There are two yearly facts of life I accept when I construct the fade column.
First, we don’t offer fades on late-round players. That’s just taking the easy way out.
Two, the article is constructed with some melancholy in my heart. A lot of these players are stars, or at least were stars. It’s no fun to say they’re going to be possible disappointments. I want to root for the stars, too.
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Of course, it’s a game of opinions. My shy-away player could easily be one of your targets, and that’s fine. That’s why we have a game. It’s also possible I might roster some of these guys if the context is right; in fact, that’s the story with my first name on this list, the signature fade in this year’s piece.
Jacob deGrom, SP, Rangers
I’ll check my biases at the door — deGrom is my favorite pitcher who debuted after the year 2000.
His games with the Mets were appointment television, an artist at work, with the wonderful SNY booth of Gary Cohen, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez calling the action. deGrom’s control was a dream. His power was breathtaking.
The two Cy Young seasons speak for themselves, but the deGrom year I can’t let go of was 2021 — he posted a 1.08 ERA and a 0.554 WHIP over 15 amazing starts. Those aren’t MLB stats, those are backyard Wiffle Ball stats, older brother against younger brother. They read like misprints.
Of course, it was an incomplete season. Forearm tightness shelved deGrom in mid-July and later his elbow started to bother him. He didn’t pitch again that year. A shoulder problem cost him most of the 2022 season, and then he left the Mets. His first year in Texas ended after six starts, with deGrom blowing out his elbow and heading for his second Tommy John surgery.
We saw deGrom return late last year and he was his usual dominant self: 10.2 innings, two runs, one walk, 14 strikeouts. It’s never a matter of what he can do when he’s healthy.
I realize anybody can get hurt and pitchers in particular come with heightened injury risk. But given that deGrom steps into his age-37 season and he’s had so much physical turmoil the last few years, I can’t sign off on a Yahoo ADP inside the top 50.
I hope I’m wrong on this, of course. I’d love to see what deGrom could do even with 125 innings, or 100. Texas is paying him too much money to give up on starting just yet, but perhaps deGrom could become a knockout reliever someday. My heart is allowed to dream. My head needs to stay…