ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - As St. Louis Cardinals fans have slowly come back to Earth following the blockbuster Nolan Arenado acquisition this offseason and are now asking the front office, what's next? A three-time Cy Young Award winner appears to the biggest desire.
Washington Nationals pitcher and St. Louis native Max Scherzer is seen as a "great fit" for the Cardinals not only by fans, but also by USA Today baseball columnist Bob Nightengale. He joined Mike Claiborne during Sports on a Sunday Morning and brought up the possibility of bringing Max back home.
The baseball insider was asked what if anything he's hearing about the Cardinals in terms of a trade in the future or players to keep an eye on. He's connecting the dots between St. Louis and Scherzer.
Nightengale says if the Nationals become sellers by the trade deadline – July 30 – then they'll have no choice but to sell their 36-year-old ace who's in the final year of his contract. There will be about $12 or $13 million owed to him and Nightengale says not many MLB teams will be able to take that on.
"The Cardinals can," Nightengale. "Obviously being from the St. Louis area, being a die-hard Cardinals fan and I think still to this day it aggravates him that the Cardinals never made a bid for him to try to sign him as a free agent. I think that'd be a nice, great fit."
The Scherzer to St. Louis discussion was amped up last week when he shut out St. Louis in six innings of work for a 1-0 Nats victory. It was also a big topic in Monday's Cards Conference with our Tom Ackerman and Kevin Wheeler.
Wheeler points out the unique situation in Scherzer's contract is that although he's a free agent after this season, he'll still be paid $15 million a year for the next seven years with differed money. He says the Nationals will probably have to "eat that" to move Scherzer. And the pitcher will have control of where he'd like to be traded to.
You can watch the full conference, here:
But could St. Louis put together a package that would interest the Nationals?
"They certainly have the prospects and the money to do whatever they want some trade deadline," Nightengale says. "It'll be interesting because without full capacity these teams aren't making the money that they thought."
But remember, it's still April, the Cardinals are awaiting the return of starting pitcher Miles Mikolas to the rotation and this team just went from last place to second in the NL Central standing in one weekend. Also, the Nationals are only two games out of first place in their division and far from looking like sellers this season.
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