There has been a debate raging for the last few weeks in baseball circles over whether or not Jacob deGrom is a Hall of Famer as it stands today. There are passionate voices, arguments, and counterarguments on both sides, yet I think it is painfully obvious that if deGrom’s career were to end today, he would not – or rather should not – be elected to the Hall of Fame.
There is a difference between being an all-time great talent and an all-time great pitcher; you can have all the talent in the world, and yet, if you don’t perform on the field, if you aren’t successful, it doesn’t really matter. On the flip side, you can not be an all-time great talent, but end up putting up all-time great numbers because you know how to pitch; deGrom is somewhat of a hybrid as he is an all-time great arm talent, and when he pitches, he generally puts up unbelievable stats. But the problem is that there is another factor that goes into being a Hall of Famer – availability, and Jacob deGrom has just not been reliably available throughout his career.
Availability being vitally important makes perfect sense when you think about it; there is a seasons-played minimum on even being eligible for the Hall of Fame – you can put up the best 9 seasons known to man over your first 9 seasons, but if you decide to retire before playing that 10th season, you won’t be eligible for a call from the Hall. Thus, even if you do play for over 10 seasons, availability during your playing career matters as well.
It’s not a secret that deGrom has struggled with injuries over the course of his time in Major League Baseball; it’s one of the great tragedies of his career, if not the game itself, and those injuries have frankly ruined his case thus far.
Not counting 2026 as it is an ongoing season, and one where anything can still happen (for good or for ill), Jacob deGrom has played in parts of 12 Major League seasons; of those 12, he has only pitched a full season (30+ starts) 5 times, which is less than half of the time. In his other 7 seasons, he has only started 20+ games twice, and neither has eclipsed 24 starts; in the 5 seasons where he didn’t even reach 20 starts, his highest-start season was only 15. Again, all this is because of injuries, but injuries are part of the game, and when they have been such an integral part of his career to the point where they are making him unavailable for the majority of his career, how can one possibly conclude he has even pitched enough to be considered to be placed amongst the pantheon of all-time great performers?
All this could, of course, change if deGrom defies the odds and makes up for the missed time; if the soon-to-be 38-year-old deGrom can pull a Justin Verlander and have a renaissance in terms of health, and is able to pitch another 3-5 full and productive years, then this debate starts to make more sense to have than it does right now. Get your full-season count up to 8 or 9, and get your career strikeouts closer to the 2500 mark, then we’ll talk.
But the argument just got worse in my opinion, as a new wrinkle has been thrown into the mix with deGrom officially passing Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax on the Baseball-Reference WAR list. Consistent readers of my work here at Legends on Deck will know that I despise Wins Above Replacement, and devoted an entire article to “slaying the dragon” (which can be found here), and ironically, this deGrom WAR news touches on both debates.
The idea that Jacob deGrom, especially with his lack of availability, has more WAR than Sandy Koufax is just ludicrous on its face, and the arguments made in favor of it simply don’t hold water. One person on X – in response to my pointing out deGrom’s lack of availability, pointed out that deGrom has more 30+ start seasons than Koufax, and this is true, by 1 season; the problem is that of Koufax’s 4 seasons with 30+ starts, 3 of them were also 40-start seasons (something deGrom has obviously never done, and with his injury issues, is doubtful he could do), and in his other 30+ start season, Koufax still appeared in 40+ games.
Another user on X, aptly called “The WARmonger,” argued that Koufax wasn’t avalible past the age of 30 and “wasn’t very good until 25,” which is also true; however those two arguments fall apart when you consider that Koufax’s arm essentially falling off at 30 when he did not have the benefits of modern medicine, is akin to deGrom having the many injuries he does, so they can arguably be said to cancel each other out on that front.
Additionally, Koufax may “not have been that good” until 25, but one could arguably say the same about deGrom, given he didn’t even make his MLB debut until he was 25 (and turned 26 less than a month later). Therefore, the two things that should stand out to you are 1. Even when average-to-below-average, at least Koufax was pitching, and 2. What kind of performances was he putting up compared to deGrom?
While I understand that we live in 2026, and the pitcher win is no longer respected by many fans and analysts of the sport (a tragedy which I address here), it must be noted that during his 5-year peak, Sandy Koufax dominates deGrom in terms of wins, winning 25+ games in 3 of the five years, and 19 and 14 wins in the other two; if you count his 25-year-old “just before the peak” season in which he was still really good, he won 18 games with a 3.52 ERA. Meanwhile, deGrom has never won more than 15 games in a season, and while that is absolutely not his fault per se, as much of that can be blamed on a bad Mets offense, it is still worth noting.
Additionally, a few other stats are vitally important in the comaprison of 5-year peaks; during his incredible peak, Koufax put up ERAs of 2.54, 1.88, 1.74, 2.04 and 1.73, leading the league in all 5 seasons; now having three sub-2.00 ERA seasons is insane in and of itself, but what makes it more striking is that he did so in seasons where he pitched 184.1, 311.0, 223.0, 335.2 and 323.0 innings, as well as 11, 20, 15, 27 and 27 complete games (leading the league twice). During that time, he threw 2, 11, 7, 8, and 5 shutouts (leading the league thrice), and struck out batters 216, 306, 223, 382, and 317 times, leading the league three times (and if you wanted to include a sixth season, the aformentioned 25-year-old one, he also led the league in strikeouts that year with 269).
As for deGrom, he’s only had one full-season with a sub-2.00 ERA (1.70 – leading the league), with his other ERAs standing at 2.54, 3.53, 2.43, and 2.97. In terms of innings pitched during his 5 full seasons, deGrom’s come in at 191.0, 201.1, 217.0, 204.0, and 172.2; never leading the league. His strikeouts? 205, 239, 269, 255 (leading the league), and 185. Ironically, of his 4 career complete games, only two came in full seasons, and neither of his 2 career shutouts were in those seasons.
None of this is to argue that deGrom’s performances were bad, because they weren’t; they just pale in comparison to Koufax, and if you want to include awards, Koufax has 3 Cy Young awards and an MVP to deGrom’s 2 Cy Young awards.
Now, I know what the defenders of WAR will say: “You clearly don’t understand WAR, because one pitcher having a higher WAR than another doesn’t mean he is better!” Again, true…in theory, but in practice, that is not how it has played out. Wins Above Replacement comparison between starters and stars has been used to prove one player is “better” than the other from very early on, and still is to this day; so even if an unintended consequence, it is still a fair critique and examination to make. I will never forget how people – myself naively included – tried to use Mike Trout‘s higher WAR to prove he should have won MVP over the Triple-Crown winning Miguel Cabrera, or how many – though not me this time – argued that Michael Fulmer‘s higher WAR meant he should be Rookie of the Year over Gary Sanchez.
Furthermore, deGrom having a higher WAR than Koufax, given deGrom’s lack of availability, makes even less sense when considering modern arguments. I have been reliably informed that pitchers today – across the board – are just better than they were in the past. So by definition, that would mean that while deGrom might be “better” talent or ability-wise than Sandy Koufax, his replacement-level players would also be better than Koufax’s replacements; and what’s more, almost assuredly closer in talent to deGrom than Koufax’s replacements would have been to him.
For deGrom to have a higher WAR than Koufax therefore means that Jacob is so much better than his more talented replacement players than Sandy was to his less-talented ones, that he is worth more wins to his team than his replacements are, even when he is not pitching (and they are), than Koufax was to his replacement-level players, despite his pitching more in the years he was availible than deGrom ever has. If that sounds like a mind-pretzel, it’s because it is. If we are to believe the modern case that pitchers are just better now than they’ve ever been, then there is just no excuse – all things considered – for deGrom to be more valuable over his replacements than Koufax was over his.
Finally, and this is more of just an ironic observation, but I find it fascinating that in the modern baseball world that we live in, the same people who have eschewed and thrown away the value of Pitcher Wins are such ardent defenders of Wins Above Replacement, especially when making the case of a low-win pitcher like Jacob deGrom. Either Wins matter, or they don’t; so arguing a pitcher’s win-count is meaningless while also arguing that he provides more wins to his team over a replacement starter is just, frankly, hilarious.
