Why Max Scherzer Signing Helps The Yankees

All off-season, Yankees’ fans have been wondering when the Bronx Bombers were going to sign that big-time free agent pitcher. Would it be Jon Lester or Max Scherzer? Well, it turned out New York wasn’t bluffing on not pursuing these free agents as the Washington Nationals signed Scherzer to a seven-year, $210 million contract.

New York passed their own internal test of not adding another inflated contract to their already lucrative payroll. Unless the Yankees go out and sign James Shields or trade for a big name pitcher like Cole Hamels or Jordan Zimmermann, this is the rotation that they will take into Tampa next month when pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training.

However, that might not be a bad thing despite all the uncertainties the Yankees have in that five-man rotation. According to Fangraphs’ rankings of the rotations in baseball, the Yankees still have a top ten projected rotation for 2015 in terms of WAR (10.2). Only the Boston Red Sox have a higher WAR amongst the AL East teams (5^th at 10.8)

If you look at the FIP numbers, New York is third in the division at 4.09 with the Tampa Bay Rays (3.99) and the Boston Red Sox (4.08) ahead of them. The losses of Lester and Scherzer make the AL East a lot more doable when you consider there isn’t a healthy elite pitching option in the division. The two unknowns in terms of health would be Masahiro Tanaka and Rays’ ace Matt Moore. Moore is coming off Tommy John Surgery and might not be ready for Kevin Cash’s rotation until June.

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There are some good options around the AL East with pitchers such as Tampa’s Alex Cobb, Baltimore’s Chris Tillman, and Boston’s Rick Porcello. However, there isn’t really that ace in the division that scares opposing teams. If you look at what the Red Sox have done this offseason so far, they added a couple of pitcher in Porcello, Wade Miley, and Justin Masterson, but have yet to find that definitive ace.

The X-Factor still in this whole equation is Shields. If New York is not interested in him, he would definitely be an upgrade in the rotations of both the Boston Red Sox and the Toronto Blue Jays who are also without an ace. Shields is a pitcher that can log a ton of innings and knows the AL East very well.

While the rotation of the Yankees is still a mystery as to what the production might be in 2015, there isn’t exactly a rotation out there in the division without questions of their own.

If, however, the projections are correct and New York has four pitchers that produce 165+ innings, this could be a year where New York might not be dominant, but strong enough to win the division and punch a ticket to the postseason.