Jacob deGrom Exits For The Rangers, Leaving Intriguing Questions Behind — And Ahead — For The Mets

Jacob deGrom’s last act with the Mets was as stealthy as his first act.

It’s easy to forget two Cy Youngs and hundreds upon hundreds of 100 mph fastballs later, but deGrom was the secondary player recalled by the Mets during a quartet of games against the Yankees the second week of May 2014.

Rafael Montero was the hotly hyped prospect finally making his big league debut. DeGrom, a college shortstop who’d converted to pitching upon being selected by the Mets in the ninth round of the 2010 draft, was supposed to pitch out of the bullpen after Gonzalez Germen (really) went on the injured list.

But Dillon Gee suffered a lat injury while throwing his bullpen two days before his scheduled start, which forced the Mets to give deGrom the start against the Yankees. The unknown nearly 26-year-old rookie with the long hair and the warmup song he didn’t pick (it took a few starts for deGrom to replace “Best Day Of My Life” by The American Authors with his now-synonymous “Simple Man”) tossed seven innings of one-run ball, collected the first base hit of the season by a Mets pitcher and took the hard-luck loss as the Yankees eked out a 1-0 victory.

It turned out to be an appropriate beginning to the most dominant career by a Mets pitcher since Tom Seaver. Despite an almost comical lack of run support — he had 57 starts in which he allowed two or fewer runs over six or more innings and didn’t earn a win — deGrom went 82-57 with a 2.52 ERA, a 1.00 WHIP and struck out 1,607 batters in just 1326 innings.

He won back-to-back Cy Young Awards in 2018-19 and put together a 2021 season (7-2 with a 1.08 ERA, a 0.55 WHIP and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 146/11 in 92 innings while hitting .364 in 33 at-bats) that defied description until an elbow injury cost him the second half as well as a Hall of Fame-sealing third Cy Young Award.

If deGrom finishes a most unique Cooperstown sprint, he’ll do so in Texas. DeGrom signed a five-year deal worth $185 million with a sixth-year option worth a potential $37 million late Friday night, delivering quite the news dump fewer than 48 hours before he could have been one of the headline stories during baseball’s winter meetings.

For deGrom — who never seemed to have any interest in the spotlight or anything similarly frivolous, let us all again admire him for refusing to wear a jersey with his nickname on the back during Players Weekend in 2019 — it was an appropriately mysterious exit for a player who grew almost mythical during the back half of his New York run before becoming nearly ghost-like in what ended up being his final season.

What did it mean that deGrom — who suffered a right scapula injury in his final appearance of the spring and missed the first four months of the season — not only headed to Florida to rehab after the home opener but that the Mets gave his locker to third-string catcher Patrick Mazeika?

Upon his return, there were 23 hours in a day in which deGrom could bond with his teammates away from the public eye. But what did it mean that he rarely interacted with teammates during the 60 minutes or so in which writers were in the locker room, where the Mets’ good chemistry was visible in the spirited ping pong games and trash-talking over various topics?

DeGrom’s default expression is a stone-faced one. But what did it mean prior to a game against the Reds on Aug. 10 when deGrom appeared to glare twice while looking at Max Scherzer — the Mets’ unquestioned vocal leader and alpha male from the moment he arrived last winter — as Scherzer held court with Taijuan Walker and Daniel Vogelbach while the trio sat around a table a few feet away from deGrom’s locker?

Of course, if deGrom stayed with the Mets, most of these observations would have been rendered innocuous. And even now that he’s on his way to Texas, maybe none of them were anything more than the actions of a superstar with a contrarian streak.

In the end, deGrom’s words and those spoken by his former batterymate ended up being the most telling. DeGrom wasn’t much for offering up his inner-most thoughts, so it was certainly noteworthy when he spoke openly of utilizing his opt-out both before and after he got hurt.

Was there more to deGrom’s desire to hit the market than just being paid as the most dominant pitcher on the planet? Was he mad the below-market extension he signed under the penurious Wilpons just before Opening Day in 2019 was quickly dwarfed by the contracts the less-accomplished Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg signed in free agency the following winter?

Did he feel usurped within the Mets’ pecking order when new deep-pocketed owner Steve Cohen signed Scherzer and Francisco Lindor to contracts worth almost half a billion dollars combined? Was he insulted when Cohen offered Trevor Bauer — a far lesser pitcher and far, far lesser person than deGrom — a $100 million-plus contract that Bauer may or may not have briefly accepted in January 2021?

It was probably some combination thereof. As James McCann told Steve Gelbs of SNY early in the 2021 season, it wasn’t enough for deGrom to just win. In McCann’s words, deGrom had to “…take your heart and soul in the process.”

For most superstar athletes, the competition stretches into their bank accounts. It’s not a coincidence Lindor signed his $341 million deal with the Mets just before Opening Day — a mere $1 million more than the previous standard for a shortstop, set by Fernando Tatis Jr.

DeGrom clearly got what he wanted, even if his age (34) and recent injury history couldn’t allow him to set a new standard for starting pitchers. But in keeping with the against-the-grain arc of his career, deGrom might have helped the Mets out in the short- and long-term Friday night.

DeGrom’s lack of interest in dragging out his free agency for dramatic effect works out well here for the Mets, who now get to head into the winter meetings fully focused on finding his replacements — perhaps Justin Verlander on a short deal or Carlos Rodon on a longer one.

The post-Alex Rodriguez Mariners and post-Albert Pujols Cardinals are reminders teams can take the money they would have paid to retain a homegrown superstar, reallocate it to multiple players and improve themselves in a faster and more efficient fashion.

What if deGrom’s exit means the Mets can re-sign Brandon Nimmo as well as a depth starter such as Chris Bassitt and Taijuan Walker and continue to rebuild their bullpen? What if not investing an average of $37 million a season in deGrom allows the Mets to chase Shohei Ohtani next winter? One day after the most mysterious and fascinating career in team history ended, the Mets embark upon the intriguing riddle of trying to get better without the second-best pitcher the franchise’s ever had.