The Mets had preliminary talks with ace Jacob deGrom during Spring Training, reports Andy Martino of SNY. The discussions have not come very far and are not expected to continue during the regular season, Martino adds.
With talks going on right now, it certainly does not look like there will be another long-term agreement between deGrom and the Mets in the near future. However, there is not much urgency. The two-time Cy Young Awards winner signed an extension earlier in March 2019. The deal could keep deGrom in Queens in 2024, but offers him the opportunity to exclude the season after 2022. The 32-year-old will pay consecutive salaries of $ 36MM over the next two years (some of which are deferred money). If deGrom does not rule it out in two years, he will earn $ 30.5 million in 2023, while the Mets will have to decide on a 2024 club option worth $ 32.5 million.
Although the expansion talks over the expansion of Mets and deGrom are certainly possible, the financial picture of the organization has changed significantly over the past few days. On Wednesday night, the Mets agreed to a ten-year extension, $ 341MM with a short stop Francisco Lindor which covers the 2022-31 seasons. It estimated the Mets’ 2022 salary commitments exceeded $ 127 million, according to Cot’s baseball contracts.
More meaningful in the context of a possible deGrom expansion, New York already has more than $ 100MM on the books for 2023. This takes the form of salaries for Lindor ($ 34.5MM), deGrom ($ 30.5MM) , Robinson Canó ($ 20.25MM), James McCann ($ 12.125MM) and Taijuan Walker ($ 6MM player option), as well as a $ 3MM buyout Carlos Carrasco’s $ 14MM club option. deGrom to exclude after 2022 will remove his salary from the ledger, but it will of course require the Mets to make another important investment if they want to keep him in the kraal.
The Mets have some more urgent decisions to make in the coming months. Michael Conforto, Noah Syndergaard and Marcus Stroman all are available for free after this season. New York discussed an expansion with Conforto during spring training. These talks may continue until the regular season, but it seems that there should still be the gap to keep the productive fielder out of the open market.
Steve Cohen is the richest owner of the game and has already pushed the Mets players’ payroll far above the previous limits of previous ownership. It remains to be seen how far Cohen is willing to go and how team president Sandy Alderson prefers to allocate the resources in an effort to build a steadfast rival around Lindor.