{"id":879747,"date":"2019-02-15T06:18:47","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T11:18:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/?p=879747"},"modified":"2019-02-15T15:35:46","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T20:35:46","slug":"operation-deshutdown-feeling-jacobs-pain-mets-innings-limit-m1d1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/news\/operation-deshutdown-feeling-jacobs-pain-mets-innings-limit-m1d1\/","title":{"rendered":"Operation deShutdown? Feeling Jacob’s Pain"},"content":{"rendered":"
When it comes down to it, I really don’t think that Jacob deGrom is going to go into full Derek Bell mode, start pulling himself out of games in the fifth inning, and make the entire 2019 season a business decision. My view from the outside is that deGrom is too much of a competitor to keep the juices flowing when it counts, especially if the team that Brodie has put together turns out to be a true contender for the division. I’m sure that the team will also want to be judicious with deGrom’s innings early in the season anyway. So\u00a0Jacob’s thoughts about limiting his innings<\/a> will turn out to be, at the very least, one of those one-off spring training quotes that catches fire because there’s nothing else to talk about. At the very worst, they will shine a light at deGrom’s frustration which has manifested itself as a negotiating ploy.<\/p>\n Do I get the frustration? Absolutely.<\/p>\n Look, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve been with an organization for a year, eight years, or twenty-two and a half years … baseball or otherwise. When you have done everything asked of you, gone above and beyond by pitching big in important games and having one of the greatest seasons a pitcher has had in recent memory despite a historic lack of support, you want to know that the higher-ups have your back. It’s frustrating when you slowly come to the realization that they don’t … that this is a business and nothing else.<\/p>\n The problem here is that the Mets, at this very moment in time, are right. deGrom will hit free agency for his age 33 season because he came up so late in his baseball life. he wasn’t even the big prospect that joined the Mets that year … it was Rafael Montero. If deGrom was Montero’s age, there would be no excuse for the Mets to let deGrom play out his rookie contract (big arbitration payday and all) and get to free agency. But the way the Mets probably see it now, they can get all of Jacob deGrom’s prime on his rookie contract, and whatever they have to swallow in arbitration will be better than negotiating a multi-million dollar deal to keep him for two more seasons, which will be age 33 and 34. It just doesn’t make sense for the team. There’s no way the Mets can logically negotiate a new deal coming off a season for the ages, just to add to more seasons of mid-30’s decline.<\/p>\n The problem isn’t that the Mets won’t extend deGrom now. The problem is that the Mets haven’t done it before. The Mets and deGrom have had plenty of time to extend deGrom, buy two more seasons, and make it a team friendly deal. I know that I’ve been advocating for a deGrom extension for a long time. So let’s say that deGrom gets his extension after 2015, after winning Rookie of the Year in 2014 and winning two games against the Dodgers in the NLDS, including Game 5. Does a seven year deal at $105 million seem reasonable? Maybe it wouldn’t have back then. Maybe it would have been on the aggressive side. But after the 2018 season and an arbitration hike, perhaps another one for 2020, and then two more years at $15 million per would seem like a bargain at that point. Two more years that even come close to 2018 and we’re talking $20-$25 million per on the open market, even in a depressed market such as the one we’re seeing now. So you pay a little more in the beginning, and the back end is a bargain. At the very least, deGrom loses his moral high ground to talk about innings limits while under a contract that he willingly signed.<\/p>\n