Rumors: Yankees Have Offered Max Scherzer At Least 6 Years

The Hot Stove is finally warming up for the Yankees, as the Trenton Thunder (Yankees AA team) beat writer Dan Pfeiffer is reporting that he has heard the Yankees have offered the number one free agent on the market Max Scherzer a six year contract. Others are also saying that the Yankees have offered Scherzer a contract in the neighborhood of 7 years and $185 million dollars.

However, there are conflicting reports in regards to whether or not the Yankees have really offered this contract to Max Scherzer. According to Jack Curry of the YES Network, reports that the Yankees have made that offer to Scherzer are simply untrue.

Scherzer is by far the biggest free agent available this off-season, and figures to command the most money. The likes of Jon Lester and James Shields are most likely waiting for the Scherzer deal to be completed to gauge how much money they expect to make in free agency.

Scherzer is a two time All-Star and won the AL Cy Young award in 2013. He is an absolute workhorse, averaging 203 innings pitched per year since 2010. His strikeout numbers are fantastic, striking out 10.5 per nine innings since 2012. In his last two seasons, he has had an ERA of 3.02. He doesn’t let many on base, evidenced by his 1.175 WHIP in 2014. In 2013 his WHIP was under 1.00.

For a team that has players like CC Sabathia not being able to live up to the end of their contracts, the Yankees should worry about getting burned at the end of this long and expensive contract as well. The great part of this deal is that Scherzer just turned 30 in July 2014. The team is not paying a pitcher until he is 40 years old. He has also thrown about 20,000 pitches in his career, less than Lester’s 26,000 and Shields’ 29,000. He is an innings eater, but has less wear on his arm compared to the other free agents available for the rotation.

The Yankees have been quiet thus far since the World Series. Seeing the Red Sox make major moves this week may have prompted this offer. They may have had plans to get him all long. We never know, but this is certainly a contract that has Yankees written all over it.