The Mad Max Show comes to Toronto.
But just how much should the Blue Jays expect from Max Scherzer in the twilight of his career?
For many-a-baseball player, security, as it relates to their legacies is a rare thing.
There is always another proverbial mountain to climb, another championship to chase. A slew of individual accolades to collect, if they are so lucky, be they raw hardware or those statistical milestones itched in hard, black ink.
Max Scherzer is not most players.
His legacy, as it were, has been secure for the better part of a decade now, a resume he has continually fine-tuned to success: not just one of his generation’s best pitchers but one of the best, period.
A two-time World Series champion and three-time Cy Young winner, with five other top-five finishes besides. A three-time, National League strikeout leader while also being one of only three pitchers, ever, to record 20-strikeouts in a single game.
A player who has game-breaking stuff on the mound and a legendary, near single-minded competitiveness that has seen him live up to every syllable of his deserved nickname.
Though time, unrelenting as it is, waits for no ballplayer: not even Mad Max.
But in signing Scherzer to a one-year, $15.5 million-dollar deal as reported on Thursday night, it seems the Toronto Blue Jays (barring a yet-to-be-completed physical, as of this writing) are hoping Scherzer has some gas left in the tank yet.
The bigger question however, is will it be an addition that truly moves the needle in any meaningful way for the Jays?
Well, some perspective will go a-ways in answering that.
This, a signing that serves as a reminder that many things on the diamond can be true at once - because yes, on one hand, simply adding a player of Scherzer’s pedigree and baseline talent should be of benefit for the Jays.
Toronto could never really get anything going last season, ultimately finishing last in the AL East, a full twenty games back of the Yankees - they haven’t won a playoff game in nine years and despite an solid, oft-very impressive nuclei of in-their-prime players, have found themselves in a position no self-respecting team boosting supposed championship aspirations would envy: stagnant, with their wheels turning.
Though with both Bo Bichette, he of a lost 2024 and Vladimir Guerrero Junior most notably up for free agency next winter, one must give the Jays their props where they are due, in acknowledging that window won’t, can’t, stay open forever.
Over the past few years they’ve swung-and-missed on both Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto in the free agency period, true difference-making, generational players that can tip the scales all on their own.
All-Star outfielder Anthony Santander, for one, who is among their bigger additions this winter isn’t that player and Scherzer, to be frank, with all respect to what he has accomplished, isn’t that guy anymore either. Instead, he’ll be a rotation pitcher surrounding José BerrÃos, Chris Bassitt and frontman Kevin Gausman, as Toronto looks to shore up everything they can around the edges with spring training, which will begin next month, now firmly in sight.
Maybe though, that is the lingering feeling that has been felt throughout the GTA since the news broke. How much capital, really, are the Jays banking on here: Scherzer will turn 41 this summer, golden years, when it comes to pro sports and he has taken on something of a journeyman trajectory over the past five seasons.
From Washington, Los Angeles, New York, Texas and now, Toronto.
His 2024 was all but a write-off, a 2-4 record with a 3.95 ERA in just over 43 innings of work. He didn’t debut until late June after recovering from a herniated disk and spent time on the IL for both fatigue and hamstring trouble.
Yes, his broader, surefire Cooperstown status is without doubt but nobody in Toronto, from the suits to the stands should be under any real illusions here.
They’re getting one season, perhaps the last, from one of modern baseball’s greatest on the mound. And blame the Toronto sports cynicism if you wish but if the Jays were proper World Series contenders, well, it would be different - a feel-good story of sorts for a player determined to go out chasing one more title on his own terms.
They aren’t however, not yet, not now, here in final days of January, so it rings a little hollow - even if there will be fun to be had, undeniably, in seeing Scherzer bask in the glow of the Dome as he throws under the shadow of the CN Tower.
No, that alone won’t win a championship but baseball does have an inkling towards the unexpected and if anyone can turn that energy outwards, it is Scherzer.
Until then, the spring awaits.
And with it, possibility.