The New York Mets have actually had a pretty good run in the 2020s when it comes to Louisville Silver Slugger Award winners. In 2022, they had Jeff McNeil. In 2023 and 2024, Francisco Lindor won the award. Pete Alonso finally got the nod in 2025 as did Juan Soto in year one with the ball club. It’s a pretty good stretch for a team that hasn’t necessarily relied on offense as its haymaker.
The last time the Mets had no Silver Slugger winners was in 2021. However, one player who appeared in only 15 games started off on the kind of season that would’ve had Shohei Ohtani looking in the mirror wondering what’s so special.
Jacob deGrom was 7-2 with a 1.08 ERA with an insane 14.3 K/9 rate. It was an abbreviated season that still earned him 9th place in the NL Cy Young race. What he should’ve done is win a Silver Slugger, too.
Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom was worthy of a Silver Slugger in 2021
Two Mets pitchers prior to deGrom won a Silver Slugger. Dwight Gooden in 1992 and later Mike Hampton in 2000 were recipients. After 21 years, deGrom was showing he deserved it, too.
The 2021 MLB season became the final one where pitchers actually hit. The universal DH made an appearance in the shortened 2020 campaign and returned in 2022. deGrom was a good hitter, originally drafted as a shortstop. He went into the season hitting .189/.226/.237 with 3 home runs. He had a better bag of tricks up his sleeve in 2021.
In only 33 at-bats, deGrom hit .364/.364/.394 with 6 RBI. A double was his lone extra-base hit among the 12 total. The RBI total matched his previous high from 2019.
Instead of deGrom, Atlanta Braves pitcher Max Friend received the Silver Slugger. He hit .273/.322/.327. Yeah, he had more plate appearances, 67 total. But with only 15 hits and just 5 RBI, it doesn’t seem like the right call. Three more hits in all of those chances and fewer runs driven in? It was the final nail in the coffin for Mets fans who had to watch Fried and the Braves win the World Series.
deGrom was one of the four finalists for the award. The other two, Madison Bumgarner and German Marquez, had won the award previously. deGrom, in the final chance, came up short and probably only because of the number of chances he had at establishing what could’ve been an all-time great pitcher hitting season. Bumgarner was there purely on reputation, hitting only .103 in 2021. Marquez drove in 9 runs with a .264 batting average.
