Just when you think Jacob deGrom can’t find another gear on the mound, he does.

OK, well, we don’t know exactly what kind of next level we’ll see from the two-time National League Cy Young Award winner yet. If his performance during spring training indicates anything, though, 2021 is just going to keep adding to his lore.

His most recent appearance against the Houston Astros in West Palm Beach last Thursday is the perfect example. Sure, the Astros’ lineup didn’t have many regulars in it, but it’s hard to not be impressed by the three perfect innings he threw, which included seven strikeouts and him touching 102 mph on the radar gun.

As we await what is anticipated to be another dominant year atop the Mets’ rotation, let’s check out the career progression in some areas of his game. And, for funzies, we’ll compare his first seven years in the big leagues to two other franchise starting pitcher pillars: Tom Seaver and Dwight Gooden.

The Consistency

DeGrom being consistently amazing isn’t new. Heck, we were talking about how valuable his dependability was years ago. And yes, especially when talking about a team that gets bombarded with injuries like the Mets have in recent years, it becomes even more important.

Having an ace like deGrom is special, and it’s even more special when it’s virtually certain he’ll take the ball every fifth day. Outside of 2014 (22 starts, called up in middle of the year) and 2016 (24 starts, season shortened due to injury), deGrom has started at least 30 games on four other occasions. He tossed no fewer than 191 innings when that happened, surpassing 200 frames three straight times between 2017 and 2019.

That’s all well and good, but the consistency goes beyond that.

During a full regular season schedule, he’s never posted an fWAR below 2.9, and already has two years of 7.0-plus fWAR performances. Had it been a normal year, he was on pace to do it again in 2020. We all know about how low his ERA has been since 2018, but he’s finished a season with it above 3.00 just twice, with his high-water mark being 3.53.

That’ll all play. And he never ceases to amaze when it comes to how he goes about getting the job done.

The Velocity…And The Control

We make a big deal on how much deGrom’s fastball lights up the radar gun, and rightfully so. However, the ridiculous progression of increased velocity is across the board — not just with his fastball.

Among qualified starters in 2020, deGrom ranked first in fastball and slider velocity, while his curveball and changeup both ranked second. It’s no surprise that his strikeout rate has increased substantially throughout his career (it’s been above 28.9% each of the last four seasons), but he’s managed to keep his walk rate rather steady. After posting a 7.1% clip in 2017, that number has been 5.5%, 5.5%, and 6.7% in each of the last three years.

This is mostly impressive after peeking at other parts of his profile. Through all the increased performance and domination, deGrom has maintained a first-pitch strike rate above 60.0%. Its after that when he’s been pulling strings more often. Here’s how his zone percentage has progressed since 2016: 47.0%, 46.8%, 44.6%, 40.8%, and 38.7%.

He’s just playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers.

Stacking Up With The Other Greats

Without fail, the first two starting pitchers that come out of the mouths of Mets fans when discussing dominant hurlers of yesteryear are Seaver and Gooden. There are many good reasons why, but just looking at their career fWARs in Flushing explains it all.

They rank one-two on the Mets’ starting pitcher fWAR leaderboard at 67.7 and 52.1, respectively. Whether or not deGrom will give himself a chance to reach either one of them is a discussion for another day. For right now, let’s just look at how the right-hander’s first seven years in the big leagues compares to both Seaver and Gooden.

From the standpoint of hardware earned, all three won NL Rookie of the Year honors, and while Gooden has one Cy Young to his name, deGrom has already surpassed him, matching the two Seaver won in his first seven big-league seasons. However, let’s not forget this is with a couple of shortened seasons, and a 60-game campaign last year that potentially robbed him of another 7.0-plus fWAR performance.

Becoming the best pitcher in franchise history — from the standpoint of advanced statistics — will be a tall order for deGrom since he’s already entering his age-33 season. And thanks to New York’s ability to give him countless no-decisions over the years, there’s no way he’ll get close to approaching Seaver’s franchise record of 198 victories, either.

One thing he currently has on lock, though, is career strikeout rate. While Noah Syndergaard (26.3%) isn’t far behind, deGrom’s 29.2% clip is comfortably on top of that leaderboard. There’s another one he’s not currently leading but has a chance to be doing so once it’s all said and done — career ERA.

Seaver’s career 2.57 ERA is currently the best in team history, but deGrom is hot in his tail at 2.61 heading into 2021. It’ll continue to get harder to lower that mark, but it’s a number the right-hander has bested easily in each of the last three years. So, he’s shown to be more than capable of keeping this trend going.

We know deGrom has been ridiculously good since debuting in 2014, but it’s easy to forget just how good he’s been since we’re so used to it. Now, the next treat will be what happens this season as he somehow continues to get better.