Yesterday’s report of Jacob deGrom‘s Opening Day deadline for an extension has put the Mets and new GM Brodie Van Wagenen in a tricky situation.
The fact that the relationship between the organization and deGrom appears to be strained only makes matters more complicated for everyone involved.
Perhaps nobody is in a more difficult position than Van Wagenen who used to represent deGrom at CAA and now has to sit across the table and negotiate in a matter that benefits the franchise ahead of his former client.
So, the pressure is on. The Mets now have a clear deadline that they must work around and figure out how to properly handle giving him an extension (or not), with the risk of a permanently strained relationship if things fail to materialize.
Van Wagenen, as many probably remember, was dead-set on the Mets giving deGrom an extension during the season when he called out the Mets, telling the team to either extend him or trade him to someone who will.
As we all know, the 30-year-old right-hander is coming off a historic campaign in which he went 10-9 with a 1.70 ERA, 0.912 WHIP, 1.99 FIP, and 269 strikeouts in 32 starts (217 innings) on his way to winning the NL Cy Young Award.
DeGrom has two years of control left before hitting free agency after the 2020 season, with this offseason appearing to make a lot of sense for the two sides to connect on a deal.
If Van Wagenen fails to do so, the organization risks alienating a fanbase further than they possibly ever have. It’s one thing to not be willing to spend big money on players from other organizations. It’s another to not be willing to spend money on your own players, ones that you developed, watched grow, and saw them succeed.
And because of that, Van Wagenen must find a way to reach the proper compromise with the franchise cornerstone.
While, yes, Van Wagenen has had a very solid offseason and far from the one many Mets’ fans were expecting, the team’s failure to sign deGrom to a long-term extension would completely overshadow it.
The Wilpon pawn theories of all general managers that have worked for the team have run rampant for the past several years and if Van Wagenen is unable to reach an extension with deGrom over the long-term it will serve as the strongest example yet of that given the hypocrisy that Van Wagenen would have to publicly acknowledge given his previous frustration with the team when deGrom was his own client.
On top of it, Aaron Nola‘s extension with the Philadelphia Phillies will only succeed in widening the frustration Met fans possess toward the organization on matters of finances and payroll.
Nola’s situation was quite a bit different from deGrom’s as he signed a four-year, $45 million extension with a club option to avoid his first year of arbitration.
That being said, the argument should certainly be made that the Mets probably should have done the same a few years prior with deGrom, who has made the All-Star Game twice and won Rookie of the Year in 2014.
In fact, had the Mets extended him earlier in his career, he likely would have come at a much larger discount, given the knowledge that he would not become a free agent until his age-32 season, which has not been a prime age for pitchers to hit the open market in the past.
Now, after winning his first Cy Young Award last season and in a strong position to receive a mega-contract in just two years if he can register numbers anywhere in the vicinity of his 2018 stat line, deGrom reasonably could ask for $30 million a season given his ranking among the best pitchers in baseball.
Whether or not the Mets manage to agree to an extension with deGrom remains to be seen, but the pressure is on for Van Wagenen and only one result is acceptable to many: signing him to a long-term deal.
