So far, the highlight of Max Scherzer’s career as a New York Met is he has agreed to a contract of $130 million over three years to be a New York Met. It won’t show up in the main statistical body of Scherzer’s Baseball-Reference entry, but it’s more than a lot of recent Mets have done to elevate our mood.
It’s November. Scherzer can’t pitch for us yet. But he can goose our outlook, and oh boy, has he. Yes, the multiple Cy Young winner will take Steve Cohen’s generous offer and join our other multiple Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom and form a one-two punch that should have visions of being on the right side of knockout after knockout dancing in our heads.
DeGrom and Scherz’
Before the bullpen stirs
DeGrom and Scherz’
As the K board whirs
DeGrom and Scherz’
Poke the other teams’ nerves
DeGrom and Scherz’
The high holy duo a Mets fan observes
DeGrom and Scherz’
Here’s hoping Steve keeps funds in reserves
Twenty-four other players will fill out the roster most days. We know who a lot of them are. A few holes remain. Maybe more than a few. Y’know what? They’ll be taken care of. Steve’s got this. He got us three legitimate players on Friday and a future Hall of Famer still riding his extended prime on Monday. I’m not interested at the moment in what hasn’t gone right in the past or what might go wrong in the future. I’m interested in rooting for a team that added Max Scherzer as co-ace to Jacob deGrom on the other end of a weekend that began with adding Starling Marte, Eduardo Escobar and Mark Canha to our lineup and general depth of being.
This is better than wondering what, if anything, the Wilpons can or might do.
Scherzer’s leanings were first reported in earnest Sunday night. He kept getting closer, we were told, without the deal being closed. I wondered what else he needed beyond the $40+ million a year for pitching a baseball. I was reminded of Joseph Hewes, delegate to the Continental Congress from North Carolina in 1776, who, upon hearing the first reading of the Declaration of Independence, expresses grave concern to Thomas Jefferson that “nowhere do you mention deep sea fishing rights.”
For $40+ million a year, Max Scherzer can buy himself an ocean. Or lease whichever one Steve Cohen owns.
Max landing on the shores of Flushing Bay felt too close to not reel in as Sunday night became Monday morning. Average annual value, the reporters said, had hit $42 million. If this was an elaborate prank, it was an expensive one, at least as measured in the toll it would take on our collective sanity had fruition proved elusive. No, this couldn’t be a tease. Scherzer didn’t have to be a Met when Sunday began. He had to be one before Monday grew dark.
And so he became one. He hasn’t pitched. He hasn’t tried on a jersey and smiled for the Zoom screenshots. If he’s taken the physical that makes everything official, word hasn’t leaked. But he’s here in all but physical presence ahead of the expected lockout (in a sport where megacontracts are being issued from coast to coast). He’s here because the Mets go after big names with big track records with big money and, lo and behold, such an approach works.
It will work even better when Max Scherzer pitches for the New York Mets. Soon enough he will.
nothing like the haste of a looming lockdown (mlb that is!) to have us lose a few…and then win a few.
more than i dare expected.
fingers crossed for jake’s elbow (and all orher moving parts)
well done!
This has to be the most exciting and unanticipated free agent signing since Pedro Martinez, if ever for the Mets. No one thought this was a thing a week ago, yet here we are. Wow.
Exciting. Let’s hope Max at 38 performs at max effectiveness.
I just hope that by the middle of the season you’re not referring to him as M#x Sc@r!er.
And let’s not forget that DeGrom has not pitched since last July.
Guarded optimism. Father Time and Mother Nature are undefeated and Scherzer will turn 38 during the 2022 season. He had that dead-arm problem in the play-offs. I skeptically picture recent Madison Bumgarner. In the post-HGH era, we can’t count on age mid-30s pitchers to extend their prime like they’re Tom Brady. I expect the Mets paid top dollar for a Hall of Fame, championship career provided to other teams, chiefly the Nationals. Realistically, I hope Scherzer delivers a credible 2, maybe even 3 who reliably takes his turn and doesn’t get hurt like deGrom did last season or like his dead arm in the play-offs.
On the other hand, I support the Mets daring to be great with Cohen’s money in the shrinking deGrom window and not trading away the farm system to do it. Maybe Scherzer and deGrom aren’t old and breaking down and they still have Cy Young seasons left in them.
Jacob and Max
Those are the facts
Jacob and Max
Stop the attacks
Jacob and Max
Balls missing bats
It’s almost as though there are advantages to the team being owned by a guy who didn’t say “here, take tens of millions of my dollars, I trust you” to Bernie Madoff and who doesn’t have his putz of a son running everything.
At least tonight I can go to bed at a decent hour, not feeling the need to refresh Twitter every 8 or 9 seconds. Happy Hanukkah and early Christmas to all those who celebrate either or both, we got a very nice gift; Happy Mets Fandom to everyone who celebrates the Mets acting like a contender.
What number is he going to wear? Two of the three numbers he’s worn have been retired by the Mets, and the third belongs to the (cough, cough) closer.
On another trivial musing, I saw the Empire State Building was lit up in blue tonight, and I kind of thought it should be done in blue and brown for Max’s eyes.
Oh, and I’m quite surprised Cohen landed a client of cancer-on-baseball Boras. Maybe there’s the faintest glimmer of hope for Kris Bryant.
O. M. G.
Max Scherzer is a Met.
Max Scherzer is a Met.
Wow.
Reminds me of how I felt when the Mets nabbed some other former Cy winners. Like Randy Jones. And Orel Hershiser. And Bret Saberhagen. And Tom Gl@…
No. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. I don’t care how old Scherzer is, or that he was hurt. He’s Max Scherzer. And now he’s New York Met Max Scherzer. And the days of Wilponian dumpster-diving are officially over.
This is a good day.
I am, as I suspect most long time Mets fans are, cautiously optimistic. Hoping for Pedro II at the least and Johan at the other end of the spectrum. I certainly think hoping he pitches like Max Scherzer is not asking too much.
Let’s hope he doesn’t get hurt in spring training or something. Sorry, don’t mean to rain on the parade, but I am a Mets fan.
With apologies to Mssrs. Spahn and Sain:
Max and Jake, then we better rake!
I’m sorry, it must be my general state of my mind these days; today’s rather super-charged rate of inflation kind of has me feeling blue…and worried. Can some dear fellow (long suffering) Met fan please restore my (normally) positive frame of mind on an acquisition of this caliber and affirm why I shouldn’t be focused so much on the crazy amount of money spent by the Mets on a somewhat aged (but awesome) pitcher? I remember Piazza…Martinez, Beltran, Delgado, Santana… and LOVED those signings. Why am I just feeling ‘ah’ about this one? Please help pull me out of these 2021 doldrums and tell me why I’m seeing this all wrong. Thanks!
Remember Randy Johnson. He went 24-5, 2.32 when he was 38, and still had years left in his career.
I have posted before (too many times maybe) about spending so much for any pitcher since half of them get hurt (usually sooner than later) or just fall off. Of course, my argument used to be, “I’d much rather sign an everyday player, much less risky,like a Lindor.” Whoops. But still it holds. I am guessing Scherzer, though risky at his age, is seen as kind of an insurance policy on Jake. I imagine the Mets are as realistic about the chances of him returning to full form as we should be–I am not counting on more than half a Jake this year at best.
One more thing: even the biggest spenders have limits and spending all that on Max definitely will discourage Cohen from most other big contracts. Witness Baez going to Tigers, no move on Stroman etc. etc.
I’d like to thank Mets team owner Steve Cohen for giving Mets fans a timely Hanukkah and early Christmas gift. Heck, even that seemingly perpetually pessimistic WFAN Met fan/caller, “Joe from Clark” was positively ecstatic over the news of the Mets’ acquisition of Max Scherzer.
Although, to reluctantly add a “Bah, humbug!” thought to this joyous Mets moment, I wish former Mets general managerZach Scott had NOT traded young Met outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong to the Chicago Cubs for what turned out to be a head-scratching two month rental of infielder Javier Baez.
I haven’t been this disappointed since then-Mets general manager Dan Duquette (along with possibly Met COO Jeff Wilpon?) traded young,fire-balling lefty Scott Kashmir to Tampa in exchange for Victor Zambrano, also known as Victor “Zambboozled” and Victor “Zambroken,” the pitcher Rick Petersen was “going to straighten out in ten minutes.” Well, we’re still waiting, Mr. Pitching Guru.
I don’t know if Max Scherzer can take the Mets to the World Series – but it doesn’t matter. I’m excited about getting to watch him pitch next season.
I think that the year we got Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran was the last time I was this excited about a Mets free agent signing.
Great pickup!
And glad Baez signed elsewhere!
Let’s hope Max Optimism is not really Max Delirium in disguise.
Good job getting rid of Conforto and the 4 rashes, those being Rojas, Zack Whatever, Baez, and Stroman, the last two being childlike, which is an issue when they become your leaders.
Welcome, adults.
Good job, Stevie.
All the guys are gone that I wanted to be gone:
Rojas
Zack Scott
Conforto
Baez
Stroman
Looking forward to the end of the lockout and to Opening Day, where hope springs eternal for all!
Funny, in its way, that for his first year the new Mets team owner would do his best Jeff Wilpon impression, then go on a massive spending spree that—really, as much as I’d like to have arrived at a different assessment—only brings back the previous year’s team. Next year’s projections for the arrivals are extremely comparable to the value of the 2021 player(s) they’re replacing:
Scherzer–Stroman
Escobar–Villar
Marte–Baez, Conforto
That leaves Canha as the only visible upgrade, a modest if admittedly a useful one, over the collection of Dom Smith, Pillar, McKinney.
Meanwhile we’re still missing a Loup and various other helpful fellows.
As is all too typical of the Alderson Mets teams, the back half of the rotation, the roster, and players #26-55/61 will subtract numerous wins from the team’s most productive players. As bad as it looked last season, that we were giving a huge number of starts to Walker, Carrasco, Peterson (the team’s #4 as of O.D. despite only having 10 lucky MLB starts to his name and never having had a successful year above A ball), and Lucchesi was actually more promising in April 2021 than the current collection of #3-x will be as of April 2022.
Rumor is the Mets will add a starter such as Rodon or Kikuchi before O.D. They had better, but it won’t be enough given that player only replaces Rich Hill. There’s time to get better, but not all that much left in the way of players with which to do it. It would be one thing if fans grasped that the Mets are a decent bet to play to a .500 standard over the course of next season, but I haven’t heard much other than variations on “postseason, here we come!” as if the team wasn’t giving at least 110 starts to pitchers other than Jake and Max. There’s also the problem of lineup averaging a .766 OPS. That’s a nice number and in 2021 would be second to the Giants’ .769, but the average age of the current starting eight is 30.625, and there’s a similar problem here as there is with pitching, in giving a ton of playing time (figure 2000 PA) to subs.
I understand that signing Scherzer had little to do with building the best possible team for the amount spent and everything to do with trying to create a sort of legitimacy in Queens. A real pity, though, that Cohen has yet to figure out how to do both.
Testing, 1, 2, 3… Please let me know why my longer comment on the Mets offseason thus far doing little more than returning a close approximation of 2021’s talent fails to post.
Thanks.
It (and others) went to the spam folder for reasons unknown. It’s here now.