What Could Stop deGrom’s Cy Young Chances in 2021?

However, we’re only at the halfway point of the season, which means a lot of things, including deGrom’s quest for hardware, can be derailed. Here are some things that could stop the flamethrowing righty from collecting his third Cy Young in four seasons.

Injury

The obvious thing that could keep deGrom from a Cy Young award is injury, especially for a guy that throws the ball as hard as he does. And although he has made it to this point, he has already had a couple of injury scares and even a brief trip to the injured list.

After a month in which the deGrominator threw 35 innings and allowed just two earned runs, he left his May 9th start against the D-Backs with an injury after just five innings and a season-high three walks. Two days later, he was placed on the 10-day injured list with right side tightness. Fortunately, he was able to make a rehab assignment just 11 days after his injury before returning to the Mets on May 25th.

However, in a start against the Cubs on June 16th, deGrom exited a game early again with what eventually was described as right shoulder soreness. But this time, he avoided a trip to the I.L. and started just five days later.

deGrom has been able to avoid serious injury for his career, appearing in no fewer than 22 starts in any season minus the pandemic-shortened 2020. While you hope that continues to be the case, the fact that he has already had a couple of scares before the All-Star break shows that the possibility of something more major occurring is there.

Sticky Substance Rule

On June 21st, Major League Baseball began enforcing a rule that gave umpires the authority to check pitchers at any point for foreign substances being used to doctor baseballs. The first pitcher checked as part of the new guidelines was none other than deGrom, who was checked following a perfect first inning against the Braves and was ruled clean.

Now, this is not an accusation of deGrom using substances that are deemed illegal by MLB. But since the rule was put into place, the 33-year old has allowed two runs and three runs in his last two starts, which followed a stretch where the ace had five straight scoreless outings. He also gave up five hits against the Braves in his last start, the most since April 10th, but also had 14 strikeouts and no walks.

deGrom is elite, substances or not, but it’s not entirely out of the question that we could see his amazing ERA and WHIP start to come back to earth with this new rule in place. We’re seeing it already with guys like Gerrit Cole of the Yankees, so it’s at least a possibility.

No Run Support

One of the running jokes in baseball is that deGrom gets no help from his team. That was more true early on in the season, where New York lost three out of deGrom’s five starts in April and got shut out in two of them.

So how does that factor into deGrom’s Cy Young chances? As crazy and antiquated as it seems, many award voters still factor wins and losses into consideration. In fact, besides deGrom in both 2018 and 2019, only Felix Hernandez in 2010 and Fernando Valenzuela in 1981 are the only other starting pitchers in the last 40 years to win less than 15 games and still win the Cy Young award.

Fortunately, deGrom had a good stretch of wins in June and currently sits at a solid 7-2. While he has shown that you can still win the Cy Young without a lot of wins and run support, his teammates stepping up when he’s on the mound wouldn’t be the worst thing for his case.