Mike Freire - What To Do With Jake?

                                                                     (PC - Ed Delany)
 

Greetings, Mets' fans.

It has been quite a while since I last contributed to this wonderful blog, but sometimes life gets in the way and you have to prioritize what is important, etc.  Sort of like the Mets and the pending roster needs that Billy Eppler and Co. will be tasked with as the 2022 season winds down and we start the "hot stove" season.

The other writers on this blog have done an excellent job of detailing who will be a free agent and what the team should do about them.  However, sometimes a decision is so important that it deserves an extra look or additional consideration.  In this case, I am referring to the "800 pound gorilla in the room", also know as Jacob DeGrom.

Whether Jake stays or goes is really up to him, as he has all of the leverage in this case due to a cleverly crafted opt out clause in his current contract (more on that is a second).  But every other player decision, as well as the final state of the 2023 team payroll will pivot off of what happens with our long time ace.

There seems to be two distinct schools of thought currently circulating in the media and amongst Mets' fans as a whole.  The first is that Jake is the heart and soul of the team and he should be retained at all costs.  Steve Cohen spends more on a piece of art for his collection then it would cost to retain Jake, right?  

The alternate view is that Jake's best years are behind him and the team has so many needs that the money should be spread around instead of concentrated on a single player.

Which view is correct?  I suppose the truth lies somewhere in the middle, as an old friend used to say whenever I sought advice to assist in making a difficult decision. Let's review Jake's history with the Mets, to see if that helps.

In nine seasons (2014-2022), Jake produced the following;

209 Starts - 43.8 WAR - 1326 IP - 1607 K - 0.998 WHIP - 82 Wins (57 losses)

Rookie of the Year (2014)

2 Cy Young Awards (along with four other top ten finishes)

5 All Star Games

So, what's the holdup in keeping this guy again?

Unfortunately, when most players get a long term deal, they are getting paid for "what they have done", instead of what they will likely produce going forward.  Yes, Jake was probably underpaid for the level of performance that he provided the team (roughly 117 million dollars to date), but that's also the nature of the collective bargaining agreement.

Another point of view would be that over his nine seasons, Jake averaged only 23 starts per year which is far below the 30 plus starts that you would expect from an ace.  

Some of that was due to the COVID shortened season, but most of it is due to the ugly fact that Jake has had some significant injury issues along the way.  Especially the last two seasons where he made only 26 total starts which were mostly vintage Jake until the end of this past season where we started to see some cracks in the armor.

The truth is that Jake will be 35 years old in 2023 and to keep him in town, the team will likely have to match or exceed the contract that the team gave to Max Scherzer last year in both dollars and years.  That is a LOT of money and payroll space for an excellent pitcher that has had performance and availability issues of late.  

If you had to wager your own money, would you bet on Jake to deliver 20-25 quality starts per year over the next three or four years, or do you think he will continue to struggle with his health as he reaches his mid to late 30's?

You can see the dilemma, right?  

Putting personal feelings aside, I think keeping Jake would be a bad decision in the long run.  I don't see him providing enough value for what it will cost to retain his services.  Injury issues usually don't get any better as a person ages and Jake can't help the team from the disabled list.

I think the team would be better served by addressing the multiple vacancies in the rotation and the bullpen with the money that it would take to sign Jake. That might sound like blasphemy, but you have to focus on the future and not what happened in the past if you are Billy Eppler.

In the end, all of this may not matter as the decision will be Jake's and who knows what he wants. 

So, what would you do?