Desire to win fuels Max Scherzer as he joins Blue Jays
At 40 years old, he remains as determined as ever, driven to keep pushing himself physically and mentally by a singular motivation: “Win the World Series. That’s it.”
TORONTO — Max Scherzer’s Hall-of-Fame bound ledger already includes 466 games, 2,878 innings, 3,407 strikeouts, two World Series titles, three Cy Young Awards and eight all-star selections. The toll 17 big-league seasons have taken on his body includes surgery to repair a herniated disk in his back along with injuries of varying degrees to his shoulder, hamstring, teres major muscle, oblique, groin, rhomboid and neck.
Yet at 40 years old, he remains as determined as ever, driven to keep pushing himself physically and mentally by a singular motivation: “Win the World Series. That’s it.”
“I love winning. Winning cures everything. That’s all you need to do to wake up in the morning, have that drive to win and the rest takes care of itself,” said Scherzer, who earlier this week finalized a $15.5-million, one-year deal with the Toronto Blue Jays. “I still feel like I can pitch at a high level. I can still compete at a high level and be a part of a championship-calibre team. For me, that’s so much fun. I kind of put all the accolades and that kind of stuff in the rear-view mirror and just focus on, what more can I do this year and continue to win? That’s what makes it fun, especially when you have a clubhouse of guys who have that same type of mindset. And that’s what’s going to be fun about 2025.”
How much Scherzer can contribute will certainly be a significant factor in how much fun the Blue Jays have this year.
Back surgery in December 2023 left him playing catch-up for the Texas Rangers all last season, when he said, “I just never felt like I got into mid-season form.” He returned from the procedure in late June, only for a shoulder issue to sideline him again in early August. A mid-September return lasted a week before his hamstring flared up.
The nine appearances he made — posting a respectable 3.95 ERA over 43.1 innings under the circumstances — were by far the fewest since he broke into the majors with Arizona in 2008. What his body will allow is uncertain, although the Blue Jays believe he’s in a good spot to handle the work.
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Scherzer said he’s had “a very good off-season,” ramping up as usual, and he’s ready to arrive at “spring training full tilt.” But whether that makes a difference from a year ago “remains to be seen,” he added, as “it’s too early to speculate on what that all means.”
“I’m not going to sit here and look at last year like I didn’t work hard,” he continued. “No, I worked plenty hard to put myself in position. I just didn’t have the health to back it up.”
The risk of a repeat is one the Blue Jays are willing to stomach for the upside a healthy Scherzer can provide, especially relative to the other free-agent options remaining in the market.
General manager Ross Atkins gushed about the benefits Scherzer’s resume and motivation bring to the roster, saying, “when someone has an elite level of competitiveness that raises the bar for others.”
“It is something in professional sport that is hard to quantify,” he continued, “but you can certainly feel it.”
Of course, it doesn’t matter if Scherzer can’t take the ball and the Blue Jays are counting on him to do that alongside Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios, Chris Bassitt and Bowden Francis, allowing Yariel Rodriguez to pitch out of a remade bullpen.
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Should Scherzer, or someone else, get hurt, Rodriguez is one option to cover in the rotation, although Atkins also noted the perils of yo-yoing a pitcher between roles.
Behind the Cuban are Jake Bloss, the centrepiece of the return from Houston for Yusei Kikuchi last summer, and Adam Macko, a promising Canadian lefty prospect, two pitchers Atkins mentioned would be “in our triple-A rotation.”
Also in the Buffalo rotation should be Adam Kloffenstein, back as a minor-league free agent after being dealt to St. Louis two summers ago for Jordan Hicks, and Eric Lauer, who finished last season with Kia in South Korea.
“Feel like we have some good pieces to provide depth,” said Atkins, “but we’ll keep looking to add if we can.”
Any such depth is likely to come on the minor-league side, as the Blue Jays have told some agents of other free-agent starters the Scherzer signing takes them out of that market.
Atkins suggested the bullpen is one area where the Blue Jays could still potentially add, and in terms of position players, “if there’s a way to increase our depth, we’ll look to do that.” Tellingly, he added that “at this point, it would require a trade for us to add to the team. It doesn’t have to, but most likely would be the case.”
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So, with the first workout for pitchers and catchers set for next Thursday, this may very well be the group the Blue Jays head into camp with, and Scherzer is intent on playing his part.
He described a strong rotation as “the backbone of any team” and noted, “you’re always going to be in trouble if you don’t have starters going out there eating innings.”
Even after all the innings he’s logged and what his body has endured, Scherzer feels set to do just that, believing “I’ve got all the pitches to be able to navigate a lineup,” and that “it’s not about throwing 98. If you can throw 94, 95, you can get a lot of people out.”
“You’re constantly evolving, whether you’re at the top of your game or not,” he added later. “I’m always trying to get better, I’m always trying to add something. Even if it’s just a small thing, just get better at it. So much of that is a mindset of what you want to do with your day-to-day work. That hasn’t stopped. I’m still going out there competing to get better at something every single time out. Whatever the hand you’ve been dealt in terms of injuries or body, is what you’ve got to play. Find a way to go out there, compete and win.”
