Comparing Jacob Degrom To Hisashi Iwakuma

Courtesy of 11 Alive

     At first glance, they look like completely different pitchers. One's a tall, lanky 6'4 power pitcher who averaged 93.5 MPH on his fastball. The other is seven full years older and averaged just under 89 MPH on his fastball last season. I have a feeling you can tell which one is which. However, I saw some similarities between the two pitchers, and I figured I would conduct some research to see if I was correct.
     First off, let me mention that Degrom relied more on swings and misses (as evidenced by his 11.7 swinging strike% which by the way, would have ranked in the top ten if he had enough innings to qualify), while Iwakuma relied more on hitting his spots with the utmost precision (first pitch strike% of 66.9, 8th among starters last year, and an overall strike% of 69.2, about the same as Jordan Zimmermanns 69.7%).

     However, it seems like they still ended up getting to the same place, as evidenced by a 17.9 K/BB% by Degrom and a 18.8 K/BB% by Iwakuma. Not that far of a difference. They also both posted similar SIERA's, as Degrom's was at 3.19, while Iwakuma's sat at 2.94. However, it seemed like Iwakuma had the edge in inducing weak contact, as he posted a groundball rate of over 50%, and a percentage of infield flys at 8.6%, while Degrom had a grounder rate of around 45% and a rate of infield flys just under 8%. However, this isn't to say that Degrom can't approach those elite levels of inducing contact futility. In fact, it seems like Degrom has shown steps toward getting there already. 

     What I find remarkable about the two pitchers, is that they seemed to approach hitters similarly. Like I said just before, Degrom seems to be approaching hitters similar to Iwakuma, which essentially is showing that despite being a rookie last season, Degrom has impeccable maturity at the Major League level. Per Brooks Baseball, here are both pitchers overall zone usage.

     As you can see, Degrom and Iwakuma have a strikingly (pun intended) similar approach in that they are both consistent strike throwers who share a propensity for locating their pitches down in the zone, but they also have some differences. They differ in that while Iwakuma relies primarily on his breaking pitches (only 47.9% fastball usage), Degrom has relied on his fastball (61.5% usage), and has found a lot of success in doing so. In following the link to his Brooks baseball page, you'll see that Degrom has accumulated a ton of whiffs via the hard stuff.
   

Courtesy of Zimbio

     As much as Degrom and Iwakuma are different pitchers, they really aren't all that different. As I stated before, they tend to approach hitters very similarly, and that could end up aiding toward Degrom's overall development in becoming very good Major League starting pitcher. I personally think that if Degrom is able to maintain this similar approach, he could potentially start seeing his walk and groundball totals approach that of Seattle's ace quality pitcher. If that happens, then we should be prepared to see an even better Jacob Degrom than the one that won the Rookie of the Year award last season. If that happens, Matt Harvey won't be the only pitcher we have that will strike fear into the hearts of opposing teams.