Chicago White Sox: Max Scherzer is officially off the board

The Chicago White Sox are in on pitching right now. They are probably going to lose Carlos Rodon and try to move on from Dallas Keuchel. There are plenty of great options available to them and one of them was Max Scherzer. They may or may not have considered him but now he is off the board. Scherzer has agreed to go to the New York Mets for three years and 130 million.

He is going to go join their staff with the likes of Jacob de Grom which should be incredible electric. You can argue that is the best 1-2 punch in Major League Baseball. They have a lot of other holes to fix but that should really help them along. Scherzer is one of the greatest pitchers who ever lived.

2021 was an interesting year for Scherzer. He split the season between the Washington Nationals and Los Angeles Dodgers and performed extremely well. The three-time Cy Young Award winner was nominated for his fourth but he ended up coming in third place.

He finished the year with a 5.2 WAR (15-4 record) thanks to his 2.46 ERA and 0.864 WHIP. He punched out 236 batters over his 179.1 innings this year which was one of the best totals in the league. He also helped the Dodgers roll all the way through the playoffs to reach the National League Division Series.

The Chicago White Sox won’t be landing Max Scherzer via free agency this year.

There are plenty of good starting pitchers out there for the White Sox to consider but none of them are as good as Scherzer. The Mets have a really nice pickup here as they look to finally break through and be a playoff team.

As mentioned before, the White Sox probably never had a chance at Max Scherzer but it was fun to dream. A pitcher like that coming to the south side via free agency would really be a treat. However, seeing Lucas Giolito, Lance Lynn, Michael Kopech, and Dylan Cease will surely be exciting. We will see if they consider anybody else now that Scherzer is off the board.

The next biggest free agent out there in terms of starting pitching is Robbie Ray. He won the American League Cy Young in 2021 ahead of Lance Lynn who came in third (Gerrit Cole came in second). If they landed someone like that, it might be less exciting than Scherzer but it might be equally as impactful.

It will be fun to see Scherzer play under the bright lights of New York on the same team as de Grom but now would be a good time for the White Sox to get in on these conversations. All we want is to see a World Series champion on the south side.