Max Scherzer Heads Into A Crazy And Unfamiliar Trade Deadline

For all that Buck Showalter has seen and experienced on the field and from the dugout during his nearly 50 years in professional baseball, he’s usually most insightful when it comes to gauging what players are thinking inside the locker room.

“I think it’s the unknown that drives players crazy,” Showalter said Friday afternoon, fewer than 24 hours after the Mets identified themselves as sellers at the trade deadline by dealing closer David Robertson to the Marlins.

Max Scherzer confirmed as much a few hours later.

Few players have controlled the arc of their careers like Scherzer, a staunch union advocate who has won every bet he’s made on himself since being drafted in 2006. But within a fascinating span of roughly three-and-a-half minutes Friday night, Scherzer seemed to realize that, for the first time in a decade, he’s a passenger in a car driven by someone who not only doesn’t know where the automobile is headed but might not ask Scherzer for input on directions.

Scherzer, who’d already left the clubhouse when the Robertson trade was announced following Thursday’s win over the Nationals, initially struck the same tone as most of his teammates by lamenting how the underachieving Mets — who are five games under .500 and 6 1/2 games out of the third wild card spot with four teams to leapfrog — gave owner Steve Cohen and general manager Billy Eppler no choice but to trade Robertson in exchange for a pair of teenaged prospects.

“Disappointed,” Scherzer said. “I mean, obviously, we put ourselves in this position. We haven’t played well enough as a team. I’ve had a hand in that for why we’re in the position that we’re at.”

Scherzer tossed seven solid innings of one-run ball Friday to improve to 9-4 and lower his ERA to 4.10. He is averaging 4.03 strikeouts per walk and whiffing 10.1 batters per nine innings, each of which are his lowest figures since 2014 — which was also the most recent full season in which he’s posted an ERA north of 3.00.

“Can’t get mad at anybody but yourself,” Scherzer said. “But it stinks.”

Scherzer was then asked if he thought the Mets could still make a run, which is when things got interesting.

“I’ve probably got to have a conversation with the front office,” Scherzer said. “They traded our closer away.”

Scherzer referenced conversations with the front office four more times over the next three minutes, a span in which he, knowingly or unknowingly, touched on almost every bit of the uncertainty presented by the Robertson trade.

Scherzer reiterated he understood why the Mets traded Robertson but added “…we’ve got to understand what the direction of the organization is going to be” before saying this deadline isn’t reminiscent of the 2021 deadline, when the Nationals traded him to the Dodgers.

“This isn’t like a trade for me out of Washington,” Scherzer said. “I was about to be a free agent. Our season was going south. I wanted to get traded to a playoff contender. And that was the calculus for me and the Nationals.

“This time around, I’m not going to be a free agent,” said Scherzer, who is in the last guaranteed year of a two-year deal worth $86.6 million but possesses a player option worth $43.3 million for 2024. “I have another year. Came here, we did great things last year, won 100 ballgames last year. Unfortunately this year, it’s not (successful). But with Steve and the rest of this organization, you can see a path forward. You can see a path to contend next year. So that’s where the calculus is different.”

Unless it isn’t. While the trade of impending free agents such as Mark Canha, Carlos Carrasco and Tommy Pham wouldn’t preclude the Mets for competing next year, the trade of Justin Verlander — Scherzer’s co-ace — would certainly make it more difficult.

Following his win over the Yankees on Tuesday, Verlander seemed to squelch any possibility of him being traded when he said he didn’t sign a one-year contract. But MLB.com reported Thursday that Verlander is being targeted by other teams and MetsMerized reported this morning that the Mets may get “…an offer they can’t refuse” from a contender.

Cohen and Eppler have spoken regularly about their desire to build up the Mets’ farm system, which has some exciting position players in the upper reaches of the minors but no difference-making starting pitchers anywhere on the horizon.

And unlike the Wilpons, who made moves based on the direction of the news cycle, Cohen seems like he might be an owner who would accept some short-term pain for the long-term betterment of an organization whose player development system is light years behind those of their biggest NL rivals, the Braves and Dodgers.

All of which means it’s possible Verlander, who is also due $43.3 million next year but won the AL Cy Young Award last year and has lowered his ERA to 3.24 by posting a 1.98 ERA in his last eight starts, gets traded to a contender.

“You have to talk to the brass,” said Scherzer, who wasn’t asked about nor talked about Verlander’s situation on Friday night. “You have to understand what they see, what they’re going to do. That’s the best I can tell you.

“I told you I wasn’t going to comment on this until Steve was going to sell. We traded Robertson. Now we need to have a conversation. I haven’t had that conversation yet. And I will.”

But what if he doesn’t like what he hears?

Scherzer, of course, could be traded too. But considering his age — he turned 39 Thursday — and slight decline this season, his player option is as good as exercised since it’s almost impossible to envision him getting a more lucrative deal on the open market.

So if Scherzer isn’t as popular a target as Verlander — and if the Mets are content with penciling him in near the top of the rotation next season — he could be left in the unfamiliar position of residing in baseball purgatory with no control of his destiny.

Scherzer signed his market-setting deal with the Mets just before the lockout, during which he was one of the most vocal union voices in a bitter battle with owners. He was among the 12 members of the executive board to vote against accepting the CBA that was hammered out in March 2022.

Scherzer became the best free agent signing of all-time for the Nationals — he won two Cy Youngs, collected 38.9 in WAR and helped Washington win the 2019 World Series — after turning down a walk-year extension from the Tigers, who’d acquired him from the Diamondbacks, who drafted him in June 2006 but didn’t sign him until 360 days later. In the interim, Scherzer prepared to re-enter the draft and made three starts for the independent league Fort Wayne Cats.

That’s more than a decade-and-a-half spent largely calling the shots on his career. But for the next few days, Scherzer is in the passenger seat, waiting to see where he ends up instead of deciding it himself.

“The whole trade stuff — when it gets into that, you have no idea,” Scherzer said.

“Baseball’s crazy.”