New York Mets: Three Jacob deGrom predictions for the 2020 season

Jacob deGrom gets a pair of shutouts

deGrom hasn’t thrown a shutout since 2016. It’s the lone one of his career, but all of that will change in year one under Carlos Beltran.

As deep as deGrom has been able to go in games, there have been times when he exited before getting an opportunity to go the distance. He didn’t even throw a complete game in 2019 let alone a shutout. This year, I’m predicting he gets two of them.

The Mets should be a little more competitive in 2020. This matters because they will ask deGrom to finish what he started. With a little more cache to call his own shots too, I think he could have some leverage in convincing the rookie manager to leave him in for one more frame.

There’s little doubt deGrom has the talent to throw nine shutout innings. A few factors must come into play to make it happen, though.

One consideration to make this even more possible depends on what type of baseballs MLB uses in 2020. Will we see the “juiced balls” of 2019 or the ones from 2018 when deGrom had a 1.70 ERA?

Just as likely, MLB goes one step too far in the other direction and we get a “Year of the Pitcher.”

Even without a single change to the equipment, I believe in deGrom enough to say we’ll see him exit the mound twice this season after completing a shutout. It’s about time the best pitcher in baseball does what the top arms do: completely obliterate the opponent for an entire nine innings.