2 days Ago By Kerry Miller
From 2013-22, Max Scherzer was the best pitcher in baseball. He won three Cy Youngs and nearly won several others, posting a 2.78 ERA, 0.
98 WHIP and 11.3 K/9 over the entire decade. Most pitchers are lucky if they can muster numbers like that for 10 starts, let alone 10 years.
However, Father Time eventually comes for us all, even the greats. And for Scherzer, so has the injury bug that he had been able to elude for the vast majority of his career. After posting a sub-3.
50 FIP in 11 consecutive seasons, Scherzer regressed to a 4.29 FIP over the past two seasons, while making just 36 out of what should have been more like 66 starts if he had been healthy. In both seasons, his rate of home runs allowed was higher than in any of his first 15 years in the majors.
And for the nine starts he was able to make in 2024, his K/9 was a very un-Scherzer-like 8.3, no doubt in some part the product of a four-seamer that was coming in at just 92.5 mph—compared to 93.
7 in 2023 and 94-plus in each year from 2016-22. He's still Max Freaking Scherzer, though. And while he almost certainly isn't going to be a 200 innings ace in 2025, he still could be a strong No.
2/3 starter, ideally 20-25 times during a season in which he'll turn 41 in July. So, what's he worth in free agency? Where does it make the most sense for Scherzer to pitch next season? "Reunion" sure seems to be the name of the game here, as most of Scherzer's six former teams figure to be in the mix. In all likelihood, Scherzer is headed for a one-year deal.
Maybe it's a one-year deal that includes a player option that will vest if he makes enough starts in 2025, similar to what Jordan Montgomery signed with the Diamondbacks last spring. But a fully guaranteed, multi-year deal simply isn't likely at this stage of his career. Yes, Justin Verlander was on the brink of turning 40 when he signed his two-year, $86.
6 million deal (which included a $35 million vesting option for a third season, which didn't vest) with the Mets two winters ago. But Verlander was also fresh off an unbelievable, Cy Young-winning season with a 1.75 ERA and 0.
83 WHIP. That's not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison after the disappointing year Scherzer just had. Aside from Verlander, the list of players (let alone pitchers) this age getting a multi-year contract is pretty much just the ageless wonder Bartolo Colon, who signed a two-year, $20 million contract 11 winters ago (also with the Mets) at the same 40-and-a-half-ish age that Scherzer is today.
For that presumed one-year deal, Spotrac suggests Scherzer's market value is $15.2 million. That's a huge step down from the $43.
3 million salary he received over the past three years, but it's still a considerable sum that could be a deal-breaker for half of the league. Sixteen of the 30 teams had an Opening Day payroll of $143 million or below this past season. Teams hoping to remain in that spending tier would be committing more than 10 percent of their payroll to an elderly, waning star if they signed Scherzer.
That's a tough sell, unless there's a strong argument to be made that Mad Max might be the final piece of a championship puzzle. 10. Los Angeles Dodgers Spending $15 million is a drop in the bucket for the Dodgers.
What's one more "if he can stay healthy" pitcher in a stockpile that already features Tyler Glasnow, Shohei Ohtani, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin and more? But if the reigning champions are taking an eight-figure, one-year flyer on a three-time Cy Young winner, wouldn't it figure to be Clayton Kershaw, whose recent medical records they are at least intimately familiar with? 9. Atlanta Braves Two weeks ago, there seemed to be no chance Atlanta would spend $15 million on yet another injury concern. The Braves need a pitcher who can at least be trusted to take the mound every fifth day until Spencer Strider gets back.
But then they declined Travis d'Arnaud's $8 million club option and traded Jorge Soler ($16 million salary) for Griffin Canning (projected $5.4 million salary), shedding enough from the payroll to make a Scherzer signing plausible. As with the Dodgers, though, if Atlanta wants a pitcher in the twilight of his career, it would likely just re-sign the one it already had for a while (Charlie Morton).
8. Philadelphia Phillies There's no salary cap in MLB, and the Phillies can spend as much as they please to ensure they win a World Series before their core of mid-30s stars age out of their prime. However, they likely would want to first unload Taijuan Walker (who's owed $18 million in each of 2025 and 2026) to justify bringing in Scherzer.
What a star-studded rotation that would be, though. All-Star Ranger Suárez, pitching in his contract year, would maybe be the No. 5 starter.
7. Arizona Diamondbacks See: Phillies. The Snakes probably need to get rid of Jordan Montgomery's $22.
5 million salary before they can entertain a reunion with the ace whom they drafted in the first round in 2006. Monty is arguably more tradable than Walker, though, so we have Arizona just ahead of the team it eliminated in the 2023 NLCS. 6.
St. Louis Cardinals Did the Red Birds decline their club options on 37-year-olds Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn just to sign a 40-year-old to a slightly higher salary? Perhaps. They certainly need at least one more arm for their rotation, and they're no strangers to employing older pitchers.
If they do sign Scherzer, here's hoping his final season is less of a total disaster than Adam Wainwright's was. Current Projected Rotation : Jacob deGrom, Jon Gray, Kumar Rocker, Tyler Mahle, Dane Dunning, Cody Bradford, Jack Leiter Before the Rangers consider re-signing Scherzer, the big question is how much faith they have in the health of the options still on the roster. Gray and Dunning basically combined for a full season with 34 starts and just under 200 innings pitched between them, but with a combined ERA of 4.
87. Bradford made three starts before spending more than three months on the IL. Mahle, Rocker and deGrom each made three starts all season.
And Leiter allowed 35 earned runs in his 35.2 innings pitched. All seven could be key pieces of the 2025 puzzle, but there's also cause for concern with all seven, leaving Texas in a precarious spot.
However, the Rangers do need bullpen help, and overstocking the rotation would be an indirect way of beefing up the relief situation. If all eight pitchers were healthy at the same time, the Rangers could make Dunning a long reliever and roll out a six-piece rotation, with Rocker and Leiter piggybacking for four innings apiece in one of those six spots. That could be scary good, and it might help keep both deGrom and Scherzer healthy for as deep into the season as possible.
Current Projected Rotation : Kodai Senga, David Peterson, Tylor Megill, Paul Blackburn, José Buttó Last year, the Mets paid Scherzer $30.8 million to pitch for the Rangers. Spending around half that much to have him pitch for them seems like a bargain, no? They need the arms after free agency claimed all of Luis Severino, Sean Manaea and José Quintana, who combined to make 94 starts and log 534 innings during the regular season before making 10 of the Mets' 13 starts in the postseason.
Mad Max did pitch quite well for New York in the year-and-a-half he was there, making 42 starts with a 3.02 ERA. Maybe he can reharness that level of excellence as the Mets seek their first NL East title since 2015 and their third divisional crown since 1988.
Would they prioritize a reunion with Scherzer, though? If he's content with waiting out all of the nine-figure bidding wars before choosing the one-year offer that puts him in the best position to join Sandy Koufax and Jim Palmer as the only pitchers in MLB history with at least three Cy Youngs and three World Series rings, the Mets could be a fantastic candidate. However, if Scherzer is looking to get his deal done ASAP so he can start to focus on getting his body ready for one more year, he'd be an afterthought for the Mets right now. They're trying to either get Juan Soto or quite the collection of top-10 free agents.
The longer his free agency drags out, the more likely it is that he'll end up with the Mets, who do eventually need to sign perhaps as many as four starting pitchers this winter. Current Projected Rotation : Zach Eflin, Grayson Rodriguez, Dean Kremer, Cade Povich, Albert Suárez, Trevor Rogers Though they haven't spent legitimate money in a solid seven years, everyone seems to expect the Orioles to make a big splash this winter. In his "What to know about Orioles' offseason" FAQ for MLB.
com , O's beat writer Jake Rill wrote, "If Burnes doesn't return, then left-handers Max Fried and Blake Snell could be aces to target. Nathan Eovaldi, Yusei Kikuchi and Sean Manaea will be among the other top starting pitchers on the market." None of those names will come cheap.
So, is this where the Orioles make the type of nine-figure investment we thought might be possible two winters ago for Carlos Rodón? Or will they just make another Kyle Gibson/Craig Kimbrel type of barely-$10-million move for a guy past his prime? It's certainly possible they'll do both, as it's hard to imagine they're all-in on any of Povich, Suárez or Rogers as full-time options in 2025. They could bring back Burnes on a monster deal before also making a smaller-but-intriguing move for Scherzer. It also makes sense for the O's to make at least one move for a one-year stopgap solution, as both Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells are probably going to miss all of 2025 while recovering from Tommy John surgery before becoming regulars in the 2026 rotation again.
They could do far worse than a Scherzer-sized Band-Aid. Current Projected Rotation : Logan Webb, Robbie Ray, Kyle Harrison, Jordan Hicks, Hayden Birdsong, Landen Roupp Home runs have been an issue for Scherzer over the past two years. It may be enough of a concern to give the Red Sox, Reds and Cubs extra pause before trying to put him on their homer-friendly home mounds.
There'd be nothing like pitching half of your games at Oracle Park to get those long balls under control, though. Blake Snell was already one of the best in the business at keeping home runs to a minimum, but he allowed only two in 11 home starts for the Giants in 2024. Logan Webb has allowed 21 home runs in 431.
1 innings pitched (0.44 HR/9) at Oracle Park compared to 39 in 424.0 IP (0.
83 HR/9) away from home in his career. With Snell opting out of the second year on the deal he signed last spring, the G-Men need to add a starter. They arguably do have better back-end-of-the-rotation options in house than the Mets or Orioles do, though not by much.
The experiment of converting Hicks to a starter looked great in the first half of last season, but he ran out of gas and returned to a relief role for the second half. True-blue rookies Birdsong and Roupp showed some promise, though nowhere near enough to not at least explore signing a guy like Scherzer. San Francisco does want to make at least one big (read: expensive) splash this offseason, but it seems to be eying hitters on that front, namely Willy Adames and the pipe dream of convincing Juan Soto to leave Yankee Stadium's short porch in right to play in a much more cavernous stadium.
Scherzer at around $15 million could be right in the wheelhouse of their pitching budget. Current Projected Rotation : Tarik Skubal, Reese Olson, Casey Mize, Keider Montero, Jackson Jobe, Matt Manning Is it wishful thinking to imagine Scherzer making a return to where he first blossomed into a star? Maybe. But there's no question that the Tigers need rotation help after a seven-game postseason run in which Skubal started three games, Olson started one and they used an opener for the remainder.
Any and all options in free agency should be on the table for Detroit, which presently has one of the lowest projected payrolls in the majors, even with Javier Báez's painful contract still on the books for a few more years. The Tigers could aim higher than Scherzer for someone like Corbin Burnes. Maybe they could go get Max Fried or Blake Snell to pair with Skubal and give us a reason to do a fun research project on the greatest 1-2 southpaw punches in MLB history.
But bringing Scherzer back home would be fun. It also might be the jolt he needs for a renaissance ride into the sunset, like when Albert Pujols went back to the Cardinals after a decade in L.A.
and suddenly became a certified slugger again. As is the case for Baltimore, it's hardly an either/or proposition. The Tigers could get Scherzer for $15 million, sign Snell/Burnes to a $30 million-per-year deal and still enter 2025 with almost the exact same 26-man payroll they had at the beginning of 2023 ($122.
2 million). That's nearly $80 million below their payroll in 2016-17. Besides, how often do you get to have three Cy Young winners in the same rotation? Make it happen, Detroit.
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