A Mad Max Contract for Scherzer

"A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money." --Sen. Everett Dirksen

Three years ago, the best pitcher in baseball -- that is, the pitcher with the best performance over the last three-to-five years -- was Roy Halladay. He's now retired, after his arm, and his ERA, blew up.

Two years ago, the best pitcher in baseball was Justin Verlander, who posted a 4.54 ERA last season, 20% worse than average.

Today, you've probably heard that the Washington Nationals have signed Max Scherzer to a seven year deal worth $210 million. We're enured to the numbers at this point, but $210 million is still a boatload.

Because he's not Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer is certainly not the best pitcher in baseball. He's probably not second. But over the last three years he's dominated opposing batters to the tune of 55-15, 3.24 and 723 strikeouts. Any team would like to have the Max Scherzer of the last three seasons.

The problem is, that doesn't guarantee anything about next year, when Scherzer will be 30. And it hardly provides any guide at all to his performance five years from now, when he'll still have two years remaining on the deal.

In a spectacular study at Baseball Prospectus, Sam Miller and Mike Gianella found that 20 high-priced free agent pitchers who performed similar to Scherzer before age 30 pretty much pooped the bed thereafter. Only about half performed at an above average level the following year, and by year four more than half were either out of baseball or below replacement level.

Maybe Scherzer is like the other half. Small consolation. Even the top 50% stopped being Max Scherzer 2014 and became Kyle Gibson 2014. "Who's Kyle Gibson?" you're asking. Yeah, that's the point. (Answer: A rookie Twins starter who went 13-12, 4.47. He's not making $30 million next season.)

Maybe Scherzer's even better than the good half. Maybe there's something unique about him because he's Max. Maybe he's more like Tom Glavine, the only member of the exalted group who maintained consistently high level performance for even five years. (It's worth noting that Glavine signed the big deal with the Braves, the team that knew him best.) Then the Nats have brought aboard 33 WAR and a first ballot Hall of Famer.

That's awesome, but it's not the way to bet. First ballot Hall of Famers are celebrated because they are rare, even among guys who dominated batters from age 27-29. Instead, the Nationals have placed a quarter-billion dollar chip on 37 hoping against the odds that it will cash in.