Mets Announce Series Of Roster Moves
The Mets announced to reporters, including Anthony DiComo of MLB.com, a series of roster moves prior to today’s doubleheader. Max Scherzer is going on the 15-day IL and infielder Gosuke Katoh has been optioned to Triple-A. Going in the other direction, Starling Marte has been activated from the bereavement list, righty Jake Reed has been recalled, along with fellow righty Adonis Medina joining the roster as the club’s 27th man for the twin bill.
Scherzer’s placement on the injured list is the most notable yet least surprising part of all this, as it’s already been reported that he will be out for 6-8 weeks due to an oblique strain. With Scherzer out of the picture, the club’s rotation will likely consist of Chris Bassitt, Taijuan Walker, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Williams and David Peterson. In the next couple of weeks, they’re likely to get Tylor Megill back into the mix, with some combination of those six aiming to keep the train on the tracks until Scherzer and/or Jacob deGrom can get back on the mound later in the summer. The club is off to a tremendous 26-14 start and has built up a 7 1/2 game lead in the NL East, though their depth will now be tested in the weeks to come.
It’s also possible that the club could need another arm to get through this week, as last night’s snowed-out game in the Rocky Mountains has been pushed into today’s doubleheader. The Mets will now be playing six games in the next five days. Medina could eat some innings as a long man, though he hasn’t topped three innings in any appearance this season, either in the majors or the minors. Thomas Szapucki started last night’s game in Triple-A but threw only 12 pitches in one inning, perhaps indicating that the club wants to save his arm for a showing with the big league team this week.
Max Scherzer Likely Out Six To Eight Weeks Due To Oblique Strain
The results of Max Scherzer‘s MRI are in, and the news isn’t great for the Mets. The team announced Thursday that Scherzer has suffered a “moderate to high grade internal oblique strain” and is expected to miss six to eight weeks. He’ll be placed on the injured list alongside co-ace Jacob deGrom (stress reaction in his scapula) and right-hander Tylor Megill (biceps inflammation).
It’s a brutal blow for the Mets, who sit at 25-14 and currently hold a six-game lead over the second-place Phillies in the National League East. Scherzer sustained the injury last night when throwing a slider to Albert Pujols, telling reporters after the game that he’d been experienced some tightness before feeling a “zing” down his side on the final pitch to Pujols. The three-time Cy Young winner immediately called for the training staff and could be seen plainly stating, “I’m done” when the staff reached the mound.
The Mets shattered precedent to get Scherzer into Queens, signing the 37-year-old righty to a three-year deal worth $130MM and giving him the highest annual salary in baseball history in doing so ($43.33MM). Owner Steve Cohen and first-year general manager Billy Eppler surely had visions of the game’s most formidable one-two punch at the time, dreaming of a playoff rotation fronted by Scherzer and deGrom.
It’s possible that duo could yet lead the Mets’ staff in the postseason, but deGrom hasn’t pitched yet in 2022 thanks to that shoulder injury. The team announced earlier this week that his latest MRI revealed “continued healing” but did not provide a timetable for his return. It’s now possible that the Mets won’t have that vaunted duo healthy and on the same roster until after the All-Star break, depending on Scherzer’s recovery.
Even in the absence of Scherzer, deGrom and Megill — whose injury should be downplayed, given the strength of his early performance — the Mets still have a solid starting staff on paper. Chris Bassitt and Carlos Carrasco have been outstanding early in the season, and the Mets have gotten quality work from Taijuan Walker and (in more limited opportunities) lefty David Peterson, too. It’s likely that Williams and Peterson will be the choices to follow the trio of Bassitt, Carrasco and Walker while the Mets navigate this latest batch of injuries.
While that’s a solid group, it obviously pales in comparison to a full-strength contingent of Mets starters. And, more concerning, the depth beyond the current quintet begins to look more questionable. Veteran left-hander Mike Montgomery is pitching with the Mets’ Triple-A affiliate but has been tagged for a 5.52 ERA through seven starts. Twenty-five-year-old Thomas Szapucki has been sharp through six Triple-A starts but has totaled just 21 innings in those outings. Righty Jordan Yamamoto has been a depth option for the Mets in the past, but he was removed from the 40-man roster earlier this season and only just made his minor league debut — 1 2/3 shaky innings in High-A — after missing time on the minor league injured list. Former Angels righty Felix Pena was brought in on a minor league deal, but like Montgomery, he’s struggled in Triple-A.
Given the manner in which injuries have already cut into the team’s depth, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Mets poke around the market for some depth options. Major trades this time of year are uncommon but not unheard of. Otherwise, the Mets could turn to some recently DFA’ed arms (e.g. Jharel Cotton) or veterans who’ve recently opted for minor league free agency (e.g. Drew Hutchison, Carlos Martinez) in an effort to at least stockpile some experienced options in the upper minors.
Max Scherzer Undergoes MRI Following Last Night’s Early Exit
11:40am: Scherzer indeed sustained an oblique injury, tweets Jon Heyman of the New York Post. The severity of the injury isn’t yet known, although as Heyman points out, even Grade 1 oblique strains can sideline players for upwards of a month. Of course, every injury is different, and there are certainly instances of players returning far sooner than that. The Mets figure to have a formal announcement on Scherzer’s status at some point today.
8:00am: Mets ace Max Scherzer pulled himself from last night’s game midway through a sixth-inning at-bat against Albert Pujols (video link). After throwing a 2-2 slider to Pujols, Scherzer immediately motioned to the dugout that he was done, calling for a trainer and promptly exiting the game. The Mets announced that Scherzer was dealing with discomfort in his left side, and Scherzer told reporters after the contest that he’d felt tightness in his side throughout the day and felt a “zing” during the Pujols at-bat (video link). “I just knew I was done,” said Scherzer. The three-time Cy Young winner added that he doesn’t believe the injury to be a “major strain.”
That’ll be determined this morning, it seems, as MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo writes that Scherzer is headed for an MRI to determine the extent of the injury. While Scherzer himself downplayed the potential severity, it’s obviously a point of concern that he both pulled himself from the game and is now undergoing a round of imaging to determine whether a trip to the injured list will be necessary.
The 37-year-old right-hander inked a record-setting three-year, $130MM contract with the Mets over the winter, making him the highest paid player (on an annual basis) in Major League history. Thus far, Scherzer has been the co-ace the Mets hoped to be acquiring when doling out that deal, pitching 49 2/3 innings of 2.54 ERA ball with a 30.6% strikeout rate against a 5.7% walk rate. He’s been a major reason that the Mets’ rotation, even without Jacob deGrom, ranks fifth in the Majors in ERA and second in FIP. Scherzer and his rotation-mates have also combined for the seventh-highest strikeout rate and the lowest walk rate of any starting staff in the big leagues.
At present, the Mets are the only team in the NL East with a winning record, and at 25-14 they hold a healthy six-game lead over the second-place Phillies. That said, even a brief absence for Scherzer, placing him on the shelf alongside deGrom and righty Tylor Megill (biceps inflammation), would be a notable blow. The Mets do have a deep staff that could potentially weather that trio of rotation injuries in the short-term, with lefty David Peterson presumably serving as the next man in line if Scherzer indeed misses time. Still, losing their $76.83MM one-two deGrom/Scherzer punch to the injured list before the pair is ever even healthy enough to take the mound on consecutive days isn’t a scenario the Mets hoped to face.
The Mets announced earlier this week that an MRI on deGrom, who has yet to pitch in 2022 due to a stress reaction in his right scapula, showed “continued healing.” He’s working through a throwing program and currently building up the distance from which he throws and the intensity level, but there’s no clear timetable for him to get back onto the mound and embark on a minor league rehab assignment. If Scherzer were to join deGrom and Megill on the IL, the Mets’ rotation would likely consist of Chris Bassitt, Carlos Carrasco, Taijuan Walker, Trevor Williams and the aforementioned Peterson.
Mets Notes: Scherzer, deGrom, Nimmo
Max Scherzer is set to throw a bullpen session on Tuesday, Mets manager Buck Showalter told Newsday’s Tim Healey and other reporters. Right hamstring tightness kept Scherzer out of a scheduled seven-inning intrasquad game on Saturday, which was supposed to be Scherzer’s last bit of spring work before the beginning of the regular season.
The ace has already tossed 11 Grapefruit League innings, so his arm might already be built up enough should he get through Tuesday’s bullpen without any ill effects. It is also possible that the Mets might opt for some extra caution, and either push Scherzer’s first start back at least a few days, or maybe even sideline him with a backdated IL visit just to be completely sure that the 37-year-old is fully ready.
Scherzer’s health has taken on an greater import for the Mets in the wake of Friday’s news that Jacob deGrom will miss probably at least the first two months of the season after an MRI revealed a stress reaction in his right scapula. The Mets begin play on April 7 with seven straight games (a four-game series against the Nationals and then a three-game series against the Phillies), so there aren’t any off-days to provide breathing room for the pitching staff.
DeGrom and Scherzer had been penciled in for the first two games of the schedule, with Chris Bassitt, Carlos Carrasco, and Taijuan Walker then slated to follow in the rotation. Rather than disrupt this planned routine, if Scherzer can’t pitch on April 7, any of Tyler Megill, David Peterson, or Trevor Williams could start the first two games, or New York could even opt for a bullpen game. Of course, the Mets are also known to be on the lookout for more starting pitching help, so a new face might suddenly emerge to help fill out the rotation picture.
DeGrom met with reporters (including The New York Post’s Mike Puma) today to discuss his injury, and unsurprisingly, his “level of frustration is really high right now” over another lengthy stint on the injured list. A forearm injury ended deGrom’s 2021 season on July 7, cutting short an incredible year that saw deGrom post an 1.08 ERA over 92 innings.
If there is any silver lining, deGrom is confident that his stress reaction won’t be a lingering problem: “Structurally everything looks fine, so once the bone heals then we’ll be ready to go and build up from there and hopefully be healthy for the rest of the year.” As such, deGrom reiterated that he is still planning to exercise the opt-out clause in his contract after the season, and test the open market.
Most pitchers with this recent injury history would be more hesitant over walking away from a guaranteed $30.5MM in 2023, plus maybe another $32.5MM in 2024 via a Mets club option. However, if deGrom is healthy and pitches like his usual self when he returns to the mound, he’ll surely land a more lucrative multi-year commitment. As The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal pointed out, $12MM of deGrom’s 2023 salary would also be deferred, so opting out would allow deGrom to land more up-front money in a new contract.
In other Mets contract news (or lack thereof), Puma reports that there hasn’t been any discussion between the club and Brandon Nimmo‘s representatives about a contract extension. Nimmo has stated multiple times that he would be interested in working out a long-term deal as he enters his final season before free agency. In general, most players prefer to not let talks carry on beyond Opening Day, so there might not be a lot of time left for a deal to get done if Nimmo adheres to this rough deadline.
Nimmo has been one of baseball’s more quietly productive players in recent years, hitting .266/.393/.445 with 47 home runs over 1695 career PA. This translates to a very impressive 131 OPS+ and 134 wRC+, but the key statistic might be the relatively small amount of plate appearances, as Nimmo has been beset by multiple injuries. It could be that the Mets have held off on extension talks in order to see if Nimmo can finally put together a lengthy stretch of playing time in 2022, though if he does stay healthy, Nimmo might then be tempted to test the free agent market.
Opening Day In Question For Max Scherzer
Max Scherzer was scratched from his spring training start today because of a tweaked hamstring, writes MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo. After the news of Jacob deGrom‘s injury yesterday, there would be no more devastating update for the Mets than a Scherzer injury, but all accounts say that the injury is not serious.
Scherzer himself would not set a timetable on his return, with a video clip of Scherzer speaking to reporters provided here by Deesha Thosar of the New York Daily News. Scherzer would not rule out being ready by opening day, but he would neither commit to it.
Without Scherzer and deGrom, the Mets would turn to Carlos Carrasco, Chris Bassitt, or Taijuan Walker for the opening day start. Tylor Megill is likely to step into the rotation as well, barring a trade or other roster movement over the next few days.
Lockout Notes: TV Contracts, Miller, Scherzer, Stipends
Major League Baseball’s lockout is entering its fourth month, and the first two regular-season series of the 2022 schedule have already been lost. Most fans have grown weary of the back-and-forth, the finger-pointing and name-calling, instead merely wanting to know when they can expect MLB to again be a part of their daily routines. The unfortunate reality is that there’s no firm answer to that question, as we can’t know firmly when an agreement will be reached — or even when talks will resume.
As Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic outlines, local television contracts don’t call for rebates from teams until roughly 25 games are lost. Jeff Passan of ESPN adds some specifics, writing that avoiding rebates requires broadcasting between 138 and 150 games (with slight team-to-team variation). That plays into the owners’ ability to hold out, as does the general fact that their wealth considerably outpaces that of the players. In cold-weather states, April is a relatively poorly attended month anyhow — at least after the early rush of the opening series.
On the players’ side of the equation, MLBPA executive subcommittee member Andrew Miller told reporters last night that union solidarity is stronger than he’s ever seen (link via Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch).
“We’re prepared,” said Miller. “We’ve seen this coming in a sense. It’s unfortunate. This isn’t new to us. This is not shocking. Our communication, our willingness to see each other’s point of views and find solutions and fight for what’s right is not like I’ve seen before. I can tell you that.”
Both Miller and fellow subcommittee member Max Scherzer broadcast strength and a desire to improve conditions for future generations. Scherzer candidly said he was more than willing to “sacrifice part of [his] career,” noting that he would not be in position to have signed the contract he did without previous generations of players sacrificing portions of their career for him. At the very least, the MLBPA is putting up a strong front.
It’s easier for players like Scherzer, who have amassed hundreds of millions in career earnings, to sit out than it is for players with little to no MLB experience. However, as noted here at MLBTR this week, the union has been preparing for this worst-case scenario for some time, spinning off their licensing revenues into a separate company that allows them to take equity stakes in third parties.
The MLBPA offered $5,000 stipends to members for both February and March and, per Rosenthal and colleague Evan Drellich, will begin offering $15,000 monthly stipends on April 1. Most veterans won’t be applying for those checks, but for those playing closer to the league minimum — or, particularly, those expected to be collecting minor league salaries — it’s a reasonably notable sum. The union has the funds to last the entire season paying out those stipends, although the obvious hope is that a resolution will arrive far sooner.
Everything now depends on how quickly the two parties return to the table and whether one or both will blink in the face of historic levels of tension and public pressure. Clark’s suggestion that ownership cares more about “breaking the union” than about getting players back on the field speaks volumes about the rift that remains, and now on top of everything else, they’ll quarrel over potentially prorated salaries and service time.
Max Scherzer Discusses Lockout
As the MLB lockout continues into 2022, little indication has been given that the current status quo is set to expire any time soon. This morning’s news, that Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have yet to schedule their next bargaining session, all but affirms that.
Despite the ongoing transaction freeze and tight-lipped nature of CBA talks, players haven’t avoided headlines altogether. Recently, a trio of All-Star MLBPA members— Zack Britton, Marcus Semien, and Lucas Giolito— spoke about the current state of the lockout. Today, another high profile MLBPA member joined the fray to discuss the seeming malaise surrounding CBA negotiations: Max Scherzer.
Speaking with Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times, the perennial Cy Young contender hit on a number of familiar points. First among them, Scherzer reiterated the union’s stated goal to increase competitive integrity in the game, that is, to increase incentive for all 30 teams to win games instead of opting for the well documented tank method. “We feel as players that too many teams have gone into a season without any intent to win during this past CBA. Even though that can be a strategy to win in future years, we’ve seen both small-market and large-market clubs embrace tanking, and that cannot be the optimal strategy for the owners.”
Concerns about service-time manipulation are something Scherzer and the union are also looking to address in the next CBA. The right-handed pitcher name-checks the Kris Bryant grievance as one example, though whispers of front offices leveraging the current system to maximize player control have been long presumed.
Beyond the belief that certain players are being held in the minors artificially long, Scherzer also posits that “middle-class free agents” are being slighted under the current system as well. The ability of teams to minimize a player’s early career earnings and open-market earnings doesn’t sit right with Scherzer, who believes this approach is in direct contrast to what an earlier union deal, dubbed “the grand bargain“, sought to accomplish. “The grand bargain is that you make less money early in your career so that you can make more money later in your career. Teams have shown that they’re not willing to pay for players’ past production for a whole slew of reasons. And if that’s the case, that’s the case. But if we’re going to look at players that way, then we need to then allocate more money to players earlier in their career.”
Scherzer further reiterates that the union is not interested in any system that ties player compensation directly to league revenues, citing that doing so would implement a cap system that’s at odds with the sport’s free market economics. Of course, players and fans have noticed that while a cap system may not currently exist, teams have increasingly behaved like the luxury tax threshold acts as one.
Treating the current luxury tax threshold as a hard cap naturally curtails player spending, even if a small handful of players sign record-setting contracts every offseason. As the beneficiary of one such contract, Scherzer pushes back on the notion that the current system works fine, because despite his compensation, a number of players will still be left to scramble for jobs with limited time and opportunity after the lockout.
Ultimately, Scherzer concludes that a number of player concerns need to be remedied in the next CBA for the game to continue with integrity. Because the current system affects every player adversely in one way or another, and the players are “galvanized” by this perception, he asserts that the union is as strong as it’s ever been. When asked if the current stare-down between league and union could lead to a delayed season, Scherzer was hopeful, but non-committal:
“It’s too hard to even speculate what the future looks like. You’re just in limbo right now. You’re training ready to be good to go for when spring training starts. If that doesn’t happen, then you make different decisions based on that. But until that happens, you have to have the mentality that we’re going to be playing on time. Any other kind of speculation is just hearsay.”
Pitching Notes: Scherzer, Matzek, Schmidt
A dead arm kept Max Scherzer from pitching in Game Six of the NLDS, which Scherzer believes was due to pitching fewer innings in the lead-up to the postseason. However, as the ace right-hander told Jorge Castillo of The Los Angeles Times, Scherzer doesn’t hold the Dodgers at fault for the situation, nor was the postseason a factor in his decision to sign with the Mets rather than return to Chavez Ravine. The Dodgers tried to limit their starters’ innings in order to keep them fresh for October, and Scherzer went into the playoffs assuming (and he told the club as much) that he was able to keep up the same workload as in 2019, when he helped lead the Nationals to the World Series. But, he and the Dodgers “never took that variable into consideration” of how pitching less heading into 2021 postseason would impact his arm.
“I bear more brunt of that because of me having those discussions with [manager Dave Roberts] about that, about how I can be used in the postseason and coming up short on that, on my end, of saying I can do something and then it didn’t happen,” Scherzer said. He also noted that his upcoming free agency didn’t weigh into his scratched start: “It’s literally my arm’s health. When you can’t throw, you can’t throw….Throwing in Game 6, I would’ve been rolling the dice on sustaining a substantial injury.”
More from other pitchers around the game…
- Tyler Matzek didn’t appear in a single big league game from 2016-19, as the southpaw found his career all but halted due to control issues and a case of the yips. It took a long time and a lot of work for Matzek to feel comfortable on and off the field, as The Ringer’s Jordan Ritter Conn details, but Matzek returned to become a strong contributor out of the Braves bullpen over the last two seasons, culminating in his role in Atlanta’s World Series title. While Matzek’s control issues haven’t entirely gone away (he has a 12.2% walk rate in 2020-21), he has posted a 2.64 ERA and 31.2% strikeout over 92 regular season innings, plus an excellent 1.48 ERA over 24 1/3 postseason frames.
- One of the Yankees‘ more prominent pitching prospects, Clarke Schmidt‘s big league career has been limited to 12 2/3 innings, due in large part to an elbow injury that sidelined him for much of 2021. “It just didn’t respond like we expected it to and it took forever for it to get right,” Schmidt tells The Athletic’s Lindsey Adler about his injury, an extensor strain that Schmidt described as “basically the same thing as tennis elbow.” Once finally recovered, Schmidt was able to pitch 38 innings of minor league ball and then 6 1/3 innings with the Yankees at the MLB level, and most importantly he says he is feeling healthy heading into the 2022 campaign. Some adjustments have already been made to his offseason training plan, however, as Schmidt feels that overwork led to last year’s injury. “I just pushed the gas pedal a little bit too much too early and I learned my lesson,” he said. It seems like that New York will start Schmidt in Triple-A to give him a bit more seasoning (he has only 25 2/3 innings of Triple-A ball under his belt), but for a Yankees club that can always use pitching depth, Schmidt could be an important arm to watch as the season proceeds.
Mets, Max Scherzer Agree To Record-Setting Three-Year Deal
11:45am: Scherzer can opt out of the contract after the 2023 season, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan. There’s also a full no-trade clause in the pact, per Joel Sherman of the New York Post. The $130MM guarantee will be distributed at an even $43.333MM in each year of the deal, Sherman adds.
11:41am: The agreement has been finalized and is now a “done deal,” tweets Martino.
11:03am: The Mets and three-time Cy Young winner Max Scherzer are finalizing a three-year contract worth $130MM, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. There are only “minor details” left to be sorted out before the Scott Boras client puts pen to paper on a contract that will shatter Gerrit Cole‘s $36MM annual value record. SNY’s Andy Martino had suggested just minutes beforehand that the two parties were moving close to an agreement.
The Scherzer signing is the latest in a frenzied series of free-agent signings for a Mets club that added Starling Marte (four years, $78MM), Mark Canha (two years, $26.5MM) and Eduardo Escobar (two years, $20MM) over the weekend. Scherzer joins a Mets rotation already headlined by one of the generation’s best pitchers, Jacob deGrom, giving the club a one-two punch with a combined five Cy Young Awards and 12 All-Star appearances.
As can be seen on MLBTR’s updated list of the highest average annual values (AAVs) in MLB history, the $43.33MM annual value on Scherzer’s contract establishes a new precedent by a whopping $7.33MM. MLBTR predicted would handily top the previous $36MM record by signing a three-year, $120MM deal — but he’ll break the prior record by an even wider margin. As one of the eight players on the MLBPA’s executive subcommittee, Scherzer undoubtedly takes pride in advancing the AAV record forward by more than 20 percent.
It comes as something of a surprise to see the deep-pocketed Dodgers outbid on the very type of short-term, huge-AAV deals they tend to prioritize, but Joel Sherman of the New York Post suggested this morning that Los Angeles perhaps preferred to stick to a two-year term. Scherzer, confident in his own abilities and quite likely heartened by the Mets’ aggressive weekend, opted to jump to a club that missed the postseason entirely in 2021 but has quickly come to look more formidable (and surely isn’t yet done with its winter dealings).
The contract carries some obvious risk for the Mets, given not only the sheer magnitude of the number but also given that they’re acquiring Scherzer’s age-37 through age-39 seasons. He’ll turn 40 years old shortly before the contract draws to a conclusion, and the dead arm that plagued him late in the playoffs could certainly have given some interested parties a bit of pause. Still, Scherzer is effectively an unprecedented free agent — so an unprecedented contract only feels fitting.
With three Cy Youngs in his back pocket already, plus another trio of Top 3 finishes (and a pair of fifth-place finishes), Scherzer has emerged as the greatest pitcher of the current generation. He’d be a slam-dunk Hall of Famer even if he retired today, but he’ll spend the next three seasons in Queens, hoping to help the Mets not only secure their first postseason berth since 2016 but win their first World Series title since 1986.
Despite his age, Scherzer remains one of the most dominant pitchers on the planet. Among the 129 pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched in 2021, Scherzer ranked fourth in ERA (2.46), tenth in FIP (2.97), third in strikeout rate (34.1%), 11th in walk rate (5.2%), second in K-BB% (28.9%) and third in swinging-strike rate (15.9%). He was well above average in terms of limiting hard contact, and Statcast pegged him in the 91st percentile or better in expected opponents’ batting average, expected ERA and expected opponents’ wOBA. Whether you prefer those newer metrics or simply to look at Scherzer’s 15-4 record, minuscule ERA and a similarly microscopic 0.86 WHIP — there’s no getting around the fact that “Mad Max” is not just a bona fide ace but is still one of the game’s truly elite pitchers, even in his late 30s.
The opt-out decision in Scherzer’s contract will be fascinating when it’s due. If he continues at that historic level and wants to continue pitching into his 40s, there’s every reason to expect he could find a better deal than that one-year, $43.33MM commitment for the 2024 season. After all, we just saw another future Hall of Famer, Justin Verlander, sign a two-year deal that guaranteed him $50MM through his age-39 and age-40 seasons — at a time when he’d only thrown six innings in a two-year period, owing to Tommy John surgery. Wild as it might sound for a 39-year-old Scherzer to forgo a one-year deal at more than $43MM, the possibility shouldn’t be completely dismissed.
For the 2022-23 seasons, however, Scherzer joins deGrom atop a Mets rotation that isn’t short on injury risk but is also teeming with talent. That iconic pairing will be followed by the likes of Carlos Carrasco, Taijuan Walker, David Peterson and Tylor Megill — though it certainly remains possible that the Mets will further augment the starting staff. Though both Megill and Peterson have shown plenty of promise, either has solidified himself as an MLB contributor over multiple big league seasons. And, with limited upper-level depth behind the current top five, it’s easy to see the appeal in installing another veteran arm and pushing Megill and Peterson to “overqualified” Triple-A depth roles in the event of injuries on the big league staff.
The recent free-agent flurry leaves the Mets with a jaw-dropping $268MM payroll projection, per Roster Resource’s Jason Martinez, with upwards of $273MM in luxury-tax obligations. Even with that stratospheric number in place, however, we’re not even two weeks removed from owner Steve Cohen stating plainly at GM Billy Eppler’s introductory press conference that when it comes to payroll for Eppler and the rest of the baseball operations department: “It’s whatever they need.”
We can’t know exactly what lies in store for the luxury-tax system — not with the collective bargaining agreement set to expire this week — but it appears all but set in stone that the Mets will be penalized to an extent in each of the next two seasons. Beyond the aforementioned $273MM in luxury obligations for the 2022 season, New York already has more than $191MM in luxury obligations in 2023. The team’s ultra-aggressive couple of weeks since Eppler joined the organization suggests that number will climb with not only additional moves in the current offseason but quite likely in the 2022-23 offseason.
This type of spending spree is perhaps the exact scenario Mets fans dreamed of when Cohen purchased the Mets from the Wilpon family — an ownership group that had never taken payroll beyond $158MM despite playing in the game’s largest market. Cohen’s aggressive spending and public candor even on baseball operations matters (e.g. his frustration regarding Steven Matz negotiations) hearken back to another famed New York owner, the late George Steinbrenner, who never shied away from impulsive personnel decisions or speaking his mind.
It won’t become clear for years whether this will be the norm under Cohen or if he merely felt compelled to act opportunistically in such a deep free-agent market. That’s of little consequence in the immediate future, however; Cohen and Eppler are living in the here-and-now, aggressively adding to a Mets roster that looks considerably more like a postseason threat than it did even 96 hours ago. There’s little reason to expect the Mets to take their foot off the gas, even if some of the remaining moves have to wait until the looming lockout has been resolved.
Photo courtesy of Imagn/USA Today Sports.
Mets In Serious Talks With Max Scherzer
10:48am: Martino tweets that an agreement between the two parties again appears close.
9:50am: Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that the Mets’ offer to Scherzer is in the three-year, $129MM range. Sherman suggested earlier this morning that the Mets had the top offer and the Dodgers seemed reluctant to go beyond two years (Twitter thread).
Nov. 29, 9:33am: The Mets and Scherzer’s camp have “re-engaged” after some brief downtime overnight, Martino tweets. Martino suggests that talks could be nearing the finish line.
Nov. 28: The Mets are nearing a multi-year contract with Max Scherzer, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi writes (Twitter link). Based on multiple reports from earlier tonight, Scherzer may be on the verge of signing the largest average annual value contract in baseball history. SNY’s Andy Martino reported earlier tonight that the Mets were prepared to go beyond $40MM in annual salary, and in Martino’s latest tweet, he writes that New York is offering Scherzer a $42MM AAV over either three or four years. Scherzer is represented by the Boras Corporation.
The news puts an exclamation point on a pitching search that has thus far been fruitless for the Mets, as targets such as Kevin Gausman, Jon Gray, Justin Verlander, Noah Syndergaard, and Steven Matz have all come off the board. Matz’s deal with the Cardinals even drew some public ire from Mets owner Steve Cohen on Twitter, who accused agent Rob Martin of “unprofessional behavior” in their negotiations.
Those near-misses now fade into the background in the wake of what might be a precedent-setting contract with one of the best pitchers in baseball history. Scherzer was seen as more likely to sign with a team on the West Coast, as per his preferences when leveraging his no-trade clause to join the Dodgers back at the trade deadline. As such, teams like the Dodgers, Angels, and Giants were known to be in the hunt for the 37-year-old ace, but instead, Scherzer now seems poised to return to both the East Coast and the NL East itself, after six-plus seasons with the Nationals.
While Scherzer was already a highly accomplished pitcher before he went to Washington, he rose to legendary status after signing his seven-year, $210MM free agent pact with the Nats in the 2014-15 offseason. Scherzer’s stint in D.C. included two NL Cy Young Awards (to go with his 2013 AL Cy with the Tigers), two no-hitters, a 20-strikeout game, a 2.80 ERA over 1229 innings, and the crowning achievement of the Nationals’ 2019 World Series championship. All told, a strong case can be made that Scherzer’s deal is the best mega-deal in the history of free agency.
Once the Nationals fell out of contention this summer, Scherzer and Trea Turner were dealt to Los Angeles in a blockbuster swap, and Scherzer continued to pitch well in leading the Dodgers to the NLCS. The Dodgers were still considered as the favorites to re-sign Scherzer up until just earlier this evening, as the Dodgers’ deep pockets gave them the flexibility to consider the type of huge AAV required to meet Scherzer’s asking price. MLB Trade Rumors indeed projected Scherzer to set a new AAV standard, predicting him to a land a three-year, $120MM pact to remain in Dodger blue.