Basically, there is news on this front. We now know that the Tigers and Max Scherzer will most likely not agree to a multi-year extension this off-season, and will most likely reconsider this concept of a multi-year contract next off-season. That’s the off-season after this season ends since this off-season is almost over with and this season is coming upon us which means that next off-season is no longer this off-season which was the case before the 2012 season ended.
That sentence just about provides the meaningless knowledge any of us has regarding the desires of Max Scherzer and his agent, Scott Boras and the Tigers of Detroit, Michigan. We know that this off-season the Tigers wanted to pay Max Scherzer $6.05M for the 2013 season and Max Scherzer and agent Scott Boras wanted the Tigers to pay him [them] $7.4M. They came really, really close to going into a really small room with three guys we like to call ‘arbitrators’ and these guys would ‘arbitrate’ a hearing and then decide if Max Scherzer and agent Scott Boras would either bring home $6.05M or $7.4M. I don’t know how good you are with math, but that’s a difference of $1.35M, which is a pretty significant number to some people, probably including Max Scherzer and Scott Boras and certain members of the Tigers of Detroit, Michigan, though probably not Mike Ilitch because Mike Ilitch is loaded and is currently spending some, but not all, of his own money to build some of this.
If they didn’t agree on a deal soon, this ‘arbitration’ thing would happen next week in Arizona. This is significant because Dave Dombrowski has never, ever, gone to arbitration with a member of the Tigers. This is important because in arbitration Max Scherzer would be like:
Max Scherzer: Hey, you guys need to pay me this much because I’m really, really good.
And the Tigers would be like:
Detroit Tigers: Sorry, we think you suck more than that so we’re only willing to pay you this much.
That’s paraphrasing, obviously.
Besides, as far as I know, it’s never a good thing to argue with your employer about how good you are at your job, and apparently Dave Dombrowski understands that and so…
max scherzer signs for $6.725M for 2013, avoiding arbitration. #tigers
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) February 4, 2013
Well, that’s good news!
Of course, if you remember, a while ago we talked about the difference between both sides as being significant. Like, $1.35M significant. However, Heyman has more for us:
scherzer’s agreement at $6.725M was the midpoint between his $7.4M request and tigers $6.05M bid
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) February 4, 2013
Again, that’s good news! That means that the Tigers and Scherzer and Boras had a mutual understanding. Hooray for people agreeing with each other!
However, and there is a however because in baseball analysis there must always be a however (if there was one true answer, it would be very easy to conduct analysis, now would it?) and this particular however lends itself to a bit of a relationship with the title of this post:
Tigers, Max Scherzer Agree To Not Sign Multi Year Contract
Look, I think it’s all pretty obvious that most Tigers fans want them to sign Scherzer to an extension. I think that it is imperative they sign both him and Fister. However (there it is!), given Anibal Sanchez‘s new contract and the pending Free Agency of Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera, coupled with Prince Fielder‘s woolly mammoth albatross, I very much doubt the Tigers will be financially able to sign both Scherzer and Fister and probably have to settle for one.
But which one?
I’m fairly certain a lot of that will depend on how both perform this year and that this lack of a multi-year deal with Scherzer now is as much about the Tigers wanting another year to evaluate him as it is he and Scott Boras wanting to test the Free Agent ocean.
