Max Scherzer Isn't A Cheater Despite What Carl Thinks

Carl has been awesome to work with on Barstool Baseball. Guy knows and loves baseball. I really enjoy doing the weekly panel show with him, Hubbs and Castellani. He's also completely wrong about Max Scherzer here.

We're going to throw away a Hall of Fame career because of one game? That's fucking wild. Carl's main point is that the spin rates are down. He has thrown three innings since April 10th! Could it be that he is just rusty? We're going to jump immediately to Scherzer's career is now null and void?

Max Scherzer isn't just a very good pitcher. He's an all-time, first ballot Hall of Famer. We're talking about someone who has three Cy Young Awards and is 12th all-time in strikeouts. In this era of baseball where 200 wins means more than ever, there is nothing he hasn't accomplished. He won a World Series, been to eight All-Star games and led the league in wins four times. When people look back at the 2010's, they will remember the great pitching quartet of Clayton Kershaw, Zack Grienke, Justin Verlander and Scherzer. All will be in Cooperstown one day and will icons of the past decade. 

What that last paragraph also means is if you accomplish that much, you're probably old as shit. Scherzer is certainly that. He's in his Age 38 season and while he was very good when he pitched last year, he did only make 23 starts. Maybe the signs of breaking down were starting to show? Isn't it more possible that instead of being this great cheater, he is just washed up?

You can bury the Mets for signing an old pitcher and Scherzer holds a $44.5 million dollar player option for next year. If yesterday is who he is, that could be a poison pill for the Mets in 2024. As I am writing this, Verlander is also giving up home run after home run. Maybe these guys finally got old? Verlander's making $43 million in 2024. It's also May 4th so maybe all of this is a giant overreaction. Forgive me if that is the case but I also have the soundtrack of Frank screaming in the background so hopefully it's understandable.

Carl mentioned spin rates which were nowhere near they usually are. I find it hard it to believe that not being able to use as much rosin as he has is accounting for the terrible start. That's not going to make a Hall of Famer suddenly become Todd Van Poppel. Call me a biased Mets fan but I think yesterday had much more to do with rust than lack of rosin. 

If the rosin was such a huge deal, why did it take this long for an ump to call him out on this? If Carl's point is right that Scherzer is just this cheater, why would he be allowed to pitch the rosin for the past couple of years despite all the checks? Remember this moment from 2021?

So it's not like he's never been checked for illegal substances before. I'm not going to brand a guy as a cheater because of one start where he hadn't pitched 4 innings in nearly a month. Carl is very wrong here. Max Scherzer was a Hall of Famer before the year started and he's still a Hall of Famer today.