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.
Mets May Be Favorite For Max Scherzer
9:47PM: The Dodgers remain in the mix for Scherzer but are “not the favorites at the moment,” as per Jorge Castillo of The Los Angeles Times. Indeed, there are “growing indications” that the Mets will sign Scherzer, as per The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, with the New York Post’s Joel Sherman adding that Scherzer and the Mets have made progress towards an agreement.
8:47PM: The Mets have offered Scherzer a multi-year contract, according to MLB Network’s Jon Morosi, that could be a three-year, $120MM pact.
7:16PM: The Mets’ offer to Scherzer has an average annual value of more than $40MM, according to Martino, but the length of the offer isn’t known. This would represent the largest AAV for any player in baseball history.
6:58PM: The Dodgers “are perceived as the favorite” to sign Scherzer, Heyman tweets. However, the “Mets’ full attention at [the] moment” is directed at Scherzer. If Scherzer does sign elsewhere, New York will likely turn its attention towards Gausman as the backup plan. SNY’s Andy Martino writes that the Mets hope to have either Scherzer or Gausman signed within the next 24 hours.
11:54AM: Max Scherzer is expected to make a decision about where to play next year before the impending lockout, according to MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. Heyman lists the Dodgers, Giants, Angels and Mets as some of the teams that are under consideration.
The current Collective Bargaining Agreement between MLB and MLBPA expires at 11:59 pm ET on December 1, with the general expectation being that a lockout and transaction freeze will then be implemented if no new deal is in place at that time. That has led to a flurry of activity in recent weeks, as many teams, agents and players seemingly prefer to get their business done now as opposed to waiting until some undetermined date when the lockout is finished. It would appear that Scherzer is in that camp.
The starting pitching market has easily been the busiest so far this year, as Eduardo Rodriguez, Anthony DeSclafani, Justin Verlander, Steven Matz, Noah Syndergaard, Andrew Heaney and Michael Wacha have all signed in the past two weeks, with Corey Kluber also signing today. Kevin Gausman is also reportedly planning on signing in the coming days.
Scherzer’s free agency is a very unique case, given his elite skill level and relatively older age, compared to the other top names on the free agent market. Kevin Gausman and Robbie Ray, the only two hurlers ahead of Scherzer on MLBTR’s list of Top 50 Free Agents, are both currently 30 years old, whereas Scherzer turned 37 in July. But given his tremendous track record of success in his career, his prediction was for a much higher salary on an annual basis, $120MM over three years, AAV of $40MM. That would be a new high for AAV across the league, breaking Gerrit Cole‘s record of $36MM. Gausman and Ray, on the other hand, were predicted to get to the vicinity of $25MM annually, but each over a longer term than Scherzer.
Scherzer already has an incredible career resume, with 14 seasons of quality work, including eight All-Star appearances, three Cy Young Awards, a World Series championship and various other accolades. In 2021, he logged 179 1/3 innings between the Nationals and Dodgers. His 2.46 ERA was the lowest of his career. His 34.1% strikeout rate and 5.2% walk rate were both much better than league average. In short, he would be a huge upgrade for any team in the league. But if he’s going to cost around $40MM per year, budgetary concerns will make him a better fit on some teams than others.
The Mets have already been throwing lots of money around, as they recently signed Mark Canha, Starling Marte and Eduardo Escobar. That spending spree has pushed their 2022 payroll to $225MM, per Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. That’s already well beyond last year’s opening day payroll of $195MM, which was itself a franchise high, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. To add someone like Scherzer would require pushing their previous boundaries even further.
The Angels also ran a franchise-high payroll on opening day last year, getting up to almost $182MM, per Cot’s. For 2022, they’re currently sitting at $157MM, per Martinez, about $25MM shy of last year. Adding Scherzer would likely involve blowing past that number, as well as changing their previous avoidance of giving out contracts of any kind of length to starting pitchers. As recently explored by MLBTR’s Steve Adams, they haven’t given a starting pitcher a deal longer than one year since Joe Blanton way back in 2012, and even that was just two years.
The Giants have lots of payroll space, but also lots of holes to fill. Cot’s pegs their 2021 opening day number just shy of $150MM, but they’ve been as high as $200MM before, in 2018. They’re currently sitting around $115MM for next year, per Martinez, but still have many areas of need. Their rotation lost four members from 2021, and though they’ve since re-signed Anthony DeSclafani, they still need to replace Alex Wood, Kevin Gausman and Johnny Cueto. (It was reported a week ago that Wood was close to deal to return, though it doesn’t seem to have been finalized yet.) They could also use a right-handed outfielder, having already been connected to Starling Marte and Seiya Suzuki. It seems more likely that they would spread their budget around to multiple arms, but if they want to make a run at a huge name like Scherzer, they have a payroll situation that could make it doable.
As for the Dodgers, whom acquired Scherzer at last year’s trade deadline, their opening day payroll in 2021 was almost $248MM, per Cot’s, easily the highest such number in the league. They’re currently sitting over $205MM for next year, according to Martinez, and could welcome Scherzer back into the fold if they’re willing to spend at similar levels this year.
Latest On Mets’ Starting Pitching Targets
9:10 pm: Jon Heyman of the MLB Network tweeted this afternoon that the Mets seemed to be prioritizing Max Scherzer and Gausman above Ray at the top of the market, which could align with concerns about forfeiting a top 15 pick by signing a qualified free agent. Heyman notes that the Mets remain interested in Stroman, among others.
1:23 pm: Billy Eppler has only formally been the Mets’ general manager a bit more than a week, but he’s jumped right into the mix and is working to bolster the team’s starting staff. Eppler said in an appearance on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM this week that he’s “engaged in a ton of starting pitching right now” (Twitter link, with audio).
A spotlight was shined on the Mets’ interest in the rotation market this week when owner Steve Cohen voiced frustration with Steven Matz‘s representatives after the lefty spurned his former Mets club to sign a four-year deal with the Cardinals. The Mets also attended Justin Verlander‘s showcase earlier this offseason, though he has since re-signed with the Astros.
Starting pitching is an obvious need for the Mets, who’ve already watched Noah Syndergaard reject their qualifying offer for a slightly larger guarantee with the Angels. The Mets also don’t know whether free agent Marcus Stroman will return, and they’ve already announced that Carlos Carrasco underwent surgery to remove bone fragments from his pitching elbow. The current timeline has Carrasco returning early in Spring Training, but that issue, combined with David Peterson‘s late-July foot surgery and the forearm issue that ended Jacob deGrom‘s season in early July, only serves to further muddy the outlook.
The Mets are reportedly loath to sign a free agent who’d require them to surrender a draft pick, as doing so would mean forfeiting their second-highest pick — in this instance, the No. 14 overall selection in the draft. New York also has the No. 11 pick as compensation for not signing top pick Kumar Rocker in the 2021 draft. That might take Robbie Ray off the table, but he’s the lone remaining free agent starting pitcher tied to draft compensation. (The New York Post’s Mike Puma argued this week that even that steep penalty shouldn’t necessarily dissuade the Mets from pursuing Ray.) The remainder of free agents, including Stroman, Kevin Gausman, Jon Gray and Carlos Rodon, among others, can be signed absent of draft-pick considerations.
The trade market, of course, presents myriad other opportunities. One interesting note raised by Eppler — speaking more generally and not specifically with regard to the rotation — was the Mets’ ability and openness to take on a bad contract as a means of effectively purchasing a prospect from another club. Eppler was the Angels’ general manager when they traded 2019 first-round pick Will Wilson to the Giants in order to shed the remainder of Zack Cozart‘s contract while dealing with payroll limitations from his prior ownership. Now, Eppler suggests he could be on the opposite side of such a transaction.
“There are avenues to go grab contracts elsewhere and tie prospects to them,” said Eppler. “Some teams are still doing that — most teams are not — but I think the openness and willingness to be able to say, ‘We’re going to spend a lot on this player, the contract might be a touch underwater, but we’re going to get this prospect back.’ Exploring those, and trying to push those through a little more — there’s an openness to do that here.”
There are various permutations of that arrangement. The Wilson/Cozart deal, in its simplest form, came down to the Giants effectively purchasing a prospect from the Eppler’s Angels. However, it’s also fairly common for teams to take on an underwater contract when acquiring a more desirable player, providing some salary relief in exchange for surrendering less in terms of prospect capital.
For instance, if the Mets were to make a strong push for one of the Athletics’ available starters (e.g. Frankie Montas, Sean Manaea, Chris Bassitt), offering to take on the remaining $8.25MM owed to outfielder Stephen Piscotty could persuade the A’s to settle for a lesser return. To be clear, that’s just one example — and there’s no indication the A’s are open to that specific scenario. But, that type of arrangement is another in which Eppler could leverage the Mets’ financial might in trade talks.
Whichever route the Mets ultimately take, some kind of upgrade seems inevitable. Their current rotation projects to include deGrom, Carrasco, Taijuan Walker, Tylor Megill and Peterson. It’s not at all a poor quintet if all are healthy, but for a big-market club with postseason aspirations, an additional veteran (or two) to add some dependable innings behind deGrom is a logical pursuit.
Cardinals Notes: Reyes, Hicks, Scherzer, Matz
The Cardinals’ rotation for 2022 is 80% set, with Adam Wainwright, Jack Flaherty, Miles Mikolas and Dakota Hudson pencilled into four out of the five slots. However, that last spot could still seemingly go in many different ways, either with internal or external options. Derrick S. Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch spoke to the team’s president of baseball operations John Mozeliak about the various paths they’re choosing between.
The club is apparently giving consideration to Alex Reyes and Jordan Hicks, both of whom having been primarily working as relievers in recent years and are questionable fits for rotation jobs. Reyes had an excellent year out of the bullpen in 2021, eventually becoming the team’s closer. In 72 1/3 innings, he had an ERA of 3.24 with a strikeout rate of 30% and notched 29 saves. However, that also came with a walk rate of 16.4%, around twice the league average. He also comes with a lengthy injury history that has limited his contributions in his career thus far. Those 72 1/3 innings from this year are the most he’s thrown since 2016, when he threw 111 1/3 between Triple-A and the big leagues, which is the most he’s logged in a single season. That was followed by a completely lost season in 2017 and three straight years of just a few dozen each.
The situation with Hicks is somewhat comparable, as he had an excellent season in 2018, throwing 77 2/3 innings out of the bullpen with a 3.59 ERA. However, he was limited to 28 2/3 innings in 2019 before having to undergo Tommy John surgery, opted out of 2020 and then was limited by injuries to just 13 innings in 2021, between Triple-A and the big leagues. Expecting him to jump into a rotation job at this point seems like a tall ask, and Mozeliak admitted as much. “My guess is no better than yours or anybody else’s,” he said, in regards to what Hicks could provide in the future. “For him to go out and pitch north of 100 innings would be maybe putting him in a difficult spot.”
In addition to those two, Goold also lists Jake Woodford, Johan Oviedo and Genesis Cabrera as those who are in the mix. Despite all of those candidates, the club is still looking into external options, which is understandable based on how 2021 went. Multiple injuries caused the club the struggle in the first half, leading them to make the mid-summer additions of Jon Lester, J.A. Happ and Wade LeBlanc. Although that helped stabilize the staff and get the club into the playoffs, they’re all now free agents. As Mozeliak puts it, “Last year, we thought we had nine or 10. I think you’ve got to have some protection going in regardless of what we say we’re going to get them to do… Having some additional arms is healthy.”
Goold’s report says that free agent Max Scherzer “would entertain an offer from the Cardinals”, which is notable because Scherzer was apparently unwilling to waive his no-trade clause to join them this past summer, preferring to become a member of a West Coast club. However, now that he is trying to maximize his earning potential, it makes sense that he would try to keep as many buyers at the table as possible, in order to ensure healthy bidding. Even if Scherzer is genuinely open to working in Missouri, where he was born and raised, the club may have trouble fitting him into the budget, as their 2022 payroll is currently over $142MM, according to Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. That’s around $20MM shy of 2021’s opening day payroll, which was a franchise record, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. Scherzer is likely to command much more than that for an annual salary, with MLBTR recently predicting he garners a contract of $120MM over three years, an annual average value of $40MM.
A pitcher who will come much cheaper is Steven Matz, who was at the GM Meetings yesterday, according to Tim Healey of Newsday. Healey lists the Cardinals as being interested in his services, along with the Red Sox, Angels and Dodgers. MLBTR predicted Matz to land a deal of $27MM over three years, an AAV of $9MM which would certainly fit into the Cards’ payroll much more neatly than Scherzer’s. Matz had a solid year for the Blue Jays in 2021, throwing 150 2/3 innings with an ERA of 3.82. He figures to be popular among teams hesitant to surrender draft picks, as he didn’t receive a qualifying offer from the Jays.
Dodgers To Start Walker Buehler In NLCS Game 6
The Dodgers have announced that Walker Buehler will get the start in tonight’s crucial Game 6 of the National League Championship Series. Buehler will take the ball in place of Max Scherzer, who was initially slated to start but was scratched yesterday.
Buehler didn’t look sharp in Game 3 against the Braves, allowing two earned runs (and four runs total) on six hits and three walks over 3 2/3 innings. He’ll now take the ball again on only three days’ rest, working on short rest for just the second time in his career, and the second time this postseason. Los Angeles deployed Buehler for both Games 1 and 4 of the NLDS, and also on three days’ rest, Buehler held the Giants to one earned run over 4 1/3 innings of work.
Since this is the only instance of Buehler pitching on short rest, it is hard to say whether or not his shaky performance in Game 3 (which came a week after Game 4 of the NLDS) was due to after-effects from having only three days to recover and prepare between starts. Surely the Dodgers would have felt much more comfortable having Buehler fully rested for a potential Game 7, though given how the Dodgers have more or less used an “all hands on deck” philosophy with their postseason pitching mix, it wouldn’t have been shocking if Buehler had been used to record some key outs in relief of Scherzer in Game 6.
That possible scenario didn’t come to pass, however, as Scherzer continues to be bothered by the “dead arm” that plagued him in his Game 2 start against the Braves. Scherzer was pitching for the third time in six days in that outing, after he had thrown 110 pitches in Game 3 of the NLDS against the Giants, then came into Game 5 as a closer to seal the series with a scoreless ninth inning. Returning to the mound three days later against Atlanta, Scherzer threw 79 pitches in 4 1/3 innings, giving up two runs on a walk and four hits (though with seven strikeouts).
In the big picture, Buehler is type of ace a team would love to have on the mound for a possible elimination game, except for the X-factor of how the short rest could impact his work. It remains to be seen exactly how long of a leash Buehler will receive from manager Dave Roberts, as while Buehler is an ace, the Dodgers don’t have any margin for error being down 3-2 in the series. Pulling Buehler after, for example, another 3 2/3 innings will leave a lot of outs for the Dodgers bullpen to cover, especially since Joe Kelly has already been removed from the NLCS roster due to injury, and Justin Bruihl‘s availability may also be in question due to arm soreness.
Using Buehler tonight also raises the question of how the Dodgers will handle the pitching in a potential Game 7, though obviously L.A. just wants to win tonight before worrying about tomorrow’s issues. Julio Urias (Game 4’s starter after pitching in relief in Game 2) would also be working on short rest if he pitched in Game 7, though since the Dodgers have already had two bullpen games in this series, normal starter/reliever roles would quite likely be thrown out the window in a Game 7 scenario. It also isn’t known if Scherzer will be available for any action at all, even a one-inning appearance.