Jacob deGrom keeps stacking numbers that don’t quite match the usual Hall of Fame script, and Thursday gave his case another jolt. The Rangers right-hander reached 2,000 career strikeouts in a dominant win over the Nationals, adding another milestone to a résumé that already looks strange by traditional standards and mighty by just about every other one.
The win total is the part that jumps out first. deGrom has only 105 wins, along with four complete games and two shutouts. No modern starting pitcher has reached the Hall of Fame with fewer than Dizzy Dean’s 150 wins.
Yet deGrom is 38, under contract through next season, and has a mutual option for 2028. The debate around him isn’t really about whether he has the shape of a Hall case.
It’s about how voters will weigh a career built on overwhelming peak performance instead of sheer volume.
“In my opinion,” says Rangers manager Skip Schumaker, “he is a Hall of Fame pitcher. I think in the end, he will be a Hall of Fame pitcher.”
That opinion fits the direction the sport has already been moving. deGrom won his two Cy Young Awards with 10 and 11 wins. Corbin Burnes won a Cy Young Award with 167 innings.
Pitching value is being viewed differently now, and Hall of Fame voting is likely to keep drifting toward shorter bursts of dominance rather than the old counting-stat checklist. By the time deGrom gets on a ballot, that reappraisal may already be baked in.
The strikeout milestone itself only sharpened the case. deGrom got to 2,000 strikeouts in 272 games, with only Randy Johnson getting there faster at 262. He joins a club of 94 pitchers who have reached 2,000 strikeouts, but his 2.66 career ERA is what puts him in a different tier.
Only 17 pitchers in history have paired 2,000 strikeouts with an ERA under 3.00, and the only ones not yet eligible for the Hall are deGrom, Chris Sale and Clayton Kershaw. The other 14 are already enshrined.
Among that group, deGrom’s ERA ranks second, behind Kershaw and ahead of Sandy Koufax.
Even if the final years add a little to that ERA, the damage figures to be limited. And after what he showed against Washington, there’s reason to believe there’s still more in the tank, injuries aside, the necessary disclaimer with deGrom.
The eye test still matches the numbers. At 38, he remains one of the game’s elite throwers, and velocity is supposed to be the first thing to go.
Instead, he still lives in that 99-100 mph range with his fastball and can pair it with a 94 mph slider. Schumaker put it plainly: “Yeah, it's incredible,” Schumaker said.
“He's just that freak athlete that does everything great. If it's ping pong, if it's basketball, whatever, he’s one of those guys that kind of [ticks] you off in life because everything he touches is just easy for him.
“Now having said that, the greatest players are always trying to evolve, and they're never satisfied. His approach early on in his career was down and away.
He could dot a gnat's ass with his fastball, right? Down and away at a hundred.
That's just kind of a safe spot for him. What teams have been doing lately is hanging out over the plate and not having to worry about anything inside.
“So, the challenge for him now is, can we throw the ball inside more? Can we utilize the sinker that he's been trying to work on?”
deGrom did throw a sinker from 2015-18, then stopped using it in 2019. He brought it back this season, though not often enough for hitters to really have to account for it.
In his past three starts, he has thrown only two sinkers. Against the Nationals’ right-handed hitters, his pitch chart showed almost nothing on the inside corner.
None of it mattered Thursday. His fastball and slider were so sharp that he spun one-hit, shutout ball over six innings.
He has also been durable enough this season to matter in a way that stands out even among pitchers his age. deGrom has made 23 starts this year. All other pitchers his age or older combined have made 12.
Schumaker also offered a reminder of just how suffocating deGrom can be when he’s at his peak.
“I will tell you a crazy story about deGrom. I was coaching first base with the Padres, and Andy Green was the manager.
And deGrom was so good that if anybody got on base, it was automatic hit-and-run first pitch. And we ended up winning that game [4-0].
He won the Cy Young that year.
“That’s how dominant this guy was. I have never seen a guy like that, and he's not far off from that guy still-which is crazy.”
The best Hall comparison remains Dean, who had the fewest innings of any modern Hall of Fame starter at 1,967.1. deGrom still trails him by 301 innings. But deGrom has more starts than Dean, 272 to 230, and a much better ERA+, 147 to 131.
Dean lasted only six qualified seasons, with his final one coming at age 27, and injuries ended his career early. He needed nine years on the BBWAA ballot to get in, but he made it because he was more famous and more dominant than he was prolific.
That’s the lane deGrom is in now, only with a modern twist. He is not a Hall case built on accumulation.
He is a Hall case built on force. Reaching 2,000 strikeouts with a 2.66 ERA only makes that clearer.
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