I’ll sure miss Jacob deGrom…that is when I’m not watching Justin Verlander [1] pitch for the New York Mets this year and next. So maybe I won’t be actively missing Jacob deGrom quite so much, dashed lifetime Met status notwithstanding.
Yes, the word is out: Justin Verlander will be a Met [2], landing in a different context from that which the deGrom news [3] did less than three days ago but with the same ratio of surprise/shock to it. We can be surprised. We can’t be shocked. These are the New York Mets of Steve Cohen. Lose one all-time great, go out and replace him with another all-time great. Older, but maybe more durable in the short term. And all-time greater, truthfully. In his most recent term as an Astro, Verlander was a world champion and a Cy Young winner. It wasn’t the first time he’d been either. He comes to a new league and a new city and he’s doing it on the cusp of 40. But he’s Justin Verlander. He’s familiar with Max Scherzer. He’s familiar with getting batters out. He’s expensive, but how is that my problem? (Don’t be a mope and invoke ticket prices and cable subscriptions.)
Friday night was kind of miserable. Monday afternoon is rather ebullient. That’s the opposite of how things are supposed to work. We’re Mets fans who aren’t stuck empty-armed after losing an ace. That’s the opposite of how things used to work. We’ve got Verlander and Scherzer and, I suppose, some other spots to fill. But let’s give ourselves a respite from playing GM. Let the GM do his job. The owner has done his.
Justin Verlander is joining the New York Mets. Enjoy that for today. Enjoy that in 2023. Whatever happens in Texas can stay in Texas. Except for Verlander. He left Houston and is coming to Flushing.
We, too, move on. It’s what we do.