Rangers and deGrom agree to a contract

Two-time Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom agreed to a five-year, $185 million contract with the Texas Rangers, sources told ESPN, bringing baseball’s most talented pitcher to a pitcher-starved organization that is making massive investments in free agents for the second straight dead season.

The Rangers announced the deal Friday night, but did not disclose terms.

DeGrom, 34, who has spent all nine seasons of his major league career with the New York Mets, opted out of the final two years of his contract despite pitching just 64.1 innings in 2022. He missed the first four months of the season with a stress reaction in his shoulder and injuries had limited him to 224.1 innings over the past three seasons.

Texas looked past those problems and saw deGrom’s potential to be a transformative figure in the organization. He shattered industry-wide expectations of a short-term deal with the five-year package that, according to sources, includes a sixth-year option to bring the total value of the contract to $222 million.

The signing comes just a year after the Rangers dealt shortstop Corey Seager with a 10-year, $325 million contract and signed second baseman Marcus Semien for seven years and $175 million. Along with Jon Gray’s four-year, $56 million contract, the Rangers spent the most money in the 2021-22 offseason.

Bringing in deGrom with the biggest deal of the 2022-23 offseason so far continues the spending. The contract does not include any deferred money and gives deGrom a full no-trade clause, sources said. Between that and the lack of a state tax in Texas, competing teams would have had to exceed the $40 million-a-year threshold and stretch the offer to compete with the Rangers.

In deGrom, the Rangers secured a right-handed pitcher with the best pitching arsenal among the starters: a 100-plus mph straight that throws with command, a hard-hitting slider that sits in the upper 90s, a changeup and a curve that would be elite pitches to others, but serve as a complement to deGrom’s straight-and-slider duo.

DeGrom finished the 2022 season with a 5-4 record and a 3.08 ERA in 11 starts, though his peripherals best illustrated his dominance: 102 strikeouts against just eight walks, with nine home runs allowed.

He continued the kind of performances he had turned in over the previous four seasons, when he won his two Cy Youngs and rose from a former ninth-round pick out of Stetson University–where he played shortstop–to the most unhittable pitcher in the world.