Breaking up Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom might not be worst thing for Mets
New York Mets pitchers Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom look on from the dugout during an MLB baseball game against the Chicago Cubs at Citi Field on Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
LAS VEGAS
The idea of pairing Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom is a great concept in theory. Front-loading a rotation with co-aces who possess five Cy Young Awards between them should be a dream scenario.
The reality? Not so much.
We know that now because the Mets already tried it. But rather than rubber-stamp the franchise’s third World Series title, as many imagined at the start of spring training, Scherzer and deGrom were mere mortals by season’s end, barely making it through a turbulent final week that ended in the wild-card round of the playoffs.
That isn’t a knock on either one. Scherzer is a slam dunk Hall of Famer and deGrom, when healthy, redefines the meaning of dominance on the mound. But there has to be an increasing concern about the physical limitations of both aces, and that isn’t speculation — it was a fact of life for the Mets last season.
Owner Steve Cohen already gambled once on this duo, and in shocking the baseball world by giving Scherzer a record $43.3 million annual salary, the Mets laid out $76.8 million for him and deGrom alone. That was more than the Orioles and A’s spent on their entire 2022 payrolls and nearly as much as the Guardians ($82M).
I’m all for Cohen flexing his financial might. He’s got the money, and his checkbook is a huge advantage for the Mets. Plus, as Scott Boras said Wednesday at the general managers’ meetings, importing Scherzer was a game-changer for the Flushing franchise on a number of levels, from the clubhouse to the field.
But as the Mets consider running it back again with Scherzer and deGrom, who exercised his opt-out this week as promised, they can’t pretend last season didn’t happen. Plainly put, the high-stakes experiment didn’t work.
Granted, it’s extremely tempting to give this another try. But with deGrom almost certainly seeking to beat Scherzer’s AAV record, the price would go up considerably, and now the Mets would be looking at more than $85 million for the pair in ’23.
That’s really stretching the boundaries of logical roster construction — if the Mets weren’t there already — even for a megabillionaire fan like Cohen. And GM Billy Eppler has plenty of holes to deal with (he filled another rotation vacancy Thursday by picking up the $14 million option on Carlos Carrasco, an $11M net cost if you count his $3M buyout).
At this moment, Eppler said it’s possible to afford a Scherzer/deGrom do-over. “It’d be a heavy allocation, to say the least,” he said. “But you’d look to solve other areas of your roster internally, if that can be done, or via the trade market maybe where you don’t have to pay the free-agent rate, so to speak. That’s a needle to be threaded, but you have to be mindful of that.”
The Mets also need to be mindful of the pitfalls that came with paying both of them last season. The two totaled only 34 starts — four more than club leader Chris Bassitt.
The usually durable Scherzer was as advertised for the first six weeks (2.54 ERA) before landing on the injured list with an oblique strain that haunted him the rest of the way, putting him on the IL again in September.
As for deGrom, he showed up in spring training like a man on a mission, which seemed to be as much performing for a new contract as getting the Mets to the World Series. Despite not throwing a pitch for eight months, though, he couldn’t survive March without breaking down, suffering an unusual stress reaction in his shoulder blade.
It would be one thing if you could chalk up these maladies to freakish occurrences. But Scherzer is 38, with more than 2,600 innings pitched in his 15-year career. You can’t just reverse his odometer at this point. In deGrom’s case, staying healthy has been far more challenging than any hitter he’s faced, and with 11 different injuries in the past two-plus years, it’s hard to believe that trend won’t continue as he turns 35 next June.
Even when Scherzer and deGrom finally shared the rotation for the final two months of the season, the results weren’t exactly what the Mets had fantasized about. Scherzer had a 2.54 ERA in those nine starts; deGrom had a 3.08 ERA in 11 starts in that span. The Mets, incredibly, went 10-10 with them on the mound down the stretch, including the crushing three-game sweep in Atlanta that cost them the division, as Scherzer and deGrom lost both of their starts at Turner Field.
There was plenty of blame to go around, obviously. But the Scherzer/deGrom team-up was supposed to be the Mets’ hammer and the impact was unimpressive, with only deGrom showing up as a stopper for Game 2 of the Wild Card Series. He grinded through six innings, striking out eight, to beat the Padres in a performance that still didn’t feature deGrom at the height of his powers.
Maybe deGrom will get his record deal elsewhere and make this a moot discussion. If so, the Mets can reap their draft pick compensation, formulate a new rotation strategy for ’23 and not have to worry about the costly experiment blowing up in their face again.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
