Mad Max deal shows Mets are major players

The Mets have signed aging future Hall of Fame pitchers before. They had Pedro Martinez and Tom Glavine -- a pair of big money free-agent signings -- in 2006, trying to win their first World Series in 20 years. Glavine was still pitching in October, at 40. Martinez was 35 and injured. The Mets lost to the Cardinals in the National League Championship Series, in seven games.

That was then for the Mets. Max Scherzer, another future Hall of Famer, a world champ somewhere else the way Glavine and Pedro were, is very much now.

That is why this reported deal with Scherzer is bigger than Glavine or Pedro; it's the biggest deal for a free agent starting pitcher the Mets have ever made. Everything has gotten bigger in the past 15 years, in baseball, in New York and everywhere else. But the stakes are the same: for the Mets to win again.

Steve Cohen, the Mets owner, comes along now and outbids the competition for the pitcher he wants the way the Yankees did when they wanted Gerrit Cole two years ago. The Yankees thought they were one starting pitcher away. It hasn’t worked out that way for them, at least not yet. Now, the Mets go for Scherzer and hopefully put him at the top of their rotation with the great Jacob deGrom -- Scherzer’s three Cy Young Awards going in with deGrom’s two -- and try to take New York back from the Yankees and take the National League East back from the Atlanta Braves.

And perhaps in that order.

Cohen is bringing one of the great big-game pitchers of his time to New York City and Citi Field. In the process, Scherzer doesn’t just become a top-of-the-rotation star to go with deGrom. He makes people forget, at least for now, how long it took Cohen to find a new general manager. And he does what free agent signings like this are supposed to do: Make Mets fans want next season to start now.

The Yankees still have Cole, who almost won his own Cy Young last season. But now the Mets have deGrom and Scherzer. This is a moment, and a pretty loud one, when Mets fans see that their owner can do a lot more than Tweet.

The Mets got Starling Marte last week on a free-agent deal, as well as Mark Canha and Eduardo Escobar. Now they get Scherzer, who becomes the most rare free-agent starter of all time in baseball. Not only did he get a lucrative long-term deal from the Nationals after he left the Tigers, and after the age of 30. Seven years later he signs the largest free-agent pitching contract -- in terms of average annual value -- in baseball history. Even after a year when he couldn’t make one last playoff start for the Dodgers because of a tired arm, it is proven now, without a doubt, that Mad Max was built to last.

He did not win another Cy Young Award last season, even though there was a time when it looked as if he might. He ended up 15-4 with a 2.46 earned run average, and by now even people in outer space know that Max Scherzer has had a lower ERA in his 30s than he did in his 20s. The Mets saw him finally win his World Series from the NL East in 2019. Now he comes up the East Coast and tries to win one for them.

Last year, Cohen -- the richest owner in the game -- spent $341 million on Francisco Lindor. Now he spends $130 million on a much shorter deal on Max Scherzer. These are all George Steinbrenner things that Cohen is doing. This is Cohen trying to spend his way into the bigtime. He got a new shortstop last season. He got a new outfielder in Marte the other day. Now he gets a pitcher as gifted as any starting pitcher of his time.

And he might not be done.

Here is what Scherzer said after the Nationals traded him to the Dodgers:

“I’m glad I’m part of an organization that wants to win and has their sights on the ultimate prize. I mean, that’s what we played a game for, is to do that. I’ve been in the league long enough to know that those things don’t always happen. I know why we’re here.”

He could say the exact same thing now about Cohen’s Mets, trying to prove that spending as much time as they did in first place last season, despite deGrom being hurt, was no fluke. This is Cohen showing he has found his footing again and announcing he intends to be a player after one executive after another turned him down for the GM job.

Cohen might not win with the Mets the way Steinbrenner did when he hit town nearly 50 years ago. But signing Max Scherzer like this, for this kind of change? It’s a Steinbrenner thing, in the city Steinbrenner owned once. Just on the Mets side of town.