SNY's Andy Martino will be responding to and breaking down answers to Mets questions from readers. Here's the latest...
@deux_seven: What will a deGrom extension look like and can it happen before the season ends?
I don’t think a Jacob deGrom extension will happen any time soon, if it happens at all. The Mets ace has an opt-out after the 2022 season, and it wouldn’t shock anyone around the team if he exercised it.
But that’s actually getting way ahead of ourselves, because of deGrom’s health. It behooves neither he nor the Mets to talk about a contract during spring training or early in the season.
For deGrom, why sign anything before you have many months to try to re-establish yourself as the best pitcher in baseball?
For the Mets, there is no reason to assume the risk of committing to a pitcher who turns 34 in June and missed the second half of the 2021 season with elbow issues.
This will be a fascinating dynamic to watch this year. After deGrom signed a five-year, $137.5 million contract extension in 2019, he watched Gerrit Cole, Trevor Bauer, and Max Scherzer sign free agent contracts that were worth more in total value, annual salary, or both. None of those pitchers is quite as good as a healthy deGrom. It is profoundly unlikely that deGrom thinks his contract is fair.
Extension talks between deGrom and the Mets broke down last spring when, according to sources, the sides were nowhere close to close. Like, way, way apart.
And now, deGrom would be within his rights to want to top the record-setting $43.3 million average annual value awarded to Scherzer, who is older and had no prior attachment to the Mets. Yikes, though.
Also, remember the look on deGrom’s face the day in September after team president Sandy Alderson revealed that the pitcher had a partially torn elbow ligament?
Alderson had downplayed the injury and said it had “resolved itself,” but that didn’t prevent deGrom from holding an impromptu news conference the next day that began with a curt “I know what was said, but my ligament is perfectly fine” and ended with him storming away without taking questions.
That was not a happy day.