Seen as next to impossible when news broke Sunday morning that the Mets were “kicking the tires” on RHP Max Scherzer, my plane touched down in Denver at 9:13AM my time. My phone began to erupt with Tweet notifications regarding the Mets and Scherzer, and I believed that there was a strong possibility of the sides reaching an agreement. Flashback to Wednesday when Mets owner Steve Cohen took to Twitter to share his anger regarding Steven Matz and his agent not giving the Mets a chance to up their offer to him, reports began to swirl that the club wasn’t seen as a destination for some big name players and that they didn’t want to come here. Well, that quickly began to change as the club signed CF Starling Marte, INF Eduardo Escobar and OF/1B Mark Canha.
Many reports quickly began to come out that made it seem like the Mets had a decent chance at securing a top of the line starting pitcher after those three signings. Cohen clearly meant business and wanted to put his money where his mouth is, and shut down half of the fanbase who, wrongfully so, didn’t believe in him after missing out on an overrated pitcher in Matz, and being smart in not overpaying for a pitcher in Noah Syndergaard who had only appeared in two innings since the 2019 season.
Image via: New York Post
Quickly as Monday went on, news and details began to come to light regarding the Mets and their VERY strong pursuit of Scherzer, and it began to seem more likely. Nonetheless it did seem like Trevor Bauer all over again from just last offseason where he used the Mets down to the last second to get the Dodgers to up their offer. That circus seemed like it was coming back to Mets Twitter, and I was starting to get a little 50/50 on the whole scenario. At the end of the day though, I’ve been saying since back in October of 2020 when Cohen’s purchase of the franchise went through, that his number one goal, after winning, should be to mend the relationship between the Mets and super agent Scott Boras.
For well over a decade and a half the Mets and Boras have been like angry step brothers. They’d occasionally do business with one another, but they’d also throw shade at one another more often than not. By giving his client a 3-year $130 million contract, the first signing between the Mets and Boras under Cohen’s ownership, it might be a sign of the times and a new era between Boras and the Mets. When the Washington Nationals received new ownership in 2006 with Ted Lerner, it took a few years, but Boras clients began to flock to Washington, most notably Scherzer himself in 2015. It now seems like this could possibly be the first of many dealings between Boras and a Mets owner whose worth over $14 billion.
Image via: Forbes
What the Mets get in Scherzer speaks more than it does on the back of a baseball card. Scherzer is one of the most competitive players in the entire game, and the Mets now have two guys like that atop fo their rotation in Scherzer and Jacob deGrom. He’s a workhorse and will motivate the Mets’ entire rotation, and will help to bring out the best in them. It also doesn’t get any better than deGrom-Scherzer to start off a playoff series!
It’s an exciting time to be a Mets fan, and by now having a one-two punch of deGrom and Scherzer at the top of the rotation, five Cy Young awards between them and four of the last five in the NL, the rotation looks a LOT less damning than it did 24 hours ago. The Mets aren’t done yet, as they’re reportedly in on Carlos Rodón and Yusei Kikuchi, two lefties who either one of them would really round out the rest of the rotation quite nicely, but the rotation is now a whole lot better as we potentially head into a possible lockout.