Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports

To put it plainly, New York Mets ace Jacob deGrom is good at throwing the baseballs. This is obviously not a groundbreaking statement, but it is amazing how he continues to hit another gear with each season.

The awesome part is he’s continuing to find small things to improve upon that eventually makes a big difference when he toes the slab every fifth day. Recently, I started noticing a trend taking hold, and it’s actually something that’s been going on for a number of years based on season-long stats — I just didn’t notice it until now.

It started with his June 21 start against the Atlanta Braves when MMO’s Mathew Brownstein tweeted the following:

Naturally, I found it fascinating that he recorded his second-highest swinging-strike rate of the season while spending so much time out of the strike zone. Here’s how deGrom’s zone rate has varied from start to start this year, along with how often he’s been throwing his fastball, slider, and changeup:

So, as we can see here, deGrom’s first seven starts and his most recent six turns through the rotation look quite different. Through those first seven starts, the right-hander was using his fastball at a 64.6% clip, along with using his slider just 23.5% of the time. That produced an overall zone rate of 42.5%, and he tossed balls in the strike zone at least 40.0% of the time on five of those seven occasions. In deGrom’s most recent six starts, his zone rate has dropped to 32.4%, which has been aided by a drop in fastball usage (59.3%) and a rise in slider usage (31.1%). During this period of time, he never posted a zone rate above 40.0% in a single start.

Nobody can fault deGrom for using his heater as often as he has in 2021. After all, he hits triple digits with remarkable consistency and people aren’t really hitting it. However, this recent rise in slider usage is a recipe for success we’ve seen from the two-time Cy Young winner in recent years. Between 2015 and 2020, his slider usage has progressed like this on a yearly basis: 15.8%, 18.5%, 22.7%, 23.9%, 31.5%, and 35.6%. Coincidentally enough (or not, depending on how you’re looking at it), deGrom’s zone rate has consistently fallen each year since 2016, when he finished with a 47.0% mark. His current 38.3% clip is on track to decrease for the fifth season in a row and become a new personal best.

Through 78 innings in 2021, Jake is flirting with a swinging-strike rate that could eventually challenge his single-season best thus far (21.3%) and he’s spending less time in the strike zone than ever before (38.3%) while being on pace to post a career-best walk rate (4.0%) by a significant margin. His increased slider usage is a big reason why. After having that offering land in the strike zone at a 45.3% rate in 2020, it’s all the way down to 32.5% so far in 2021.

I mean, just look at this thing. The only thing most hitters can do is tip their cap while heading back to the dugout:

And, yes, I’m sure there are some people out there saying, “Dude, just don’t swing at the slider, it’s not a strike!” but it ain’t that easy to do. That’s especially the case when his slider looks like a fastball for 75% of its flight to the catcher’s mitt. The below overlay is from his June 16 start against the Chicago Cubs, and honestly, I’m still thinking about this image. There’s probably a masterclass on pitch tunneling out there somewhere, and if they don’t use this tweet to illustrate it, they’re doing something wrong:

Deception and messing with a hitter’s timing is the goal of pitching, and having a consistent release point is key to making that happen. Unsurprisingly, deGrom has been a master at repeating where the ball comes out of his hand this season.

What it really comes down to is the Mets’ ace can do whatever he wants. He began the year leaning heavily on his fastball by tossing it nearly three out of every four pitches he threw, and nobody could hit it. In recent starts, he’s made the shift toward leaning on his slider again more regularly, and not many people are having extraordinary success against that, either. Just look at the results his four-seamer, slider, and changeup have produced so far this season:

Honestly, it’s just laughable at this point. His wRC+ allowed for each of these offerings would obviously be new single-season personal bests if the season ended today. We’ve seen enough consistent domination from deGrom to know he can sustain elite performance for a long period of time, but what he’s done in 2021 is preposterous. As we can see, though, it’s not just the ever-increasing velocity that’s aiding his results — he pays attention to all the small details with regard to what he does on the mound, and it’s paying handsome dividends.