Max Scherzer bolted from the Detroit Tigers for the Washington Nationals this offseason and the right-hander said he jumped ship after realizing he didn't fit into the Tigers' plans going forward.
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Scherzer, who turned down a six-year $144 million extension by the Tigers last spring, said that he got the impression he wasn't wanted by Detroit going forward and was never given another offer.
"There was a point in time when we reached out to the Tigers to see if they were still interested," Scherzer told WDFN on Friday morning, according to MLB.com, "and they conveyed to us that they weren't, that they were fine with where their rotation was at moving forward. And that's just kind of how we left it."
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Scherzer ended up signing on with the Nationals to the tune of a seven-year $210 million contract to join the already stacked rotation.
Scherzer also discussed his reasoning for departing the Tigers and taking full advantage of his worth.
"I realize how fortunate I am and how blessed I am to be in this position," Scherzer told the affiliate. "This was never about greed or I need more money per se, but it was about a business decision and trying to maximize what you're worth. And for me, I was in the position to take full advantage of that, and the Nationals came through and put a contract offer in front of me that ... was jaw-dropping."
He continued: "It's the business part of the game. The business part of the game is ugly. I mean, look at it from the other side. I've seen so many of my friends get cut and released and all taken advantage of because at the end of the day, we say it's the business part of the game. I just took advantage of the business side of the game to benefit me."
Scherzer said that two years ago, he and former Tigers starter Rick Porcello saw this day coming where one or both of them wouldn't be in Detroit.
"We sat on the bench and we saw this coming really two years ago," Scherzer said. "We saw where everybody was at in their contracts. We sat there and realized this team is going to get a major facelift in the next two years. There's just no way you can keep everybody on board.
"We looked at each other like, 'Which one of us is going to go?'"
As it turns out, both guys are gone as Scherzer is with the Nationals while Porcello was traded to the Boston Red Sox earlier this offseason.
Scherzer is coming off of a season where he helped the Tigers to their fourth straight AL Central crown as the team went 90-72 before being swept out of the ALDS by the Baltimore Orioles in three games.
Scherzer now joins a Nationals rotation that is flanked by Stephen Strasburg and Jordan Zimmerman and also contains Gio Gonzalez and Scherzer's former teammate Doug Fister.
The right-hander joins a Washington team that went 96-66 and won the NL East for the second time in three years in 2014.
Much like the Tigers, the Nationals also had a disappointing division series as they suffered a 3-1 series loss to the eventual World Series champion San Francisco Giants.
Scherzer, 30, went 18-5 in 2014 with the Tigers with a 3.15 ERA and 1.175 WHIP while ranking third in the MLB with 252 strikeouts.
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