It's early. Like, sun setting at 5 p.m. the day after the time change kind of early. But Max Scherzer is starting to look like a Hall of Famer.
In case you didn't get the memo, Scherzer won the 2016 National League Cy Young award Wednesday. It's the second time in four years that he's taken home the hardware, making him just the 18th pitcher ever to nab multiple awards. Of the other 17 fellas, four are either still active or not yet eligible for Hall of Fame voting (Clayton Kershaw, Roy Halladay, Tim Lincecum and Johan Santana). Of the 13 who are eligible, one has a big scarlet P (and an E and a D) on his jersey (Roger Clemens), and 10 are already enshrined in Cooperstown. The other two are Denny McLain, who retired in his 20s, and Bret Saberhagen, who won both his Cy Youngs by age 25 then fizzled and finished with 167 career wins.
So where exactly does that leave Scherzer?
We can rule out the possibility of him retiring in his 20s because, well, he's already 32. We can be reasonably certain that he won't fizzle, seeing as how he's spent the last four years being one the game's most dominant starters and is showing absolutely no signs of slowing. There is also no reason to believe that the scarlet P applies to him. The question then becomes, given the relatively slow start to Scherzer's career -- he didn't reach 50 wins until after his 28th birthday -- will he have enough Cooperstown cred by the time he hangs it up?
The answer is starting to look more and more like a yes.
Although Scherzer was a first-round pick (Arizona, 2006), the 6-foot-3 righty took a while to blossom. In 126 starts over his first five big-league seasons, he posted a combined 3.94 ERA with a 1.30 WHIP to put him firmly in "meh" territory. But in 132 starts since, his ERA has been nearly a full run lower (2.95), and his 1.01 WHIP is the best of any starter not named Clayton Kershaw. In other words, the Washington Nationals' ace appears to be smack dab in the middle of his prime.
Scherzer's contract with Washington calls for another five years, which would take him through the 2021 season and his 37th birthday. On the one hand, it seems a little foolish to expect the age 37 version of Scherzer to approximate what he's done in his late 20s and early 30s. On the other, all signs point to Mad Max -- who hasn't missed a start and has increased his K total in each of the last five years -- being one of those freaks of nature who just keeps on ticking.
If that happens, if Scherzer stays the course and offers up five more years like the last five, he'll have a pretty compelling case for Cooperstown. Since 2012, the hard-throwing righty has averaged 17 wins and 257 strikeouts per season. If he continues to do that through 2021, he'll be sitting at 210 career wins and 3,166 whiffs. If the 3,166 K's seems like a lot, that's because it is. Only 12 hurlers in major league history have more, and every single one of them (except Clemens) is in the Hall of Fame.
Although the 210 wins doesn't scream HOF (the last modern-day starter to be inducted with fewer was Hal Newhouser in 1992), it's easy to imagine Scherzer playing past his current contract and finishing up somewhere in the 250 range. Even if that doesn't happen, there are a whole lot of bullet points on his CV that should help his cause. They look like this:
He's thrown two no-hitters.
He's led his league in wins three times.
He's led his league in WHIP twice.
He's been a league leader in strikeouts and innings.
He tied the major league record for most strikeouts in nine innings (20).
He's finished in the top five in the Cy Young voting each of the last four years.
He's pretty much universally liked. (If you think that's not important, just ask Curt Schilling.)
He has two different-colored eyes.
OK, so that last one doesn't really matter, but how cool would it be to have a heterochromatic Hall of Famer? How exactly would Tom Tsuchiya go about capturing that in bronze?
"Plaques are monochromatic," says Tsuchiya, a sculptor who does works on HOF plaques for Pittsburgh firm Matthews Architectural Products, "but you can still depict it depending on how you carve the pupils. The dark eye would be cut in deeper relief than the light eye."
The good news is, it's early. Like 10 or 15 years before Scherzer's name hits the ballot kind of early. In other words, Tsuchiya has plenty of time to figure it out.