A few days ago, the Mets began their slow raising of the white flag when they traded David Robertson away. Their $gabillion dollar payroll team, hilariously wasn’t working, and the Mets realized that the only way to get onto the path of recovery is to start selling, even in spite of post a historic payroll, thus proving the old adage that you can’t buy success, especially when you’re the New York Mets.
Not long afterward, the Mets successfully unloaded one of their biggest ballasts, when they shipped Max Scherzer over to the Texas Rangers. Sure, the Mets would have to eat a massive chunk of the remainder of the money they owe Scherzer, but they did get back Luisangel Acuña, which is very much in relation to the Atlanta Braves’ superstar outfielder, Ronald Acuña, Jr., his little brother. Obviously, the Mets are hoping the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and that Acuña Jr-Jr might blossom into half the superstar that big brother Ronald is.
Make no mistake though, as much of a pride-swallowing, crow-eating gesture that trading Max Scherzer is for the Mets, it absolutely is a big win for the organization. Probably the best thing to happen to the organization all season. Sure, they’re eating $35M of the remaining $58M they owe him in order for the Rangers to take him, but the $23M savings they are getting in the aggregate is a pretty big deal in the long game.
That being said, when the 2024 season rolls around, thanks to the ridiculous deferred money deal Scherzer made with the Nationals, he will be getting paychecks from an unprecedented three different MLB organizations, all of which are going to be over $15M each. The Nationals will be paying him one of their annual $15M installments which goes all the way to 2028, the Rangers will be paying him $15M, and from what I’ve read, the Mets will be paying a $28M chunk of their remaining obligation to Scherzer, which means he’s slated to be making $58 million fucking dollars in 2024.
I don’t really know how to explain it, but he’s like the reverse, anti-Bobby Bonilla with this kind of arrangement, where he’s not going to be getting paid until the end of time regardless of his playing status, he’s somehow swindled multiple organizations to be contractually obligated to giving him massive amounts of money for a very short period of years.
But as the subject says, this wasn’t really something that I was intending on writing about, even though this is the kind of bullshit of baseball that I love hearing about, but when chatting with some bros about sports and this topic, I made an analogy about how Max Scherzer is like the Thanos of getting baseball teams to pay him money, and by somehow managing to swindle three teams to pay him simultaneously, he’s basically like Thanos collecting Infinity Stones.
And when an analogy like that is spoken, the visuals need to follow, and despite the fact that I have no time in my life for frivolity, I still felt the need and compulsion to make a bad photoshop of Max Scherzer as Thanos, meme-ing away at the Nationals, Mets and Rangers as his collected contracts.
And because I can’t really post anything without feeling the need to overexplain everything, here we stand, where the Photoshop has driven the post into existence.
The funny thing in the future would be, if the Rangers completely fall apart in 2024, but Scherzer is having a decent season since he’s no longer a Met, and the Rangers then trade him to someone else; but naturally, the $13M they’ll still owe on top of the pro-rated remainder of 2024’s salary is too much for a trade partner to want to take on for a 40-year old pitcher, so the Rangers agree to eat some of the remaining salary.
And so 2024 proceeds where Max Scherzer ends the season receiving paychecks from four organizations, which makes him that much closer to being able to neutralize the entire sport and reset the absurd escalation of player salaries and the MLBPA union’s stranglehold on rising costs across the board.
It would truly become an achievement that might have to go up there with Hank Aaron’s 755 homers, DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak and Cal Jr’s 2,632 consecutive games streak which will never be touched. Baseball is awesome.
