The Lamborghini Veneno of pitching, as I called Jacob deGrom, now sits in the driveway of the Rangers. Sticker price: $185 million over five years, which covers deGrom from ages 35 to 39. And with the pitching beauty you get from deGrom—the most elevated quality of stuff we have ever seen on a mound—you get all that worry about maintenance.
Forget breaking down this contract for value. Nobody ever bought a Lambo or a yacht and bragged about cost efficiency. deGrom is a luxury item: the best pitcher in baseball who needs extra rest and does not pitch deep into games consistently. Over the past two years he has thrown 100 pitches in a game twice. He has pitched on four days of rest in only 10 of his 26 starts and is 3–3 in those games. You don’t drive this ride hard.
Over the past five seasons, from ages 30 to 34, deGrom averaged 20 starts, 129 innings and 7 wins per season. While it would be foolish for the Rangers to expect they will get 30 starts a year from deGrom over the next five, I do believe he will average more innings per year. His mechanics are that smooth—even better over the past few years, as evidenced by the jump in velocity. He is a fabulous athlete. The stress reaction in his scapula he suffered in April is not typically associated with any pattern of arm injury. His injury history is less extensive than it seems; he made virtually every start from 2017 to ’20. And by every indication, deGrom is exactly where he wants to be, which is not New York, where despite his greatness he never took deep root as a beloved franchise icon.
