NEWSLETTER
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Just as the Nationals start to move toward being sellers (3-7 in their last 10, 7.0 games out, in 4th place), Max Scherzer is scratched from a start. The team’s top trade chip – heck, one of the top few trade pieces on the entire market – has “mild triceps discomfort,” which could be another case of hamstring fatigue, or could be a legit issue. And that’s a huge, huge issue for the trade market, given Scherzer’s standing as the best rental starter available (by a mile).
Apparently the triceps thing popped up earlier in the week when Scherzer was taking batting practice, and then he threw his bullpen session on Wednesday and hadn’t fully calmed. An MRI revealed inflammation, but no structural issues. The Nationals also dropped in the word “fatigue,” for good measure.
An arm thing might make you a little more cautious when it comes to starting pitcher trade considerations, but Scherzer indicated he expects to make his next start. Of course, that next start would be scheduled riiiiiight before the Trade Deadline, so the question is: does he make that start to show teams he’s good to go, or do the Nationals hold him back and try to get as much value as possible in trade without risking anything.
Scherzer, by the way, has full no-trade rights, so it’s largely up to him where he goes, even if the Nationals wanted to try to move him. Between that, the Nationals’ general aversion to selling off, and now the injury, I kinda doubt Scherzer gets moved, which will make the starting pitching market all the more thin. I wonder if a team or two will hold out hope right up to the deadline on Friday on Scherzer.
If the Nationals HAD been intending to shop Scherzer, what terrible timing for a triceps issue.
The situation is vaguely reminiscent, for Cubs fans at least, of the late July 2012 start in St. Louis when Matt Garza walked off the mound with a triceps issue (nine years to the day of Scherzer’s bullpen session, actually!). I remember FREAKING because Garza’s trade value that year was so high, and the new front office was clearly trying to rebuild the thing entirely over the span of multiple years.
After Garza’s exit, the Cubs scrambled to call it a cramp. An MRI seemingly confirmed that it wasn’t a strain, but the trade-related damage was done. Just a few days before he could’ve been a significant trade piece, Garza was effectively shut down and untradeable. The Cubs would go on that deadline to trade Ryan Dempster (who’d dictated his move via no-trade rights (and thank goodness he did, because the non-trade to the Braves is what led to the Cubs landing Kyle Hendricks)), and then traded a less valuable Garza the next year in the deal that netted Carl Edwards Jr., Justin Grimm, Mike Olt, and a PTBNL that later turned into Neil Ramirez. Not a bad return for a rental, but not what a very good 1.5-year guy would’ve netted the year before.
As you might remember, Garza never actually pitched again in that 2012 season. The triceps cramp, after the Trade Deadline, morphed into a stress reaction that shut him down for the year. Was that always the issue? Did the Cubs know, and have those conversations – in private – with other teams? Or did the Cubs not know the full extent of the injury and still try to make the trade? Who knows what would’ve happened if the Cubs had pulled off a trade. Would a post-deal physical have caught the stress reaction? Would there have been recriminations if they hadn’t? Would Garza and his new team have been more likely to try to get him to pitch through it?
That is a story I always keep fresh in mind when hearing about precaution and cramps and fatigue just before the trade deadline. Yes, sometimes teams are being overly cautious and BS’ing because they just want a guy to sit. But also, sometimes teams are overly BS’ing because they’re hoping against hope that a guy’s very real injury won’t be perceived that way by the market. That is not to say Scherzer is truly injured, mind you. It’s a reminder that a team’s behavior at this time of year can be EQUALLY consistent with mere precaution and also legit injury.
