Article: Max Scherzer, The Blue Jays, & The Hall of Fame

[Mack Longpre]

With the signing of Max Scherzer on Thursday, the Blue Jays have secured their newest Hall of Fame player. And barring a veterans committee vote in the next few years for one of Dave Stieb or Carlos Delgado, Scherzer will almost certainly be the next Hall of Famer to have “Toronto, A.L.” listed on his plaque.

Even though Max Scherzer's likeness will not be wearing a Jays cap, having your team represented in the Hall in any way is nothing to sniff at.

There are currently eleven former Blue Jays in the Hall of Fame. Using Scherzer's current career fWAR of 78.1, it's apparent that he will probably be the third most valuable former Blue Jay in Cooperstown when he goes into the Hall of Fame. Here, he is ranked among the 11 Blue Jay Hall of Famers:

1. Rickey Henderson: 106.3 fWAR

2. Phil Niekro: 78.1 fWAR

3. Max Scherzer: 73.2 fWAR

4. Frank Thomas: 72 fWAR

5. Scott Rolen: 69.9 fWAR

6. Paul Molitor: 67.6 fWAR

7. Roy Halladay: 65.4 fWAR

8. Roberto Alomar: 63.6 fWAR

9. Dave Winfield: 59.9 fWAR

10. Fred McGriff: 56.9 fWAR

11. Jack Morris: 55.8 fWAR

12. Dave Parker: 41.1 fWAR

To broaden the picture beyond the Blue Jays and look at Scherzer's place in baseball history, we can look at how he compares to all of the pitchers already enshrined in Cooperstown. (I have been using fWAR to this point, but will now convert to bWAR because I favour Baseball-Reference's Hall of Fame register.) Scherzer's career bWAR is 75.4. The current average Hall of Fame pitcher bWAR is 66. If Scherzer retired today, he would be the 25th-best Hall of Fame pitcher by bWAR, just ahead of Tom Glavine and Old Hoss Radbourn. Though unlikely, it is not out of the realm of possibility that Scherzer puts up a few more good seasons and overtakes 24th place Bob Gibson and his 81.7 bWAR.

We don't know whether Scherzer will continue increasing his WAR or regress precipitously and lose some points. Still, the above rankings accurately reflect the kind of player the Blue Jays just added. Max Scherzer is a generationally great pitcher.

Along with Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, and Zack Greinke, he may be the last of a dying breed of starting pitchers to enter the Hall of Fame. After C.C. Sabathia's election and Felix Hernandez's low vote total, a lot of Hall of Fame discourse has centred around how the criteria for starting pitching is going to have to evolve over the next handful of election cycles to take into account the changing nature of starting pitching in today's game. Still, everyone points to Scherzer, Verlander, Kershaw, and Greinke as the final cohort of great starting pitchers in the “classical mould” of the starter. They all routinely logged over 200 innings pitched per season, each with over 200 career wins, and Scherzer and Verlander have surpassed the mythical 3,000 strikeout mark (Greinke sits twenty-one strikeouts shy of the threshold, Kershaw thirty-two). These kinds of counting stats are facing extinction from the game due to pitcher usage limitations. It's quite likely that these four will be the final pitchers to have reached all of these marks.

Let's narrow our scope again to his place among all-time great Blue Jays. Suppose we separate just the pitchers from the above list of former Blue Jay Hall of Famers and add in former Blue Jay greats Roger Clemens and Dave Stieb (neither in the Hall for different reasons). In that case, Scherzer nets out as the third most valuable pitcher to pass through Toronto (I will also revert to using fWAR):

1. Roger Clemens: 133.7 fWAR

2. Phil Niekro: 78.1 fWAR

3. Max Scherzer: 73.2 fWAR

4. Roy Halladay: 65.4 fWAR

5. Jack Morris: 55.8 fWAR

6. Dave Stieb: 43.8 fWAR

For good reason, we remember Halladay and Stieb as the greatest pitchers in Blue Jays' history. Unlike Clemens, Niekro, Morris, and Scherzer, Halladay and Stieb compiled most of their fWARs in Toronto over long tenures with the Jays. But contextualizing these pitchers in the larger narrative of baseball history shows that Scherzer, Niekro, and Clemens far outperformed Halladay and Stieb over their careers.

Looking at WAR totals is a great way to get a sense of a player's overall value, but we can also compare these six former Blue Jay pitchers by a few pitching-specific metrics. Scherzer's greatest pitcher strengths are his acumen for strikeouts and impeccable control. As such, let's look at how he compares with this same group of pitchers' career strikeout percentages (K%) and their strikeout minus walk percentages (K-BB%).

Strikeout Percentage (K%):

1. Scherzer: 29.3%

2. Clemens: 23.1%

3. Halladay: 18.8%

4. Morris: 15.4%

5. Niekro: 14.7%

6. Stieb: 13.8%

Strikeout minus Walk Percentage (K-BB%):

1. Scherzer: 22.8%

2. Clemens: 15.3%

3. Halladay: 13.5%

4. Niekro: 6.8%

5. Morris: 6.7%

6. Stieb: 5.3%

On a rate basis, Scherzer has struck out a greater percentage of batters in his career than everyone on this list, including Roger Clemens, who has the third most career strikeouts in Major League history. Not just that, his K-BB% is lightyears ahead of Clemens and Halladay, the latter of whom was held up as a paragon of control. Scherzer is that rare blend of pitcher who is both a strikeout artist and master of control. In fact, Scherzer's control is so impeccable that he has the highest K-BB% of any pitcher with over 3,000 strikeouts.

We can also compare these pitchers' win probability statistics to see how they impacted game outcomes throughout their careers. Let's see how Scherzer ranks in the same group of pitchers when measuring win probability added (WPA) and run expectancy based on 24 base-out states (RE24). (Note: win probability statistics only date back to 1974, so the first ten seasons of Niekro's career are unaccounted for).

WPA:

1. Clemens: 76.57

2. Halladay: 38.03

3. Scherzer: 37.68

4. Stieb: 20.11

5. Morris: 14.08

6. Niekro (minus ten seasons): 6.99

RE24:

1. Clemens: 761.5

2. Scherzer: 362.82

3. Halladay: 340.76

4. Stieb: 231.18

5. Morris: 125.33

6. Niekro (minus ten seasons): 119.24

Not surprisingly, Clemens, arguably a top-five all-time pitcher, comes out on top. Halladay and Scherzer are neck and neck in both categories, outpacing fourth-place Stieb by a significant margin. Thinking about what Scherzer has done in his career to positively impact his team's game outcomes means simply remembering the tremendous security we all felt every fifth day when Halladay was on the bump. That's a unique feeling, one Blue Jay fans likely haven't felt since Doc's departure after the 2009 season.

All of these statistical rankings are a demonstration of what Scherzer has done in his career to date. Of course, we cannot, nor should we expect, this type of production from a now forty-year-old starter. I'm simply hoping to illuminate how Scherzer fits into the broader picture among the handful of generationally great pitchers who have passed through Toronto for any amount of time in their careers. However, he can contribute to the 2025 Blue Jays, which should be savoured and enjoyed because fans have only been able to enjoy five such pitchers in the now forty-eight seasons of Blue Jay baseball.

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[Mike LeSage]

Love an Old Hoss Radbourn shoutout!