The accolades that have been heaped upon Max Scherzer in recent years are breathtaking. He has won the NL Cy Young Award in back-to-back seasons. He is widely proclaimed to be the “Ace” of the Washington Nationals.
Is he? Is he their Ace?
I have been consistent about this all year. Scherzer is overrated.
Here is what I said prior to this season in my Awards Predictions post here at SABR Skeptic, a new, outside-the-box baseball blog:
“Clayton Kershaw should have won National League Cy Young last year. The Intelligentsia gave it to Scherzer, stupidly, for the second year in a row. Facepalm. He’s overrated.”
Kershaw should have won the award last year. Hendricks should have won the award in 2016.
Why? Simple – Max Scherzer is unproven as an Ace pitcher.
He pitched well out of the bullpen his rookie season in 2008 for Arizona. Congratulations to him!
The next season, in 2009, he started 30 games. He put up a 4.12 ERA. Not bad. Not Cy Young though.
Then, he was traded to the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers had a pitcher at the time named Justin Verlander. You may have heard of him.
Scherzer became a good pitcher with the Tigers, pitching in the same rotation as Verlander, with his protection.
Then, he signed a Mega Deal with the Washington Nationals prior to the 2015 season.
The Nationals had a pitcher at the time named Stephen Strasburg. Scherzer was A Big Prospect. Strasburg was The Big Prospect. And Strasburg is WAY more handsome than Scherzer.
Max Scherzer looks to me like a classic example of a highly talented beta male being protected by an alpha male. The dynamic with Scherzer and Verlander in Detroit and he and Strasburg in Washington is very similar to the dynamic between Porcello and Price in Boston that I have written about here and on Twitter this year. The difference is that Scherzer is more talented than Porcello. Still, both are beta males.
You see this dynamic in football all the time. Some of the most heralded quarterbacks in the NFL have long track records of failure. Matt Ryan’s Atlanta Falcons blew a 25 point lead with just over a quarter to play in The Super Bowl in 2017. Matt Stafford’s Detroit Lions crumbled in 2016 when Aaron Rodgers’s Green Bay Packers started breathing down their neck. Philip Rivers’s Los Angeles/San Diego Chargers haven’t had much success in the playoffs year after year after year.
Yet these quarterbacks are widely viewed as three of the best in the NFL. They all put up Super Stats. Great! The only number that matters in evaluating a quarterback’s performance is the team’s win-loss record. QBR is as useless, if not more so than Wins Above Replacement, and that’s saying something.
There is no place in the NFL for beta male quarterbacks. Quarterback is a position that needs to be occupied by an alpha male, a true leader. Ryan, Stafford and Rivers should all be out of the league.
You can have a beta male quarterback if you want. Good luck winning a Super Bowl with that. Eli did it. His older brother is Peyton Manning. He was an avatar for Peyton in those Super Bowls. An X-Factor like that is rare indeed.
There is a place in the MLB for a beta male starting pitcher. A starting pitcher is in a rotation with four other pitchers. There is ample opportunity for that beta male starter to be protected by an alpha male in the rotation. That is what is happening with Scherzer and Strasburg.
I sent out this tweet on June 2nd:
Then, I sent out this tweet the next day:
A few days later, I sent out this tweet:
Then, three days later Strasburg hit the DL with shoulder inflammation.
What followed was an Ace Test for Scherzer. How did he do?
At the time Strasburg hit the DL, Scherzer had a 10-1 record. What followed is an example of the usefulness of the Win-Loss Record.
In Scherzer’s first start after Strasburg hit the DL, he pitched seven innings, allowing just two runs while striking out nine. The SABRmetrics people would say “he pitched great!” WEAK! He took the LOSS! That’s WEAK!
Then, in his next outing, he pitched six innings against the Blue Jays allowing just one run while striking out ten. SUPER! Isolated from the context of the game, that is. Again, he took the LOSS! MORE WEAKNESS!
He got a no decision in his next start against Baltimore.
Next time out, he went seven innings against the Rays, allowing just one run while striking out just four. Maybe he doesn’t like pitching in Florida? Or maybe his performance was beginning to suffer without Strasburg’s protection beyond just the situation of the game? He took the LOSS that day in Tampa Bay, yet again.
Then, his last time out against the Red Sox, something funny happened. Scherzer gave up a three run double to Rick Porcello! LMAO! The difference between Scherzer and Porcello that night was this. Scherzer was exposed without Strasburg there. Porcello was protected with Price there. That’s why Porcello hit that three run double that night.
Scherzer’s final line against Boston? Six innings, three earned runs, while striking out nine. But he took another LOSS! ANOTHER! WEAK!
So, to sum up. Prior to Strasburg’s injury, Scherzer was 10-1. In his five starts since, he is 0-4. This should at least be a consideration to Cy Young voters later this year.
It probably won’t be though. The Intelligentsia will say “Win-Loss record is fluky. It’s all luck.”
Guess what Intelligentsia. There is no such thing as luck. That’s weak talk.
Weakness is a specialty of The Intelligentsia. That must be why they go goo-goo-ga-ga over Scherzer the way that they do. It’s pathetic, truly. Whack recognize whack.
Strasburg is on the way back from the DL. He will be rejoining the rotation shortly after the All-Star Break. Look for the wins to follow for Max Scherzer, Super Pitcher. How does he do it?
SABR Skeptic 