Jacob deGrom got his money, and the Mets should probably pay commission on the Sale.
The five-year, $137.5 million deal struck between the Mets and their ace Tuesday morning, pending a physical, fits tidily into a league in which more players, fearful of the growing free-agency freezes and a CBA that expires in 2021, don’t want to wait to hit the market to get their money, and teams feel most comfortable bidding against themselves and not rivals to lock up their own.
In a spring training that already had seen standouts such as Justin Verlander, Mike Trout, Nolan Arenado, Aaron Hicks, Aaron Nola and Luis Severino choose the guaranteed comforts of extensions, it was Chris Sale whose pact gave the Mets and deGrom some parameters.