Scherz Shot

Ross keeps his underwear up with a piece of elastic

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Image via the Texas Rangers/@Rangers

After spending nearly the last two straight calendar years getting their fans insufferably, exhaustingly, consistently mad about some dumb thing or another, the Toronto Blue Jays themselves now appear to have got Mad themselves.

Mad Max, that is!

Yes, Max Scherzer—three-time Cy Young winner—is coming north of the border.

I mean… assuming he doesn’t read that cringeworthy lede of mine—or the title and subheading—or… pretty much anything so far—and decide to back out of the deal at the last second.

Jon Heyman broke the news just before 5 PM ET on Thursday, with Jeff Passan quickly adding that it will be a one-year, $15.5 million deal—$500K more than Justin Verlander and Charlie Morton secured this winter, as many noted. Ben Nicholson-Smith later reported that there is no deferred money in the deal.

No need to overthink this one, folks…

Which isn’t to say that there aren’t things to think about here—the first being that the Jays may not be done. Bob Nightengale then told us that this doesn’t put the Jays out on Pete Alonso, who they’re still interested in. Per @Josh_theJays fan, Shi Davidi wondered “if there’s sort of a guarantee that there is going to be something next for the Blue Jays” during a segment on the Fan 590. Pat Ragazzo pointed to his Wednesday night story about the close relationship between Scherzer and Pete Alonso—“both Boras clients as well”—in which he also reported that he'd been hearing the Jays’ goal was to land two of Scherzer, Alonso, or Bregman (and that they're also trying to extend Vlad). And in another from Thursday he wrote that there “is also some belief amongst Toronto brass that adding Scherzer could enhance their chances of landing Alonso.” Sportsnet’s David Singh reminded us of a 2023 piece of his about the relationship between Scherzer and Chris Bassitt, which developed when they were both with the Mets—*hint-hint*.

It’s maybe not the greatest sign that the most exciting thing about the Scherzer addition is the possibility of even more to come, but the potential drawbacks are so obvious that even a professional troll who can’t read a stat line sees them. This isn’t your older brother’s Mad Max. Clearly. He’s 40. He only made nine starts last year. His average fastball velocity was down to 92.6 mph last season, from 93.9 the year before and 95.1 at his Cy Young peak. His ERA was a solid 3.95 compared to the otherworldly 2.29 he produced in 2022. His strikeout rate was at its lowest since 2011. Excluding the COVID-shortened 2020 season (for which he was healthy), the last time he reached 180 innings was 2018.

But the thing is… so what? You’re not paying for 2019 Scherzer, or 2022 Scherzer. You don’t need him to be that guy, and the guy he can be is still valuable. The projections on Scherzer’s FanGraphs page for 2025 range from 1.6 to 2.1 WAR—for José Berríos the range is 1.6 to 2.0. And that’s with Berríos projected to 30-32 starts, compared to 18-23 for Scherzer.

And that’s just his on-field value. He’s providing another kind of value right now, too.

Heyman wrote that “Scherzer told the Jays he’d happily consider them if they look like a pennant contender following their 74-win campaign, and after they signed Anthony Santander, Scherzer was good to his word.”

With buy-in now from Scherzer as well, the Jays’ winter-long project to actually make this team meaningfully better really feels like it’s in flight, despite the late stage of the offseason. Payroll is into uncharted territory—at $273 million, per Roster Resource, if they add another bat, as they should/must, they’ll undoubtedly clear the third CBT threshold.

As usual, I want to be careful giving credit before they’ve got this whole thing over the finish line, but obviously the front office and ownership understand what needed to be done here. Probably always did. And it’s wasn’t withering up and letting the whole thing die on the vine with the plastic film on the newly renovated Rogers Centre seats barely just removed.

That wouldn’t make sense on the business side or the baseball side, where the facilities’ status as “best in class” won’t have a long shelf life either. Scherzer and Santander have given the club a massive injection of credibility, and the only way forward from here is to keep pushing.

These actions also say, at least to me, that this is a group that very much understands the gravity of the situation with Vlad, too. And how badly that needs to get done.

We’ll see what comes next. This group has a penchant for always seeming to head into Opening Day with a roster just a little bit short of what seems ideal. And for holding to their valuations on free agents just tightly enough to be turned down. So… you know…

But anyway! This is good! More of this!

Fun stuff!

Fun stuff!

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