With stellar 2025 behind him, Rangers’ Jacob deGrom is focused on improvements ahead

SURPRISE, Ariz. – When Jacob deGrom unpacked the bags from a season worthy of the Comeback Player of the Year Award, there was a lot to reflect on.

He made 30 starts for the Rangers. He made the All-Star team. He pitched enough innings to qualify for the ERA title for the first time this decade. He reached 1,700 career strikeouts in fewer career starts than any pitcher ever. He placed in the top 10 in the Cy Young voting. A lot of great stuff of which to exhale, be proud and kick up his feet for the winter.

This is what he chose to reflect on: The homers.

“There were just some misses over the middle of the zone,” deGrom said Thursday, a day after throwing his first bullpen of the spring. “When I did miss, it seemed to be a home run. So I want to try to eliminate those. When I missed over the middle, there was damage. The homers. I can’t stand them.”

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Oh, really? We hadn’t even noticed. Other than the whole routine being etched in our minds: He spins to look backward, stares at the spot the ball lands or skyward, shakes his head and scowls. His disgust is visible and palpable.

And last year, despite a superb season, that disgust was on display more frequently than ever in his career. On the way to his 12-8 season with a 2.97 ERA over 172 innings, deGrom allowed 26 homers. It was the second highest total for a season in his career, but it was the highest rate per nine innings (1.4) he’d ever allowed. This for a guy who had previously allowed just 0.8 homers per nine innings for his career. Almost double that.

DeGrom allowed 16 of them on his legendary fastball. That’s the most he’d ever allowed on the pitch. He allowed 10 of them in the 244 at-bats when he was ahead in the count; a rate four times his previous career rate of 1%. He even allowed a homer on an 0-2 count, something he’d allowed only twice previously and not since 2021. More painful: The pitch to then-Mariner Rowdy Tellez was above the zone. Think it didn’t get discussed when the duo became teammates later in the year? Yeah, it did.

These are the things that Jacob deGrom parsed up about his season. He expects to pitch innings. He expects to dominate hitters. He does not expect that his mistakes will become home run trots.

“I always try to look at what I could do better,” deGrom said. “I think that’s just kind of how I operate. It’s always trying to figure out a way to get better and improve. Obviously, I was proud of making the 30 starts and being able to do that, but my mind just works very much like ‘Oh, I wish I could have that start back or done this.’ It’s just me.”

There is one other area deGrom expects to “do better.” At least in his mind. He expects to pitch more innings. Coming off his second Tommy John surgery and having not pitched more than 100 innings since 2019, deGrom’s pitch counts and workloads were closely monitored early in the season as a safeguard. This year, the Rangers are likely to continue to protect him early, though perhaps not as strictly as a year ago.

DeGrom’s goal is always 200 innings, though that is less realistic than ever in MLB these days. Maybe an extra 10-12 innings is more feasible during the regular season, but if the Rangers do what they expect to do and win more games, it’s entirely possible deGrom could get to 200 with postseason innings. Either way, he expects more than last year.

So his first conversation of the spring with the media became more about what he can do better than what he did right, which was a lot.

Here’s a scary — scary good if you are the Rangers — thought: Imagine what it would be like if he stays healthy, like he did last year, and improves the homer rate? Is a third Cy Young Award out of the question for a guy who will be 38 at the end of the season? Well, there have been six guys older to win them. Perhaps with Tarik Skubal still in the AL it might be too much to ask, though; perhaps not.

Even if possible, you can bet that deGrom would grab the trophy, smile politely and then go home and think about what he can do better. It certainly beats thinking about how to rehab from another injury. That’s been his unfortunate thought process in recent years. Not this past year, though. He was able to focus on simply what he can do better.

There’s not much.

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