How Will the Top Rookie Pitchers From Last Season Perform in 2015?

Jacob deGrom, New York Mets

While there may have been a time when deGrom was overshadowed by fellow Mets pitching prospects Matt Harvey, Zach Wheeler, and Noah Syndergaard, that is hardly the case anymore.

The 26-year-old righty put up excellent numbers in his 140.1 innings in terms of both run prevention (2.69 ERA, 78 ERA-) and defensive independent stats (76 FIP-, 82 xFIP-). He struck out 9.2 batters per nine innings, and his 25.5% strikeout rate was 10th in the Majors among pitchers with at least 140 innings pitched.

deGrom was also ninth in the Majors in swinging strike percentage, thanks in large part to an excellent fastball.

His 93.5 miles per hour fastball was worth nearly 15 runs above average (per FanGraphs), which ranked 13th in baseball. Opposing batters swung and missed on 27.2% of their total swings against deGrom’s fastball, marking the third highest whiff rate against fastballs in the majors last year, according to Baseball Prospectus.

The projections apparently don’t buy the strikeout rate, given he averaged 7.4 strikeouts in four minor league seasons. Using the swinging strike statistics, though, you could make a compelling case deGrom’s uptick in strikeouts last year was no fluke, so he might be able to out-produce the projections.