Reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom and the Mets have settled on a one-year deal worth $17MM, tweets Andy Martino of SportsNet New York. After earning $7.4MM in 2018, deGrom earns a $9.6MM raise from his 2018 salary, breaking the record for an arbitration raise set by Mookie Betts just hours ago. The $17MM figure represents the highest all-time salary for a pitcher in his third year of arbitration eligibility. deGrom, who will remain under team control through 2020, was projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to earn $12.9MM in 2019. It should be noted that the projections’ guiding algorithm cannot account for context, which made deGrom a near lock to eclipse his relatively light projection, as Matt outlined here.
The 30-year-old righty enjoyed a season for the ages in 2018, posting a minuscule 1.70 ERA in 217 innings of work and striking out 269 batters. His efforts earned him 29 out of 30 first-place votes for the NL Cy Young Award despite an unremarkable 10-9 record. However, with the Mets making headlines as perhaps this winter’s most active team, new GM (and former deGrom representative) Brodie Van Wagenen hopes that the team’s offseason upgrades will translate to increased run support for the Mets’ stellar starting staff and vault the club into playoff contention. The staff ace, of course, is an integral part of that winning formula, though it remains unclear whether the team will be willing to dole out a hefty extension in future offseasons to keep deGrom around for years to come. Of course, the club may look to Noah Syndergaard, just 26 years of age, as an alternative, and a significant financial obligation to Robinson Cano over the coming five years may inhibit the team’s payroll flexibility. Regardless, the $17MM payday for deGrom will raise the bar for arbitration-eligible pitchers and lay the groundwork for what his earnings could look like next offseason, when he will be entering his final year of arbitration eligibility before reaching free agency.
Worth every penny.
Although, a long-term contract would have been preferred.
That can still happen…..and should.
Didn’t his gm say the exact same thing before switch careers?
Perfect description Dave. Wagon Wheel
had to dig into the Wilpon’s penny collection to do the deal. Just wait for the repercussions.
Not so much to pay for the leagues ERA leader and Cy Young Award winner.
Good job by The Mets. Such a substantial raise should earn them good favor with Jake should they pursue a long term deal with him in the future.
I think hiring his former agent probably went a long way towards that already, even though he “can’t” be a part of those negotiations (huge eye roll)
Good for him!
There are no favors once he becomes a free agent captain. He will switch to Scott Boras once eligible for FA and then say sayanora.
Getting that David Wright money! Now do the right thing for the next 5 years after.
John-the right thing never happens in Flushing. Only soap operas prevail. Enjoy it while you can as his time as a Met is dwindling.
Isn’t there Yankee news you should be posting about?
Don’t worry, he’ll be a Yankee in 2020 along with Syndergaard, Machado and Harper
Hey mister bill. Not on a Mets fed, dummy.
It’s Saturday night. You should be watching SNL tonight as Slugo is returning. Better be on the lookout…..ohhhhhhh nooooooo.
SNL wasn’t kind to the weakling Mr. Bill. He’s now pasted to the wall on the southern border with the epitaph, “when you have a squeaky voice keep your mouth shut”.
That’s an agent paying fairly. GM would’ve paid 14/15m. BUT! This may be good juju when it comes to negotiations for his long term deal
And by fairly, I mean fair for his arbitration. He could easily be making 25-29m/yr
If he was a free agent this year he’d be making $35+ on a 5 year deal.
Glad he got this amount, he deserves more but good for what was realistic in the current system. Seeing records broken every year from these arb. cases. Still interested to see what Bryant and Baez end up pumping out.
Waiting for Boogaloo to comment and saying something like, “You Mutt’s fans are all the same.”
You know, something with little to no context that has zero relevance to the article but has to plug that he does not like the Mets.
Kinda like thus comment?
Good for deGrom! Not sure what advantage the Mets would really gain by signing him to a long term contract when he still had 2 years of team control?