out of USC, Prior went 18–6 with a 2.43 ERA and led the Cubs to within five outs of the pennant—until a certain foul fly ball eluded left fielder Moisés Alou. That year Prior exceeded 120 pitches 10 times, including four times over 130. He averaged 125 pitches over his final nine starts, while packing on 67 more innings than he did the previous year, a 40% innings jump (even while missing almost a month with shoulder stiffness after colliding with Marcus Giles). He started the next year on the injured list with elbow soreness and an Achilles tendon strain, and was never the same after. Praised as a prospect for his mechanics, Prior actually suffered from a timing flaw in the load phase of his delivery that stresses the shoulder and elbow.
9
Jake Weimer, 125 (1903–09)“Tornado Jake” pitched five years in the minors before he debuted as a 20-game winner with the Cubs in 1903 at age 28. He won 20 games twice more in the next three years, but the lefty faded quickly after that heavy workload.
8
Tex Hughson, 125 (1941–49)Hughson was a dominant pitcher in the prime of his career (57–29, 2.64) when he was inducted into the military in August 1944. He returned with a 20–11 season in ’46, but the next season underwent what were then rare surgeries on his shoulder and elbow to address nerve and circulation problems. He was never the same pitcher.
7
Jack Pfiester, 127 (1903–11)A left-handed sidearm pitcher for the Cubs who led the league in ERA in 1907, Pfiester was known as “Jack the Giant Killer” because of how well he pitched against the Giants. His career fizzled because of a dislocated forearm tendon. In the famous Merkle’s Boner game of ’08, Pfiester threw a complete game despite the injury. He was treated by John “Bonesetter” Reese, a favorite doctor among pitchers back then, but never rebounded to the same form.
6
Russ Ford, 127 (1909–15)Ford, a righthander with the New York Highlanders, dominated hitters by scuffing baseballs with an emery board hidden in his glove. He jumped to the upstart Federal League in 1914, but when the league banned the emery board pitch the next season, Ford struggled. He was released in August and never pitched in the majors again.
5
Stephen Strasburg, 127 (2010-)
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Two months after leading the Nationals to the 2019 World Series title, Strasburg, then 31 years old with a 3.17 career ERA, signed a seven-year, $245 million contract. Since then, the oft injured righthander has pitched in only eight games, none this year because of what’s been called “severe nerve damage.
4
Spud Chandler, 132 (1937–47)The Yankees righthander was 29 years old by the time he broke into the big leagues. He then lost the bulk of two seasons to the war, as well as many starts due to elbow problems. He finished with a .717 win percentage (109–43), the best among pitchers with 100 wins.
3
Brandon Webb, 142 (2003–09)His sinker was a wonder to behold—unless you were trying to hit it. From 2006 to ’08, Webb was 56–25 in 101 starts with a 3.13 ERA while finishing first once and second twice in Cy Young Award voting. He had one stretch of 42 consecutive scoreless innings. Then, on Opening Day in ’09, he gave up six runs in four innings and would never pitch again. He had shoulder surgery that year, again in ’10 and again in ’11. In ’13 he announced his retirement.
2
Smoky Joe Wood, 146 (1908–15, ’17, ’19–20)He was the deGrom of his day. Nobody threw harder. But he just could not stay healthy. After starting his career 81–43 with a 1.95 ERA by age 22, Wood suffered from a broken thumb, appendicitis and a bum shoulder. He essentially was done by age 25, pitching only seven games after that.
1
Jacob deGrom, 155 (2014-)Yes, it’s the most bittersweet pitching career ever.
deGrom came to his elite velocity late. A converted infielder at Stetson, deGrom arrived in the majors in 2014 with a fastball that averaged 94.2 mph and as the lesser Mets prospect to Rafael Montero. His velocity climbed virtually every season, hitting an average of 99.2 mph in ’21. But that’s when his body began breaking down from the incredible forces upon it.
In his past 32 starts, deGrom was 14–6 with a 2.03 ERA and 14.1 strikeouts per nine innings. Trouble was, it took him these past three seasons to make those 32 starts.
deGrom struck out more batters in his first 215 games (1,652) than any pitcher ever. His ERA through 215 games (2.53) is better than any starter in the live ball era except Tom Seaver and Clayton Kershaw. Alas, he seems destined to be remembered with the likes of Smoky Joe and Tornado Jake more than the legends of Cooperstown.
