Mets getting plenty of value from Max Scherzer's big contract
Mets starting pitcher Max Scherzer looks on from the dugout during an MLB game against the Padres at Citi Field on Saturday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Max Scherzer is only in the first season of his record three-year, $130-million contract with the Mets. And he already missed seven weeks due to a left oblique strain.
But for those on the fence still wondering if multi-billionaire owner Steve Cohen overpaid for the three-time Cy Young winner, consider this: Scherzer was on the mound Wednesday night as the Mets went for a two-game sweep in the Subway Series.
The team’s homegrown ace, owner of back-to-back Cy trophies himself, Jacob deGrom presumably was somewhere between Syracuse and Flushing after a rocky fifth rehab start at the Mets’ Triple-A affiliate. His address since mid-March: Limbo, U.S.A.
Over at Citi Field, in the Subway Series finale, Scherzer was masterful on the big stage, firing seven scoreless innings to protect a 2-0 lead. He allowed five hits, walked two and struck out six -- whiffing Aaron Judge three times. The Scherzer-Judge showdowns represented this rivalry at its finest, especially in the seventh, when Judge came to the plate with the tying runs on base.
With most of the 46,693 fans on their feet, Scherzer carved up Judge by mixing in one fastball among four sliders, including the final nasty breaker that he flailed away at -- pitch no. 99. Scherzer lowered his ERA to 2.09, but his shot at a victory unraveled when David Peterson teed up a tying two-run homer to Gleyber Torres in the eighth inning.
The Mets went on to win, 3-2, in the bottom of the ninth on Starling Marte's RBI single.
Ideally, the Scherzer signing wasn’t supposed to be deGrom insurance. The plan was to create a super-rotation, with that dynamic duo at the top, co-aces if you will. It was a bold (and expensive) strategy, spending $76.8 million this season -- nearly 28% of the Mets’ entire 2022 payroll -- on those two pitchers alone.
Has Scherzer been worth it? Even before throwing a pitch Wednesday against the Yankees, on his 38th birthday, the answer has to be an overwhelming yes. While it’s open to debate how much a starting pitcher can dramatically influence a team’s performance as a whole -- we’re talking about someone who only sees the field once every five days -- the Scherzer Effect is real for these Mets. And from an attitude perspective probably has as much to do with their 60-37 record as anything, with the exception of maybe Pete Alonso’s machine-like RBI production (83 through 97 games) at the plate.
“He’s very approachable for his teammates,” Buck Showalter said Wednesday afternoon. “He loves engaging about baseball, and the competition. He’s hard on himself, too. Take a snapshot, because there’s not going to be a lot that come around like him.
“It amazes me sometimes the competitive edge he always has at his age. Some people ask how much longer he’s going to pitch. When he wakes up one day, and that want-to isn’t there, and that competitive edge, that’s when he’ll know.”
Rest assured, it’s still boiling inside Scherzer at the moment. Watch him between innings, stalking the dugout. Or staring down a hitter, umpire or anyone else who rankles him. That’s a given. And for a Mets team that entered this season still in the process of trying to build a winning identity, Scherzer already is proving to be one of Cohen’s best investments, on or off the field.
Numbers-wise, Scherzer was 6-2 with a 2.28 ERA in 12 starts, and he’s only failed to go six innings twice. One was the May 18 night Scherzer walked off the mound at Citi with two outs in the sixth due to the oblique strain, signaling to the dugout he was cooked. The other was way back on April 13, his second start, in a five-inning, seven-K victory over the Phillies.
That’s another Scherzer strength: when you hand over the baseball, you have to fight him to get it back. What an asset for a manager, and Showalter -- also in his debut season with the Mets -- couldn’t have asked for a better roster addition. Both for his in-game bulldog mentality as well as his ability to act as another pitching coach on the days in-between starts.
On Wednesday, the Mets had a big advantage with Scherzer lining up for the back end of the Subway Series, opposite the Yankees’ rotation fill-in, Domingo German. Scherzer pitched the Nationals to a world championship in 2019, has 15 postseason series on his resume and started two All-Star Games. While taking center stage in this cross-borough showdown was a new role for him, he’d spent a career preparing for it.
“You get in a rivalry game — when the fans feel it, you feel it,” Scherzer said this week. “Players, we feed off that, we notice . . . When the fans are going nuts, it just spikes your adrenaline and you can feed off of it.”
Not like Scherzer needs to be any more amped up. You get the sense he could be pitching a Wiffle ball game at a backyard BBQ and still have that same white-hot glare. Putting him up against the Yankees, with the planet’s most dangerous slugger Aaron Judge, surrounded by a raucous sellout crowd at Citi Field, and his intensity level should be cranked up to 11.
“If it’s 3,000 people in a spring training game, Max is the same guy,” Showalter said. “That’s good, because a lot of guys aren’t able to do that. The way he approaches it -- whether it’s spring training or tonight -- it’s a great example for everybody.”
There was some debate back in March over who should be identified as the Mets’ true No. 1 heading into this season, Scherzer or the eight-year incumbent deGrom. Until the other one throws a pitch that counts, the answer is clear: this team’s ace was on the mound Wednesday against the Yankees.
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.
