Bring Back Max?

The Nats need pitching help.  The Jays might be doing some minor selling in the hopes of resetting for 2027. Max Scherzer is a Jay and won't cost much given his recent injuries and performance issues. So... bring back Max?

Ehhhhh

Scherzer blossomed into an ace in 2012 with the Tigers and the Nats managed to snatch him up in free agency getting his best years with arguably the second best FA contract of all time (I still say Randy Johnson's 4 Cy Young in 4 years beats it, sorry*)  He was traded to the Dodgers for what may be scraps (Ruiz has been in a slow tumble since late May - first the power, now the average) pitched well then signed with the Mets.  His first year was as good as any with the Nats, although he did miss some time. But after that at age 38 in 2023, time began catching up with him. He was still an effective swing and miss guy but he was making more mistakes. Walks and homers both went up and the Mets sent him to Texas. He made some adjustments and when he pitched in Texas he was ok, but in 2024 that wasn't even close to a third of a season. Toronto took a chance on him last year and he was a perfectly ok rotation filler but too injured to rely on, and now he's still battling injuries and is just bad. 

What happened?  What happens to all old arms. The fastball velocity goes. You can't rely on it so you shift to more breaking junk which was never your bread and butter and is now worse than your peak so the results aren't what you like. You get hurt and nothing is as good coming back. 

One of Max's bugaboos was that he was never a GB pitcher. He gave up flyballs and when he was going bad he became ScHeRzer, giving up bombs for runs. This was ok when he was missing bats and putting no one on but now he's not doing enough of either and those are three run shots, not solo ones.  

If you want a positive to Max's outing - his fastball velocity was up.  If he can tick it up a bit more that's into effective territory.  BUT he's no where near as controlled with his pitches anymore. The walks came and that may be the trade-off that he has to put out there. 

As a starter he might be able to figure out a middle ground of dialing it up early with the hopes of being on and then working smarter if he's too wild and gets himself into trouble to limit the damage. Become a wily 5 inning guy.  I can see that. But fans are asking for Max to dial it up and head to the pen.  Even if he wants that I see a guy that can't do that while controlling where the ball goes.  And if he can't hit say... 95 without having control, well that's not close to a major league fireballer. While he may have the temperment of a pen guy, he doesn't have the stuff. Too wild. No out pitch anymore. 

If the Nats want to bring him back to fill in the back of the rotation, to take care of these weird opener situations, sure. Maybe you get pucky and he can find a 2024 like finish. But as a reliever? Nah. It doesn't feel right nor would it work out.  

 

*Yeah the length does help Max, but in two and two thirds more years with the Nats than Randy spent with the D-Backs (in his initial contract before the option years) Max only threw 200 IP more. Max's best year by bWAR is still behind Randy's worse year and Randy's combined bWAR is less than 1 behind Max's. They both got a WS title. It's ok to be #2 ALL-TIME.