by Jon Becker

Today, and deservedly so, Jacob deGrom was named the National League Rookie of the Year, instantly making him somewhat of a household name for people not busy watching football. Over in the American League, Collin McHugh, toiling in relative anonymity, finished in a distant 4th in the Rookie of the Year voting, behind slugger Jose Abreu, breakout starting pitcher Matt Shoemaker, and relief ace Dellin Betances.

Here's the thing: McHugh was better than deGrom this season, and it's not even close to me. He was better than Shoemaker too, but Shoemaker led the American League in winning percentage, so we'll let that traditionalist view slide for this piece. Back to deGrom and McHugh

For those who may not be familiar, their stories are actually quite similar: McHugh put up good-but-not great minor league numbers and struggled in cups of coffee with the Mets and Rockies, before finding huge success with the Astros in 2014, his age-27 season. deGrom also had good-but-not-great minor league stats, before ending up finding his success in his age-26 season.

deGrom was definitely better in 2014; he actually underperformed with a 2.69 ERA and 2.67 FIP, whereas McHugh overperformed with a 3.11 FIP to his 2.73 ERA. However, we're talking about the long term here. So why McHugh over the better (in 2014) and slightly younger deGrom, then?

Stacking up to minor league performance

Yes, both drastically overperformed based upon their minor league stats, deGrom with a 3.62 minor league ERA and McHugh's at 3.35. If the ERA doesn't jump out at you at showing that McHugh could show far less regression, let's look at minors K/9 compared to their 2014 showing. deGrom's minor league K/9 was a decent--but far from eye-popping-- 7.4, including just 29 strikeouts in 38.1 innings before his call-up in 2014 in which his K/9 was 9.2. McHugh's K/9, however, is much closer to his solid 2014: an 8.7 minors K/9 before his 9.1 showing in the majors, including 8.0 in his most recent minors full season in 2013. deGrom actually increased his walks in the majors, going from 2.3 to 2.7 per nine, whereas McHugh cut down, going from 2.7 to 2.4 per nine. This makes deGrom more likely to regress than McHugh, as McHugh's stats are simply more believable.

Where the strikeouts came from and normalizing them

Combined strikeout total for deGrom's top 5 games for Ks: 54 in 34.1 innings

Combined strikeout total for McHugh's top 5 games for Ks: 47 in 33 innings

deGrom is clearly more impressive in this case. But this isn't about how a pitcher performs over their 5 most dominant games; it's about regression to the mean. The odds of deGrom striking out 54 batters in any five starts he makes over season is slim, because he'll probably never strike out 8 straight again and therefore it'd be much tougher for him to have a 13 strikeout game, and that causes a domino effect that reduces 54 to 43 or so, if he manages to keep even 80% of the strikeout wizardry he showed in 2014. The mean that he'd probably regress to at worst would be his minors K/9 of 7.4, but lower is possible if we see in 2015 that hitters simply needed an adjustment period.

Let's use John Lackey as an example. Lackey struck out 7.45 batters per nine in 2014, right there with deGrom's 7.4 minor league total. His five best games produced a still-impressive 49 strikeouts, but in 35.1 innings; still an excellent K/9. But the fact that Lackey made 31 starts proves my point; if deGrom had made 9 more starts to be even with Lackey, chances are his K/9 would've regressed, probably below McHugh's, as his median start produced 6.5 Ks. McHugh's median produced only 6, but because he'd have 3 less starts than deGrom to become even with Lackey, his K/9 doesn't lower as much.

Even if we put deGrom only up to McHugh's 25 starts using his median total of 6.5 strikeouts with his median innings total of about 6-and-a-third, his K/9 slowly normalizes. Throw in a few more games with his mode strikeout total of 4 and give McHugh some with his mode total of 6, and you can see how McHugh's better for the strikeout, especially once we realize deGrom's 13-strikeout performance probably isn't going to happen again.

Both pitchers were aided by excellent outings, but looking at the frequency of higher-strikeout games from McHugh as compared to deGrom, it becomes clear that McHugh is better in that aspect. Similarly, both pitchers will regress, but I'd bank on 12 Ks in 6.1 innings from McHugh more than 13 in 7 from deGrom, especially knowing that deGrom's fastball somehow generates more swings and misses than the average pitcher (expect that to normalize, as I wouldn't expect a 95 MPH average fastball over a 33-start season) and McHugh generates more than average on his curveball, which is probably the biggest swing-and-miss pitch in baseball.

The Fences

This one's simple: deGrom's HR/9 was half that of McHugh's (.4/.8 per nine innings), but deGrom's home fences are moving in and McHugh's are staying put. Shorter fences leads to more homers which leads to higher ERA, which leads to deGrom coming closer to McHugh.

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