New York Yankees Rumors: Yankees After Scherzer?

By Jacob Winters |

The Yankees’ plan heading into the off-season was to re-sign some of their mid-season acquisitions and replace Derek Jeter at shortstop. However, CBS’ Jon Heyman is now reporting that the team might be thinking a little bit bigger by looking into free agent starting pitcher Max Scherzer.

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At age 30, Scherzer has put a solid resume together. He is coming off of three straight years with over 200 strikeouts and 185 innings pitched while keeping his ERA below 3.75.

In 2013, he won the American League Cy Young Award, going 21-3 with a 2.90 ERA, a 0.97 WHIP, a .196 opponents batting average, and 240 strikeouts.

Scherzer put up another strong season in 2014 by posting 18 wins, a 3.15 ERA, and striking out 252 batters. He finished 5th in Cy Young award voting.

Now a free agent, he’s widely considered the top available player.

The current Yankees rotation has the potential to be solid, but it’s also filled with question marks.

Masahiro Tanaka put up an incredible rookie campaign before sustaining a partially torn UCL in July. He didn’t need Tommy John Surgery and was able to return for two starts in September before the season ended, which is a good sign, but questions about his durability will linger into the 2015 season.

The same is true for Michael Pineda, who pitched very well when healthy, but he missed over three months due to injury.

CC Sabathia is no longer the same pitcher he used to be and Ivan Nova is coming off of Tommy John Surgery. Those are the only other established starters on this teams current roster.

While they could just re-sign Brandon McCarthy and take their chances with their current rotation, Max Scherzer would provide them with a bonafide ace who can keep the Yankees in the game every time he takes the mound.

Will the Yankees sign Scherzer? We’ll see.

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