Major League Baseball

Verlander, Kershaw, Greinke, Scherzer: Four Cy Young winners look for free-agent deals

Updated Nov. 16, 2021 8:37 p.m. ET

By Jake Mintz
FOX Sports MLB Writer

Can I interest you in the four greatest pitchers of a generation?

Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and Zack Greinke, the crème de la crème of starters in this millennium, are all free agents. They hit the open market together at varying levels of health, effectiveness and age, but they are united in track record. The Hall of Fame-bound quartet has tallied more than 11,000 career innings, earned 30 All-Star appearances and won nine Cy Young Awards.

A first-ballot trip to Cooperstown is a near lock for Kershaw, Verlander and Scherzer. It might take Greinke an extra year or two, fair or not, because he has "only" one Cy Young and is missing the shiny World Series ring. But he’ll get in eventually, especially if he keeps racking up counting stats for a few more years.

This is the Mount Rushmore of pitchers in the 21st century. The only others in the conversation are CC Sabathia, Roy Halladay, Félix Hernández and Jacob deGrom. Halladay, as legendary as he was, doesn’t quite have the strikeout numbers, King Félix fell off a cliff after age 30, and deGrom needs another few years of dominance to hop into this group. Sabathia and his 3,577 ⅓ innings have the best argument for inclusion in a top five, but his 3.74 career ERA is a touch above everyone else's, and he retired a few years ago.

These four are still trucking.

No matter how you slice it, Kershaw, Verlander, Scherzer and Greinke are pitching giants. And now they all enter the winter looking to continue their careers and solidify their legacies.

Let’s take a look at them one by one.

Max Scherzer

Of the four, only Scherzer remains at the peak of his powers. As a result, he’s in line to receive the largest contract of the group, most likely a three- or four-year deal with a sky-high average annual value in the range of $35-40 million.

The 37-year-old right-hander was announced as an NL Cy Young finalist last week, a reward for yet another fabulous season of pill-chucking. He was great for a lifeless Nationals team in the first half and even more dominant for the Dodgers down the stretch after a midseason blockbuster. Scherzer's 2.46 ERA was the lowest of his entire career. No NL starter had a lower walk rate. The heterochromatic hurler was as good as he has ever been.

That said, an ill-timed case of "dead arm" before Game 6 of the NLCS left Scherzer unavailable for the biggest game of the Dodgers' season and forced Walker Buehler to the mound on short rest. Scherzer has dealt with a few nagging injuries in his 30s, mostly to his neck and lower back, but has nonetheless thrown at least 170 innings every season since 2008.

Some team, probably the Dodgers, will pay him a lot of money to be an ace. And an ace he will probably be.

Justin Verlander

Verlander missed the 2021 season while recovering from September 2020 Tommy John surgery. Technically under contract with the Astros, he watched as the club stormed to its third World Series appearance in five years.

The right-hander made just one start during the COVID-shortened 2020 season before his elbow surgery, but the last time Verlander was healthy for a full season, he won the 2019 Cy Young Award. And aside from his UCL peacing out last season, Verlander had been shockingly healthy for a pitcher with almost 3,000 miles on his arm in his mid-to-late 30s. Verlander turns 39 in February.

Young bodies heal better and more quickly, so there’s legitimate concern about how Verlander will look post-surgery. In a bullpen session for teams last week, he was reportedly sitting in the mid-90s with his heater, a good sign, but it’s still uncharted territory. Very few pitchers his age have ever undergone Tommy John, and even fewer have successfully come back from it.

Perhaps Verlander is baseball’s Tom Brady, a physical freak who refuses to decay and rages against the dying of the light, tossing 200 innings each season until the sun shrivels and humanity calls it a day. He recently said he intends to pitch until he’s 45, which, on one hand, "Sure, OK, dude," but on the other, I wouldn’t bet against a guy who rejuvenated his career in 2015 after looking completely cooked.

On the third hand, however, Verlander’s mid-career trough showed how reliant he can be on velocity; if that fades away, maybe he does, too. We won’t know until the middle of next season, once he has shaken the rust off, what type of pitcher Verlander is in the TikTok age.

Verlander seems set to decline Houston’s qualifying offer and should get a multi-year deal from a contender. He and Scherzer teaming up again for a promising Tigers team makes for great "what-if" fodder, but that's probably a pipe dream. Expect the Angels, Giants, Braves and maybe the Yankees to be in the mix.

Zack Greinke

While Verlander was rehabbing in the outside world, his former rotation-mate Greinke was tossing 171 dependable, league-average innings for the Astros. Despite a heater that averaged 89 mph, the 37-year-old was a rock for Houston’s rotation until a nasty bout of COVID in late August forced him onto the injured list and derailed the latter part of his season.

The 2009 Cy Young winner never got back to full strength; Greinke’s last three regular-season outings were all stinkers, and he was clearly a diminished version of himself during much of Houston’s October journey. However, he put together a gutsy, four-inning scoreless start in Game 4 of the World Series — a start you probably don’t remember because Jorge Soler rendered it irrelevant.

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Before he got COVID, Greinke was fifth in MLB in innings pitched, with a respectable 3.66 ERA. Unlike the other three arms mentioned here, the soon-to-be 38-year-old can no longer dominate a lineup three times through. He’s now reliant on craft and guile, but 170 league-average innings are valuable no matter how you get them.

Greinke’s minuscule strikeout rate is best paired with an elite defense that can turn his many batted balls into outs. The Cardinals, with their five Gold Glove winners, feel like a great fit.

Clayton Kershaw

The longtime Dodgers icon finally got his well-earned ring in 2020. And in some ways, 2021 felt like an epilogue for Kershaw, the hangover from a dream finally realized. He battled forearm discomfort all season, missing most of July and all of August. He came back for a few starts in September, but his arm flared up again, and he sat out October.

For most pitchers, 121 ⅔ innings of 3.55 ERA ball would be a great season, but for Kershaw, it was easily his worst campaign since his rookie year. The future Hall of Famer hasn’t been at his peak for a few years now, and 2021 showed just how far he has fallen from those lofty heights. At the same time, he is still a major-league-quality starter, and when healthy, he’s probably a solid No. 3, maybe even a No. 2.

The Dodgers didn’t extend a qualifying offer to Kershaw. GM Andrew Friedman explained that, out of respect, the team didn’t want to force Kershaw to make a decision about his future on a constrained timetable. As a result, one of the most celebrated pitchers in Dodgers history is a real-deal free agent for the first time in his career. Chances are he re-signs with L.A. to finish his career, but his hometown Texas Rangers are going to give it a shot at the very least.

Kershaw, Verlander, Scherzer and Greinke aren’t the only Cy Young Award winners available this winter. Two-time winner Corey Kluber is also a free agent, though his peak was much shorter, and his current abilities appear to be much lesser. King Félix didn’t pitch in 2021, but he hasn’t officially called it quits. After an abysmal 2020, Rick Porcello, the 2016 Cy Young winner, didn’t pitch either, but he’s still out there.

Jake Arrieta, the 2015 winner, was released by both the Cubs and the Padres this season, but he hopes to latch on somewhere. The 2005 winner, soon-to-be 49-year-old Bartolo Colón, made 11 starts in Mexico this year, if you were curious. And finally, presumptive 2021 AL Cy Young Award winner Robbie Ray is a free agent as well.

All in all, that makes 10 available Cy Young winners, including four destined for Cooperstown (let’s talk about Félix another time).

Verlander, Kershaw, Greinke and Scherzer won’t pitch forever, even if it sometimes feels like they will. But no matter what hats they’re wearing once the dust settles in March, these four experienced horsemen of pitching could play a significant role in the 2022 MLB season.

Jake Mintz is the louder half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball analyst for FOX Sports. He’s an Orioles fan living in New York City, and thus, he leads a lonely existence most Octobers. If he’s not watching baseball, he’s almost certainly riding his bike. You can follow him on Twitter @Jake_Mintz.