New York Mets legend and SNY analyst Keith Hernandez believes Jacob deGrom would still be with the Queens club had the ace remained healthy the past couple of years.
“I think his legacy will be, ‘Doggone-it, I wish we could have had him healthy,'” Hernandez said of deGrom during SNY’s “Mets Hot Stove” (h/t Colin Martin). “If he was healthy, he’d still be, I believe, in a Met uniform. He was just a phenomenal pitcher with the Cy Youngs, he pitched great in the postseason. It’s just hard to remember because he’s missed so much time of late. And for him to come back last year when he missed pretty much the year before, it’s just hard, you kind of forget, you lose your memory.
“He’s had a great career with the Mets, he’ll be missed. But you know, life goes on and we got a 2023 season coming up.”
The Mets were without deGrom for the second half of the 2021 season because of his lingering elbow problems, and the 34-year-old was then sidelined this year from the closing days of spring training through all of July due to a stress reaction in the scapula of his pitching shoulder. In total, deGrom made just 11 regular-season starts in 2022 and went 5-4 with a 3.08 ERA and 102 strikeouts across 64.1 innings of work.
In November, an orthopedic sports surgeon who never treated deGrom said that “there’s nothing about his recent injury history to suggest that his risk is higher than any other pitcher of his age.” The two-time National League Cy Young Award winner who opted out of his contract with the Mets after the World Series agreed to a five-year deal with the Texas Rangers that was announced on Dec. 2.
SNY’s Andy Martino later reported that “deGrom never gave the Mets the chance to make a last, best offer.” As a response to losing deGrom, the Mets landed three-time Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander in free agency.
“Well you lost deGrom and I can’t blame Jacob for taking that contract from the Rangers, that length and of course the dollars,” Hernandez added. “But Verlander at 39 has won his third Cy Young, and probably had his greatest year ERA-wise.”
Hernandez admitted he’s worried about the fact that Verlander will turn 40 years old in February, but the former player also noted that the right-hander “takes care of himself.”
