March 30: The Jays announced today that Scherzer is indeed being placed on the 15-day injured list, with the diagnosis of right thumb inflammation. Left-hander Easton Lucas was recalled from Triple-A in a corresponding move. Per Hazel Mae of Sportsnet, Schneider told reporters that Scherzer is headed to see a hand specialist to find out more about his thumb injury. Either Rodriguez or Lucas appears likely to join the rotation in Scherzer’s stead.
March 29: Future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer exited his first start as a member of the Blue Jays after just 45 pitches, and Toronto later announced that his departure was due to soreness in his right lat.
As noted by Keegan Matheson of MLB.com, Scherzer battled a thumb issue throughout Spring Training that appeared to be connected to the nerve issue that limited the veteran with the Rangers last season. Throughout camp, Matheson relays that Scherzer indicated that pitching through the thumb issue increased the risk of other injury issues and specifically highlighted his shoulder as a possible area of concern. Scherzer went on to confirm that the issue is related to his thumb, telling reporters (including Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet) that after three innings he told manager John Schneider that there was “imminent danger” of a more serious injury if he continued to pitch.
While Scherzer noted that he and the team’s doctors have not yet figured out next steps, it sounds as though a trip to the injured list is likely in the right-hander’s future. As relayed by Matheson, Scherzer at the very least won’t be making his next scheduled start. He was next in line for a start on April 4 against the Mets in New York, though his status for games beyond that has not yet been announced. The veteran noted that he’ll need to get the thumb issue “to 100%” before he pitches again, and expressed frustration over the circumstances while emphasizing the importance of getting his thumb right.
“My arm is making adjustments because of that [thumb injury],” Scherzer said, as relayed by Matheson. “That’s a recipe for disaster.”
With an off-day scheduled for April 3, the Blue Jays won’t need another starter until April 8. That gives Scherzer just over a week to get right before he’d next be needed in the rotation, but it seems possible that the issue will take longer to resolve than that. Should Scherzer require a trip to the IL, Yariel Rodriguez could step into the rotation from the bullpen or the club could consider turning the vacant spot in the rotation over to youngster Jake Bloss. It seems likely the exact length of Scherzer’s absence won’t be available for at least a few days, though it’s possible a decision about the injured list could come early next week given that IL stints can be backdated a maximum of just three days.
Regardless of how long Scherzer ends up missing, the news has the potential to be a huge blow for a Blue Jays club that is attempting to claw its way out of fifth place in a deep AL East division to make it back to the postseason in what could be the final year franchise fixtures Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette spend in Toronto. Scherzer was one of the club’s most notable additions this winter alongside second baseman Andres Gimenez and Anthony Santander, and his addition was made in the hope that he could deepen a rotation that lost Yusei Kikuchi at the 2024 trade deadline.
While the righty has not been the same pitcher who finished top 5 in his league’s Cy Young award voting in seven consecutive seasons from 2013 to 2019 in recent years, he still sports a solid 3.81 ERA over his last 36 starts and looked like a front of the rotation arm as recently as 2022. That was enough to sell the Blue Jays on the idea the veteran could upgrade their rotation as long as he managed to stay healthy, but so far his nagging thumb issue has made that a challenge. After largely avoiding the injured list throughout the vast majority of his career, Scherzer has made just 59 starts over the past three seasons with the Mets and Rangers and now appears on track to miss more time for the Jays.
Lol
Or death, taxes, and Scherzer getting injured.
That this is true is wild. Guy was an absolute horse in Washington but that was long ago in baseball time for a dude his age.
Who had “before the schedule turns over to April” in the pool?
What i learned tonight from Max’s postgame presser is that the thumb bone is connected to the lat bone
i did
I’ve got Verlander before May Day and Byron Buxton by Memorial Day.
Which, after 40, also becomes connected to the bank account.
“Hurry up, sign me!”
Then, “hurry up, disable me!”
Scherzer = scammer
lol
I mean, that’s what most slapstick is based on.
Yes who can forget the classic Charlie Chaplin character “the guy that had everything and wanted for nothing.”
Yea Tom boo hoo for the 100 million dollar athlete who won’t retire that keeps getting hurt . Get real
Cha-Ching!!!!! another $15 M banked by Max form himself, his wife, his 4 kids and his rescue animals.
He is probably a good person but he keeps deluding GM’s into thinking he’s still got a 35 Year Old body.
He fooled the Mets 3+ years ago and now did it to the BlueJays.
Max needs to realize he will NEVER get 250 wins and never catch Justin Verlander.
With all these starting pitchers getting rather large contracts for their age, it is time for the Sabermetrics inclined people to do an ROI on the cost per inning for each pitcher per pitchers contract. Exclude pre-arb pitchers who are stuck on standard or near standard contracts.
Who is the most effective pitcher? By year. Whose cost per inning thrown is the best?
Bad pitching would take care of itself since those pitchers get pulled anyway from games earlier, adjusting their cost per inning naturally by their performance.
And just do staring pitchers. Starting pitching costs more. And relievers innings are what limited by definition. A bad reliever gets high leverage innings until they give them mop-up innings. Maybe the same amount of innings and same amount per inning, but a very different ROI.
How did he fool the Mets? He had a 3.02 ERA with them . Led them to the playoffs and wasn’t injured.
He fooled the Mets by getting injured a ton on a huge AAV contract on top of somewhat helping them bring verlander in
However it might’ve been a blessing in disguise since they turned him and JV into acuna and drew Gilbert
Scherzer can’t force teams to offer him deals. He can request/demand any dollar amount or number of years he wants, but the team has to agree to it.
If there’s some brand new owner of an expansion team, who’s worth $200B and wants to make a splash and signs Barry Bonds, Trevor Bauer, etc. etc. today to $100M per season contracts, that’s that owner’s choice.
The reality is, Scherzer is a known commodity with what is reasonably viewed as the highest of upsides and for a non-athlete, he is still toward the tail end of the prime of his physicality and for peak Scherzer, $15M is comically massive bargain, so Scherzer on the downslope who could potentially just kinda stay healthy and be the pitcher he was for Texas last year, he’s worth the $15M as a pro rated version of his peak value.
I don’t think it is funny. Surgery incoming
Really the only misfortune is the one the blue jays paid Scherzer. He’s literally injured with the same injury of last year. How do you pay someone guaranteed money in the sum of millions of dollars without confirming he’s healed from his injuries
Want to earn that contract ? Pitch two 3 inning simulated games without pain and we will sign you
Spot on Wiffa!!!
Mets fan trying to “Lol” at anything they can. Truly an example of “Hurt people hurt people”
And water is wet
Actually water is not wet, however it can make things become wet
Gross.
Agreed. Probably best to go with, ‘And fire is hot’.
Except water can put out a fire, so…
Please be mindful of electrical fires.
Extinguish the thought.
We didn’t start the fire
Let’s put a lid on it
Nah.
@goob: underrated comment right here
Science is hard
“wetness” is a property that arises from the interaction between a liquid (like water) and a solid surface, where the liquid adheres to or forms an interface with the solid
Hardness is a material property, whereas science is difficult.
@ Jack Strawb
Science is difficult, but there are many nowadays who misuse the word science, so science is no longer science for some people. It’s very hard to ‘believe’, isn’t it. Who would have ‘thought’ it would end up like this.
Words are tough.
She blinded me with science.
SCIENCE!
phillies012tgCancel:
Yes, yes we all know, but you get my point.
Don’t touch me with your point or I’ll scream
phillies012tg:
Prepare to scream!
Water makes me moist
These pretzels are making me thirsty!!!
RochesterMetsFan;
Not sure where to go with this
Phillies
Intelligence is knowing the correct answer, wisdom is knowing when to keep it to yourself.
Actually as defined intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills
Somebody please give my ex some water.
If you put water on top of an ice cube, then the ice cube becomes wet. So water (the frozen water that is the ice cube) can become wet.
Fire burns things but fire isn’t itself burned. Same idea applies to water. Water makes things wet but water itself is not wet.
I’m just trying to figure out what exactly I unintentionally started with this thread? Lol.
Classic. Highway robbery or the Jays. Good job Max
of*
I’m obliged to repeat: A once-great 40 year old reduced to average performance at 39 when he could take the mound at all, limited to nine starts while suffering a lengthy list of significant injuries, is a fellow you sign for 1/2m plus incentives, not a guaranteed 1/15.5m.
My Lord this is unexpected
I feel like Max has been standing in front of the finish line for a couple of seasons now and just can’t bring himself to cross it
@Rsox
He should be walking toward the light?
He’s had a heck of a career, he should be proud to hang the spikes up at this point. There’s nothing left for him to prove, and he’s achieved nearly everything one can in a Major League career, short of making the HOF, which he will once he retiers.
Be all that as it may, I assume you aren’t suggesting that he just walk away from the $15+M he’s owed this season….
He can sit on the 60 Day all year.
Just don’t make us watch him struggle to pitch 43 ineffective innings.
I think he’ll be fine, the thumb thing and the arm slot issue could be related, unsure how long a thumb thing will keep him out but the lat thing should heal up quickly.
Sprained my thumb 3 years ago, its almost healed. Thumb injuries for a pitcher turn into surgery.
But he can still find someone to pay him!
Sure he does have something to prove.
How many more checks he can collect!
The proof is in his bank account!
Over/Under (5) ’25 IL Trips!
The Jays could go with Bloss or Rodriguez. They both hard good spring trainings right, RIGHT??
The obvious choice to replace Scherzer in the rotation is Ryan Yar…. oh nevermind
Throwing 90+ MPH and spinning a baseball 90 times every 5 days is not what a 40 year old body is made for. I’m not judging him for wanting it and not going to bash the team for hoping it would work. High risk move is all and those don’t payoff at high rates.
If he can come back from this they should sit down and have a hard conversation about being a closer the rest of the year.
He could turn into Jamie Moyer and throw it 80 mph until he hits 50.
Longtimecoming: 42-year old Justin Verlander pitched today and lived to tell the tale.
Avenger – Max is heading to IL so now what?
Get back to me when JV pitches 200 innings this year.
The rule stands – an isolated exception does not disprove the rule.
I believe only 4 did last year. Try 150.
The days of pitchers going 200 IP are pretty much over.
Longtimecoming
Get back to me when JV pitches 200 innings this year.
===========================
Pick any pitcher on the planet and I will bet they don’t throw 200 IPs.
Almost no one pitches 200 innings anymore, 32 starts, 190 IP
I’ll take the under for JV in 2025.
Logan Webb says hello.
Exactly one pitcher reached 200 innings last year, and Verlander hasn’t done it since 2019
I don’t think 200 innings is any sane person’s expectation. 150 would be nice, but not likely either.
Try 4…
Wheeler
Webb
Gilbert
Lugo
The current and long standing requirement to be eligible for Pitching stats is one inning pitched per scheduled or team games played, which in a regular season with all games played is 162 innings. That is to qualify for stat leaders at the end of the season, such as Earned Run Average, Strikeouts, WHIP, ETC. Not sure if the 162 IP factors into Wins or Saves, as a win is a win and a save is a save. With the shorter outings by starters and some teams going with 6-man rotations, it’s getting harder to meet the 162 IP criteria for end of season stat leaders. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this lowered in the future or there will only be a handful of Pitchers to even qualify each year! BTW, for batting stats it’s 3.1 plate appearances per scheduled or team games played or around 502. Plate appearances include walks, hit by pitch, sacrifice (bunt or fly ball), etc. (At bats) do not include those. The only exception on these qualifiers is when teams don’t finish with 162 games played such as games not being made up at the end of the year due to not having any impact on the standings or playoff seeding.
@Longtimecoming
They don’t have anyone that can be as effective starter as Max in the minors or majors.
Any guy that can go 3 innings without injury would be an improvement.
NoSaint: Wrong, Berrios and Gausman have had significant success.
Baron, I’m pretty sure NoSaint meant no replacement who could be as effective.
@gbs42
Yep.
Well that’s $15M down the drain for the Blue Jays. Hope they purchased insurance
For the same price, they could have had Cobb!
Ty retired a long time ago
Still don’t understand why the Tigers agreed to that contract!
Given there’s no open window at The Great We-Insure-Everything Company, Cheap! for ancient starters, I doubt you’d be able to get a policy without paying something like half Scherzer’s guarantee.
Then there’s the 60-day deductible…
Insurance on him? If they could get it , only a part of the salary.
The secret to a long life is knowing when it’s time to go
These one time great starters need to close games now. It would do wonders for them!
Difficult to assume they can all make such a transition successfully.
Not every starter is John Smoltz.
Aside from getting hurt, Max is unparalleled in his ability to explain why he failed in his most recent outing. I never realized how good he was with that until he was with the Mets. Teams will start paying him by the pitch. It will be cheaper. A $10 million contract for 25 starts of 100 pitches comes out to $4,000 a pitch. Might be a fairer approach. With his history, I don’t know why teams sign him other than to stay on the good side of Boras.
Any truth to the rumor that this happened when Max dropped his walker and slipped on his AARP membership packet?
That reminds me, I need to renew my AARP membership…thanks. G!!!
This is why you don’t rely on a 40+ year old pitcher especially with Scherzer’s checkered injury history of late.
Max is in his Las Vegas Elvis era
Is this his excuse for pitching poorly?
the guy is 75 years old
was hurt most of 2024
pulled after 45 pitches in his 1st start this yr
hang em up max. 1st ballot HOF awaits
Broken down pitcher breaks down, news at 11
At this point he just needs to retire. He had a great career, but this is just getting embarrassing.
ButCanHePitch: Why would you be embarrassed for someone else?
Serious “projection” in progress.
You’re too old, let go, it’s over… nobody listens to techno.
At Max Scherzer time of signing: “The Jays will be lucky if he makes the allstar break healthy”.
What the heck was Atkins thinking? Sounds like this outome was very predictable.
Shocking
Some folks thought the Tigers should have signed him. Just what Detroit would need another injury. When you sign older pitchers like Cobb. You take the chance of more injuries.
“Older pitchers..chance of more injuries”…With Max(and some other older pitchers) it’s really not a “chance”, but a virtual certainty that he’ll become injured after a start or two.
Max should have retired at least two years ago and really, the only part of him and his pitching that is vintage, is the name “Mad Max”.
They gave him 15.5m after throwing 43 innings last season. Enough said.
At least the Jays got 45 pitches. Cobb hasn’t thrown his 1st.
i saw this coming when the jays signed him.
When a pitcher reaches the age of 40,, every appearance is on “borrowed time.”
Every appearance represents “imminent danger.”
I feel so sorry for his thumb and the over 350 million dollars he has made as an athelete
That’s what is wrong with his thumb… they shouldn’t let him count his money before games
I can’t say it explicitly around here, but if you saw what he did in his bullpen session, I’d say he shot his wad before the game. And this is why you don’t believe everything you hear, like say, from There’s Something About Mary.
That shizz was funny af, must have felt like his vintage self in the moment. Or like Spiderman throwing webs out? Hopefully this is just a minor setback!
This is going to end up being Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. I hate it got Max.
Scherzer’s thumb injury, not being fully addressed, has led to a compensatory pattern of pitching mechanics that put strain on his lat—an injury that could be traced back to improper recovery and overuse of the thumb joint. His statement that his arm is “making adjustments” signals a deeper issue of chronic overcompensation, which is predictable once a key part of a pitcher’s biomechanics is damaged.
Could have had Bauer for a lot less.
What was stopping Bauer from just showing up? I heard he doesn’t take no for an answer
I would love to see Bauer come back and be dominant. That would fry Manfreds brain so much. And it would be worth it even if he failed.
Bauer is not coming back. He is finished. No team will take his baggage and become a circus he minute he enters the clubhouse.
Nope. No team is taking Bauer.
Jays are a woke team. They threw a old man wearing a ” Canada isn’t forsale” hat out of the game. They would be the last team to sign Bauer
You’re a moron
No talking facts. Like when they made Bass apologize for liking a post then dfa’d him anyways.
Yes! max just earned me a 20 dollar wager win .
Same OLD Max, he screwed the Rangers out of millions of dollars and now the Blue Jays get to add to his 401k while he sits with any number of injuries. Max is a con man
He is a payroll bandit like Degrom. Yu will see that Degrom wont make it either.
I get it he was once good. But there comes a point he is done. Problem is he doesn’t think so and teams are praying he’s not…But truth be told he done. He’s nothing but a walking injury problem..Trade or release the guy now
Nobody is taking him in a trade at 15 million. They are stuck with him this yr. They may get a few starts from him, maybe.
The best ability is availability.
This is why I think the Orioles offseason rotation additions were better than most people realize.
Upside is great and all, but having guys who will be available every 5th day and can regularly give you 5 or 6 solid but unspectacular innings actually has a lot of value over the course of 162, especially when you have an elite offense and solid bullpen, which the Orioles do.
Max is a payroll bandit. MLB has so many issues with SP, he can get 15 million at his age after many inuries in recent years. Degrom another payroll bandit pitches today. Most likely he doesnt toss much more than 100 or so innings either. From the old starters I think Verlander may hold up in that ballpark.
Max Scherzer’s bobblehead doll comes already on the 15-day IL, and three PRP shots that you must inject before you can place it on your dashboard
March 30th: I am shocked. How many called this well in advance?
How come Atkins and Shapiro can’t see this in advance?
This exact situation was why you dont DFA ryan yarbrough prior to opening day. Given they already had at least 2 guys in the pen who won’t be there by mid May ( 1 of them already gone today ) carrying 2 long men while not ideal, for at least 1 or 2 times thru made alot of sense given max injury.
Brett de Geus: “I’m available. Just sayin’”
We’ll see you in May, Max, but we kinda knew that was gonna be the case anyway, right?
Sad to see a former titan of the sport falling apart right before your eyes, even if he does play for a division rival now.
It was a great run, Max, but Father Time remains undefeated.
You’d think the blue jays would’ve had some imaging on that thumb done before signing him
Hard to pitch when your thumb is on fire.
This future HOF is still pitching!!?? Wasn’t he 64 when he faced Boston in “13”playoffs??
Lat, thumb… sameeee thing.
Ever seen them launch a grand slams?
What’s the going rate for a quality start any more? About a million bucks per QS, maybe? I have zero doubt Toronto knew the risks; at $15MM, maybe they were willing to roll the dice and hope for 15 reasonable starts?
I sure don’t know, just a wild guess…
I think it’s about $9M per WAR for pitchers. So the reality is, even diminished Scherzer is absolutely worth $15M.
Or at least worth the risk…
Did any of us ever envision a time where we could say with a straight face, “It’s only $15MM, no big deal…”
I still remember when a player cracking $10M per year was bonkers and those 1 year good faith bounce back deals for long tenured pitchers would be like $7M then $10M then $13M and now here we are where those one year bounce back deals are $15M. It just is what it is.
The players have a self imposed mandate to beat their equivalent’s deal each new season by a few hundred grand to a couple million, so that salaries don’t stagnate, so I kinda get it.
Also, the ownership groups can absolutely afford it, so I don’t feel bad for Toronto, or any other club that signs a player to a bloated deal.
Completely with you there… All the info is out there and clubs are 99.9% very aware of the risk-versus-reward scenarios… NOBODY forced Toronto in this case to offer a contract to Max.
Obviously, a huge factor for successful clubs is being right WAY more than they’re wrong, but you’ve got to take a few chances.
Yeah, I also think that fans’ perceptions of the money involved skews their opinions on contracts and salaries in the game.
I’m a huge fan of contextualizing everything and looking at the relativity of the facts. For instance, I grew up with a group of friends who had a very wide economic range- some families that likely had tens of millions if not billions in assets, took private jets to sit court side or behind home plate for various NBA championships and MLB world series, etc. and families that were paycheck to paycheck with 5 people living in a single bedroom apartment in a bad part of town.
For some of my friends, the idea of making over $60k a year after taxes, or even just earning $60k a year raw, was the height of luxury and basically a fantasy. And for some of my friends, they considered anybody with less than $50 million net worth to be dirt poor and a failure at life (even though it was their parents that made the money and many of them were self made from virtually nothing, but whatever).
So I just assume people in these comment sections who get mad that a guy accepted $15.5M from an employer who offered them that, or feel like a guy who gets 3 years/$130M based on their past peak performance despite being a bounce back candidate who was injured most of the last season, etc. are actually just… bitter. It’s the principle of the unfathomable amount of money to them and not so much the reality of the economics of the game.
For context: In the real world, if you knew a friend of yours made $760k a year plus benefits, you’d consider them incredibly successful and basically the wealthiest or one of the wealthiest people you knew- but in baseball that’s the real world equivalent of someone making $15 an hour, so it seems like a cheap amount.
By the same token, if $760k a year is the equivalent to $15/hr,, or about $32k a year- then $15.5M is the equivalent of $652k, which, in the corporate world at the upper levels of compensation, is pretty standard and unremarkable and actually quite affordable compared to other executive level salaries.
Hence- I see no issue with a player like Scherzer getting $15.5M on a flier contract wherein he might not even make his starts- or he might bounce back and go 20-8-6 or something- either way that’s the cost of getting the baseline services of a player of Scherzer’s pedigree.
You just can’t make this stuff up. A complete desperation signing to try and deflect some negative attention from the ongoing Vlad jr debacle. I wonder how many Scherzer jerseys they sold in Toronto to their sheeple.
This honestly makes me sad. Guys like he and JV, two of the greatest pitchers of the past couple of decades, just can’t physically hold up anymore. Then they get ridiculed on sites like these for being washed up. Both of these guys are class acts, and we missed them very much when they left Detroit. I can’t fault them for getting paid, but they’ve already left such an honorable legacy, why put any bit of that in jeopardy?
they do it for the money of course. there are not many that wouldn’t take an extra guaranteed 15 million based on your career stats if you had some chump willing to give it up. A fool and their money are soon parted
@motor city Look at the All Time K list. That will tell u everything u need to know. They re currently sitting 10th and 11th. Both have a feasible shot to go as high as 6th.
Regardless of how high they climb, neither was going to walk away with the other keeping them our of the top 10 and I can’t blame either of them.
Boras would be able to sell an ice maker in the Antarctic. why mlb keep signing his oft injured clients is a mystery.
Time to retire
Max hurts his thumbs every time he sends Scott Boras a Like or Thumbs Up emoji for getting him another outrageous contract!
to anyone accusing max of scamming the blue jays: if someone offered you 15M to do something you probably couldn’t do, would you turn it down out of a sense of honor?
I watch the opening day pregame show and the announcers were all frothy about Scherzer and he never looked better etc. I was thinking, they must be huffing something and figured they’d be lucky to get 10-15 healthy starts out of him. I guess we’ll see…..
Man, the guy should have just skipped some starts to heal up the thumb. Now it has affected his delivery and caused back pain. Put him in a retirement home instead…