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Mensching: Max Scherzer deserves more than $144 million
By Kurt Mensching, Special to The Detroit News 7 a.m. EST January 12, 2015
Division Series - Baltimore Orioles v Detroit Tigers - Game Three
(Photo: Leon Halip / Getty Images)
Look, if you're Max Scherzer, of course you're going to hold out for the big money. Because you deserve it.
You knew last year you deserved it. You knew during the course of 2014 you deserved it. And here, nearly two weeks into the month of January and within six weeks or so of pitchers and catchers reporting for spring training, you still know you deserve it.
Anyone who has spent enough time wandering this planet will tell you that you don't always get what you deserve. Scherzer might not, either.
But Scherzer deserves more than the reported six-year, $144 million deal offered by the Tigers last year. Don't be surprised if he gets it, too.
That thought seems bleak right now. Day after day we read of more teams claiming not to be in the hunt for Scherzer. The Red Sox are out. The Yankees are out. The Giants are out. The Dodgers are out. The Cardinals are out. The Cubs already added Jon Lester. Which leaves … who exactly? Not a lot of big spenders. Not even the Tigers, if they're to be believed.
This entire tale is unbelievable. And you shouldn't believe it. Teams are posturing, counterbalancing Scherzer's agent, Scott Boras. It's the delicate dance of baseball diplomats saying all the right things at the right times while negotiation goes on out of sight.
I don't think for a moment that Scherzer will sign for less than Lester, who agreed to a six-year deal with Chicago worth $155 million, including a $30 million signing bonus.
Nor should he. Scherzer is younger, better and comes with more laurels and fewer innings on his arm. He's coming off a two-year period with an ERA of 3.02, more than 10 strikeouts per nine innings and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 4.13. Lester was worse by every measure.
So why then should Schezer take less money?
And if Scherzer wants as much money as Justin Verlander makes, why shouldn't he?
Through their first 200 or so starts, Scherzer and Verlander were remarkably similar players. Their ERAs are close (Verlander, 3.54; Scherzer, 3.58), their fielding independent pitching stat is close (Scherzer, 3.39; Verlander, 3.49). They both walked 2.8 batters per nine innings, but Scherzer struck out better than a batter per nine innings more (9.3 vs. 8.3).
Last year Verlander signed a seven-year, $180 million dollar deal that could be worth more than $200 million in the end. Why wouldn't Scherzer look for that kind of pay?
Scherzer may be without a team today, but it would be a mistake to believe that means the market has dried up and he should be entering desperation mode soon.
I'm reminded of a few years back when another Boras client appeared to overshoot the market. And then one day in late January, following a key injury to a major player, he signed a contract of an astounding figure. You remember it too surely, because that player was Prince Fielder and that team was the Tigers.
Fielder inked a deal worth more than $23 million annually, totalling $214 million across nine seasons.
The market has changed a bit since then, wisened up a bit. Well, mostly. But what Boras is hoping for here is pretty simple: a whiff of desperation from a team or an owner willing to listen to a sales pitch telling him his club is just one star starting pitcher away from making the playoffs and then doing something when they get there.
You're not going to find another frontline starter on the market like Scherzer, Boras would say, though surely with more charts and with smoother words.
There's plenty of time before the season arrives. Boras and Scherzer know enough not to panic now. The Tigers don't seem all that desperate either.
If the Tigers don't want to give Scherzer the kind of contract he's looking for because they don't think it fits into their long-term plan, that's fine. They've already got a lot of expensive players under the belt.
But if they don't want to pay the man because they think he doesn't deserve it, they are badly mistaken. He does.
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