The New York Mets are hard at work trying to improve their team at the Winter Meetings, but they are also weighing how to take care of their own stars. The biggest star on the Mets right now is ace Jacob deGrom, who won the National League Cy Young Award by compiling a 1.70 ERA on a dreadful team. deGrom is under team control for only two more years before reaching free agency, so the Mets should be looking to explore a contract extension with their ace. The first step of that process began in Las Vegas, when deGrom’s agent met with team officials, SNY’s baseball insider Andy Martino reports.
Martino described the talks as preliminary, and that makes sense since it is a bit of a back burner issue for the Mets right now. GM Brodie Van Wagenen, who was not part of the negotiations due to his history as deGrom’s agent, has been busy in Las Vegas trying to help the Mets upgrade at catcher and in the bullpen. COO Jeff Wilpon and Assistant GM John Ricco met with deGrom’s agent, and it isn’t clear when the next step of this process will occur. The Mets have a big incentive to get a deal with deGrom done in order to keep him on the same timetable as the other players Van Wagenen described as core pieces: Robinson Cano, Edwin Diaz, Michael Conforto, Amed Rosario, and Brandon Nimmo. All of those players are around for at least four years, so signing a five year extension with deGrom would give them another core piece in a new window to try and win right now.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
