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Wendell Cruz | USA TODAY Sports

The long national nightmare for Mets fans is finally over — Keith Hernandez will officially be back in the SNY booth for the 2023 season. According to WFAN’s Boomer Esiason, that is:

This was a saga that dragged on for wayyyy too long. After all, as we sit here on Monday morning, Mets pitchers and catchers are officially reporting to Port St. Lucie for Spring Training on Wednesday. The Wilpons found a way to torture their former fan base one more time, but thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and an agreement has reportedly been reached.

We first heard of Keith’s expiring contract toward the conclusion of the 2022 regular season. Mum was the word about negotiations until Mike Puma of the New York Post began giving periodic updates around the holidays.

Complete details of Hernandez’s newest deal aren’t yet known. Puma did confirm that the length is for three years, though. His deal that just finished up was worth $2.4 million.

This has been touched on in the past, but Hernandez’s contract negotiations to remain in the SNY booth always seem to carry on longer than those for Ron Darling and Gary Cohen. The last two contracts he agreed to became public around the middle of January. So, waiting for news of Keith re-signing with SNY always dragged into the new year. The negotiations hit another level this time around, though.

It appears we can put thoughts of Keith Hernandez not returning in 2023 in the rearview mirror. Thank goodness.

Matt Musico can be reached at [email protected] and you can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.

Matt Musico is an editor for ESNY. He’s been writing about baseball and the Mets for the past decade. His work has been featured on numberFire, MetsMerized Online, Bleacher Report, and Yahoo! Sports.