PORT ST. LUCIE — Now this is a bluff The Post would love to see called.
If Jacob deGrom doesn’t get his desired long-term extension by his Opening Day deadline, would he actually take the Nationals Park mound on March 28, clock six shutout innings while throwing 62 pitches and then, when asked about pitching the seventh, borrow an old Herman Melville line and declare, “I would prefer not to”?
Very likely not, as this exaggerates the sort of measures deGrom’s current head agent, Jeff Berry of CAA, proposed in an industry memo last year. Yet by throwing down the gauntlet in their discussions with the Mets, whose general manager, Brodie Van Wagenen, just happens to be deGrom’s former head agent, deGrom and company have rolled a hand grenade into this upbeat Mets spring just as pitchers and catchers reported.