PORT ST. LUCY, Florida. Max Scherzer, the Mets’ new star pitcher, was perhaps the most prominent figure in the players’ union’s battle with Major League Baseball club owners over a new labor contract.
He is a member of the highest trade union subcommittee. Last month in Jupiter, Florida, he participated in nine days of face-to-face talks that included a 16-hour marathon session. And he spent countless hours on the phone with his fellow leaguers trying to balance being a father and getting ready for the season.
“All the pros and cons of the offers and all that, I loved being on the front lines for it,” Scherzer, 37, said on Saturday afternoon, the day before the players were scheduled to report for fast-track shortened spring training. “The hardest part was the amount of phone calls I had to make and be in touch with everyone in the game to try and get that information.”
So how did Scherzer celebrate after the deal was approved on Thursday, ending the lockout imposed by MLB?
“I drank a lot,” he said after a pause and a smile.
Scherzer was happy to take the field with his new team. Since he lives in nearby Jupiter, Friday was the first day that Scherzer — or any other player — has been allowed to enter his team’s territory since the lockout began on Dec. 2.
He’d been to the Mets’ spring training ground many times before—he’d played seven years for the division rival Washington Nationals—but now he was a member of the home club. On Saturday, he set up a practice session in the bullpen while Mets pitching coach Jeremy Hefner watched the game. At a private facility the other day, Scherzer said he had a simulated three-inning, 50-inning game against the hitters.
MLB lockout coming to an end
So even though spring training will be three and a half weeks instead of the usual six, Scherzer said he has a rough idea of where he’ll be on March 12 at a regular camp.
“I feel like I have a pretty good chance of getting to 100 pitches by Opening Day,” Scherzer said, referring to the Mets’ new season opener on April 7 against the Nationals in Washington.
Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young Award winner, said he didn’t care if he started the game or if it was Jacob de Grom, the Mets ace who has won the award twice and was probably on his way to third, if not for a hand injury last summer.
“He’s the reason I’m here,” said Scherzer, who signed a three-year, $130 million deal with the Mets this offseason, setting an MLB record for the highest average annual salary ($43.3 million a year). “I want to be here and play with great pitchers.”
Although they’ve never played together before, Scherzer said he’s spoken to the 33-year-old deGrom several times over the past few weeks as negotiations have been heating up. Scherzer said one side benefit of working on a labor deal was getting to know some of his new teammates, like shortstop Francisco Lindor and outfielder Brandon Nimmo, before they split the club. Like Scherzer, Lindor is a member of the union’s executive subcommittee. Nimmo is a representative of the Metz union.
As for the new collective agreement, Scherzer declined to elaborate on it. Asked if the union had achieved enough of its original goals — from improving competition between teams to better compensating young players and increasing the share of underperformers in game revenue — Scherzer said he could discuss the pros and cons of the deal, but prefers to move on. .
“I want the fans to focus on the games and the players,” he said. “I don’t want fans to cling to the things we talk about in the deal. Its end. Let’s just play baseball.”
Scherzer declined to explain why he and seven other elected members of the union’s executive subcommittee, all veteran players with multimillion-dollar career earnings, voted against the deal on Thursday. The employment contract was still approved because the subcommittee is part of a larger executive committee that also includes 30 team representatives. The general group, most of which are ordinary players, voted 26-12 in favor.
Nimmo, 28, declined to explain why the Mets were one of four teams that voted against the deal. He singled out one concession players have made to raise the luxury tax thresholds in the new deal: setting a new, fourth cap at $60 million above the baseline ($230 million in 2022), which could cap the highest spending. teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers and Mets, which are now projected to spend a team-record and MLB-leading $270 million under billionaire owner Steven A. Cohen.
“I’m not a big fan because it’s basically Steve’s tax,” Nimmo said, referring to MLB. “But this is what they are passionate about and what they wanted. That was one thing we weren’t fully prepared for.”
He later added, “Definitely didn’t want to restrict him from spending money that he has to spend however he wants. But in the process of making a deal, you have to give in on some things.”
Overall, however, Nimmo said that he felt players were making progress in solving the tanking problem and helping younger players who were more reliant on but paid relatively little. But time will tell, he said, whether the measures will improve competition between the teams.
Although relations between MLB and the union soured and the dispute disappointed fans and jeopardized spring training, a full 162-game season would be played.
“These are nasty fights and that’s baseball’s business,” Scherzer said, adding later about the collective bargaining process, “It’s ugly. There is no other way to say it. And so you have to say and do things that represent all the players and fight for everything that you are capable of. It’s just a fact. So you need to move on and get ready for the game.”
Deal behind, Scherzer said he was happy to get back to his life and spend more time with his new team, his three children and his wife Erica – and less time on calls.
“The fact that I no longer have to talk on the phone and have more time for my dad is a good thing,” he said.