Jacob deGrom being everything Mets hope is worth future contract angst

The Mets have 60 games left in their regular season when they report for work at Washington’s Nationals Park on Tuesday night. In a best-case scenario, that means Jacob deGrom, who will take the ball for the Mets in the bottom of the first inning, could have a maximum of 12 starts.

Since the words “Mets,” “deGrom” and “best-case” rarely appear in the same paragraph — making the first two paragraphs of this column wild statistical outliers! — the Mets will settle for 11 starts, even 10, assuming there’ll come a time or two when even a healthy deGrom might require an extra day of rest.

There are a few things that will certainly happen in that span:

•  Mets fans will rejoice at the sight of the first fastball that clicks 100 mph.
• Mets fans will recoil at the sight of the first fastball that clicks 100 mph — and hold their breath with every other pitch thereafter.
• DeGrom will give his team and his teammates a lift, because this is the equivalent of making an A+ move at the trade deadline; it is merely returning the favor, since those teammates have done all of the heavy lifting in growing a 65-37 record through the season’s first 102 games after the Mets beat the Nats behind Max Scherzer on Monday, 7-3.

• DeGrom will continue to answer questions about whether he still intends to opt out at season’s end as he has all season, which is the same way he answered it Sunday in Miami.

“That is still the same,” deGrom said.

That last item is going to rankle Mets fans, sure. Whether it’s fair or not, it feels a bit cold-blooded, especially in this feel-good warm springs of a season. Mets fans have waited patiently for deGrom; for some, this makes it feel like deGrom can’t wait to file separation papers.

DeGrom is doing nothing at all wrong here, of course. For one thing, it was past Mets ownership and past Mets management that approved the extension deGrom signed a few days before the 2019 opener, allowing him the right to opt out after this season. It was a few dollars below market value, that was obvious at the time. It allowed the old ownership to not have to think about deGrom again until they were blissfully sailing on a boat somewhere, counting their sale profits.

And frankly, deGrom is handling this perfectly. He has never once lied about his intentions. And he has never once refused to answer the question, even as he languished on the IL. Transparency is a good thing. Honesty is a good thing. Even if it’s not what Mets fans necessarily want to hear.

Here’s the thing, though:

If deGrom returns at anything close to the version he was last year, when almost every start inspired comparisons to 1968 Bob Gibson, the conversation will soon change. If he is able to conjure anything quite like the 1.08 ERA or the 14.3 strikeout-per-nine-inning rate he motored along to across 15 starts last year … well, Mets fans (and Mets brass) will merrily wait until autumn to resume having anxious thoughts about deGrom’s future.

And that’s the thing, the very best thing about where the Mets find themselves Tuesday, 28 games over .500 and 3 ½ games clear of the Braves (four in the loss column) with the second-best record in the National League:

For a change, for the first time in a very long time, the narrative is about now, the mantra a song of urgency and resoluteness. Even seven years ago, as the 2015 Mets inched within three games of a championship, much of that team was aimed toward the future: a young pitching staff, a young on-the-come outfielder (Michael Conforto) and a young catcher, Travis d’Arnaud. When they lost it was easy to figure they could take a few more swings at the Commissioner’s Trophy.

This time there is no such theme. The Mets are an old team, oldest in the NL. DeGrom is one of a slew of important players who will be free agents after the season, including three-fifths of the rotation. No matter how much cash reserves Steve Cohen may have, they won’t have everyone back. And they still need to budget future riches for Pete Alonso, and sizable increases at various points along the road for Brandon Nimmo and Edwin Diaz (pending free agents) and Jeff McNeil.

So the Mets’ plan has to be to maximize whatever season deGrom can salvage — not recklessly, not dangerously, but to honor the season they’ve already built and the season they hope to have with deGrom at the front of the train — and worry about deGrom in 2023 and beyond when he officially turns in his papers. It is, in many ways, a wonderful Catch-22:

If a team Out There is going to pay top dollar for deGrom, they will certainly do so based on his body of work these next three months. Maybe that means he’ll leave the Mets; and maybe it means he’ll leave behind a championship flag.

The Mets will take that trade-off.

Presumably, Mets fans will too.