In the 2013-14 offseason, the Tigers were still riding high. Despite some postseason disappointments, the organization had run off three-straight AL Central titles and seemed poised for more. It also had a slate of big-time veterans coming ever closer to free agency.
The top priority, it seemed, was emergent ace Max Scherzer. He had seemingly supplanted Justin Verlander as the top dog on one of the best rotations in recent memory. But free agency beckoned at the end of 2014, Scherzer’s age-29 season.
You may recall that the Tigers ended up making a major long-term deal … but not with Scherzer. (No doubt we’ll write more on that one at some point soon.) Instead, club and player ended up engaging in a somewhat terse exchange of statements to the press at the end of camp, setting the stage for Scherzer’s ultimate departure.
After showing so much tantalizing ability over the years, the former first-round draft pick finally put it all together in 2013. Scherzer spun 214 1/3 innings of 2.90 ERA ball, racking up 10.1 K/9 against 2.4 BB/9 and leading the league with a 0.970 WHIP. Scherzer not only nabbed his first All-Star appearance, but secured his first Cy Young Award.
The Tigers spent big and went for it under long-time owner Mike Ilitch, with veteran exec Dave Dombrowski swinging deals from the GM seat. Pursuit of an extension with Scherzer was inevitable.
Trouble was, Scherzer had taken his time turning into a complete pitcher. By the time the team was ready to place its bet on his future, he had ample leverage. And he had the game’s foremost lever puller running his negotiations: super-agent Scott Boras, long known for bringing his top clients to the open market.
Early-offseason moves freed some payroll availability; Dombrowski told MLBTR’s Zach Links the flexibility would make a Scherzer extension “more possible.” The sides were able to line up on a record-setting arbitration raise, which seemed generally promising. Scherzer indicated that he’d like to reach agreement on a deal to stay in Detroit for the long run.
And then came … a truly bizarre, late-spring exchange. We’ve occasionally seen teams issue statements when negotiations with a superstar fail to culminate in an agreement. But rarely are they so transparently salty as the one the Tigers unfurled …
“The Detroit Tigers have made a substantial, long-term contract extension offer to Max Scherzer that would have placed him among the highest paid pitchers in baseball, and the offer was rejected. As we have reiterated, it has been the organization’s intent to extend Max’s contract and keep him in a Tigers uniform well beyond the 2014 season. While this offer would have accomplished that, the ballclub’s focus remains on the start of the upcoming season, and competing for a World Championship. Moving forward there will be no further in-season negotiation and the organization will refrain from commenting on this matter.”
Well, then! Boras, naturally, responded. He wasn’t quite so spiteful, but certainly landed his own well-placed shot that left no doubt as to his views on the equal standing of the bargaining parties:
“Max Scherzer made a substantial long-term contract extension offer to the Detroit Tigers that would have placed him among the highest-paid pitchers in baseball, and the offer was rejected by Detroit. Max is very happy with the city of Detroit, the fans and his teammates, and we will continue negotiating with the Tigers at season’s end.”
So it seemed both sides had made their offers; neither proved amenable to further compromise. It emerged that the Tigers’ best offer was a match of the extant comparable of record: the six-year, $144MM Cole Hamels extension with the Phillies. The warring statements drew mixed reactions from the pundit class, but the consensus was that this number was never particularly likely to budge Boras and Scherzer.
Rather than bowing to worry over the season separating him from free agency, Scherzer took out an insurance policy. He was nearly as good in 2014 as he was in the season prior, landing a fifth-place Cy Young finish, obviating the need for that policy, and setting the stage for a proper bidding war. While there was indication at times that the Tigers remained involved, the team showed tepid interest and was not a finalist when push came to shove.
Scherzer, of course, signed a huge contract with the Nationals. Though the face value of $210MM didn’t account for deferrals, it handily topped the prior Tigers offer. Perhaps it was just as well for the Detroit organization. While the club was successful again in Scherzer’s final year, it crumbled in 2015, with Dombrowski stunningly departing after the trade deadline. Then again, Scherzer’s ongoing dominance made even that monster contract a relative bargain. Had the Tigers gone higher in their extension offer and managed to secure his services for the long haul, Scherzer would’ve been a nice trade chip to cash in and jump-start the rebuild.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
one word for this one: whoops
Loved Flashback for Sega Genesis
Nats Fan, didn’t even know this happened. Thanks for the article!
RIP: Al Malone. Mr. Tiger. My dad’s favorite player, along with Stan Musial.
Sam Malone died?
I think you mean Al Kaline…..
Probably autocorrect
I just typed Kaline into my text and Malone came up as a sub too!
Max Scherzer was the BEST pitcher last decade, they should change the award from the Cy Young Award to the Max Scherzer Award
When Max gets 500 career wins then when can talk.
-It was a different generation of baseball so Cy’s victories blah blah blah just save it
Cy Young!!?? That soft tosser of a dead ball?
Id say Kershaw was better from 2010-2016.
Too bad a decade has a few more years….
Yeah I’d give the award of best pitcher of the decade to Kershaw. How can you say it’s Scherzer when the majority of the decade Kershaw was better?
I’d say not considering one has a championship, the other repeatedly chokes away championships
You could do a segment on how the Tigers imploded in such a short amount of time. Same as the Phillies.
Would not call it a spat. Tigers make a great offer, Max rejected it, made a counter offer, that the Tigers rejected. Can’t blame either party. Tigers had one highly paid pitcher in Verlander and were not going to give Max more. They had enough payroll issues even then. Max was more than willing to bet on himself and see what the FA market would bring. Smart move on his part. Can’t blame him for that and no one should.
And he lived up to his contract!
The spat was in the exchange of cranky statements … that’s not typical.
Exactly. It wasnt so much what was said, it’s that it was said publicly and in an effort to turn fans.
And hes been one of the most dominate and consistant pitchers in game, ever since.
I wouldn’t mind a recap of what happened with Roger Clemens and the Toronto Blue Jays, didn’t Clemens either have a contract clause of some sort or a hand shake agreement that forced Toronto to trade him if he was so inclined?. And as it turns out he was.
Clemens was upset the Jays low-balled Canseco and basically accused the franchise of not having enough desire to win. It was implied he asked for a trade and the Yankees gave David Wells, Graeme Lloyd and Homer Bush in the deal.
Coincidentally that was right around the time Clemens was allegedly doing the ‘stuff’.
I can’t believe I have to actually say this but what makes you think I was asking for you to recap? Also if I wanted the Sun or the Stars version I would have googled it. Clearly I was looking for something more then a comment post and perhaps there pooled resources of information combined with time might have brought out more information.
I don’t think you even know what you are looking for, and thus your response to me makes your first comment even stupider than it was in the first place. If you used google then you wouldn’t have had to ask your dumb question in the first place.
Now that we have established that you are completely lost, try not to step to me for being kind. You clearly do not have the acumen if you are posting crap to set other people up when they had good intentions.
It’s hard to believe the starting staff they had 2014, three Cy Young award winner and a future one. Yet no WS wins.
Not just three CYA winners but the last three consecutive winners (2011 Verlander, 2012 Price, 2013 Scherzer). And Baltimore beat them in all three games that they pitched to sweep the 2014 ALDS. I was completely shocked when that happened!
Tigers didn’t properly address their bullpen and they had one of the worst managers in baseball in Ausmus. The 8th inning in Games 1 and 2 were total disasters and they should have won Game 2. Wasted opportunity for Detroit that year.
Now those three have won three consecutive World Series. Poor Tigers.
I’m so glad it didn’t work out. Ya he’s good but never wanted to be 2nd fiddle to Verlander. Max is a me me player. Ever listen to him speak it’s me and I did this no mention about the rest of the team. Maybe he’s changed but I doubt it
Max and Boras were committed to signing a 7 yr $210 million contract. Tigers offered 6 years at $24 million per year which he rejected. The market for Max was nowhere near as strong as you’d think so he settled for the his “7 yr $210 million” contact with the Nats that is actually a 14 yr $15 million per year contract with 7 yrs deferred. Fairly certain Mike I would have agreed to that a year earlier if Max & Boras offered it because it would’ve fit their immediate budget. However, that was a last resort contract because the deferral cost Max millions vs a straight 7 yr contract. In the end it wasn’t meant to be.
Max: “It’s not about the money”. Then turns down $24M over 6 to sign for $210 over 14 w 7 years of club control. Good riddance.
what stings the most is after max turned it down a bunch of screw you money was thrown at miggy to extend him.
Key here was Boros, they weren’t ever going to extend, not with the prime fa pitcher coming out. Then Dumbrowski let his ego take over