Rizzo: With Scherzer deal, Nats have "strengthened a strength"

Most people looked at the Nationals rotation as 2014 morphed into 2015 and saw the strongest starting five in the major leagues. General manager Mike Rizzo looked at the potential juggernaut on the mound and thought about only one thing: making it even more imposing. The Nationals introduced Max Scherzer on Wednesday afternoon after the right-hander put pen to paper on a seven-year, $210 million contract. If the Nats weren't already the odds-on favorite to repeat as National League East champions, the addition of the 2013 American League Cy Young Award winner cements that status. A seven-year commitment to a 30-year-old pitcher? Rizzo said he felt like Scherzer was a young 30 with plenty of mileage left on his arm, which has produced 91 wins in seven seasons. A $210 million contract? No worries, the GM said, not when you've got ownership focused on winning and numbers crunchers capable of coming up with the $50 million signing bonus and deferred payments to make the deal palatable. Another pitcher on a team that already had a stacked rotation? No such thing as too much pitching, Rizzo smiled. "These opportunities don't come up every day with players of this caliber, with an ownership group with the willingness to put themselves out there and acquire a player of this ilk. ... We couldn't be happier to have Max in the fold," Rizzo said. Talks between the Nationals and Scherzer's representative, Scott Boras, gained traction over the past month. While the Nationals were viewed all offseason as a possible destination for Scherzer - Rizzo was the Diamondbacks scouting director when they made him the 11th overall pick in the 2006 draft out of Missouri - it was believed until last weekend that seven years was too long a commitment and $210 million was a pipe dream. Calling the payday "jaw-dropping," Scherzer acknowledged that his path to D.C. was made easier because he, the Lerner family, Rizzo and Nats manager Matt Williams already shared a common goal. "It's pretty easy and it's one: winning," he said after donning a No. 31 jersey, the number he wore in college in tribute to pitcher Greg Maddux (the No. 37 he wore for most of his career in Detroit is already on the back of Stephen Strasburg). "I think this team is capable of winning and winning a lot. If you look at the near-term and long-term, this organization is one you want to be a part of." "... When the Nationals started knocking on your door, this is a team you want to be a part of. Having conversations with the Lerner family, (getting to) understand their commitment to excellence and their commitment to winning, that lines up great with what I want to do. I want to win and that's why I'm here." If the Nats rotation was already power-packed, Scherzer's arrival makes it scary good. Adding Scherzer to a starting staff that already included right-handers Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, Doug Fister and Tanner Roark, and lefty Gio Gonzalez is the kind of bold stroke that has marked Rizzo's tenure. The old adage about never having enough pitching? Rizzo got a head start on his own spin on the cliché. "We saw a player that we were extremely interested in," Rizzo said. "He fits all the criteria that we're looking for in a Washington Nationals type of player. He's good between the lines, he's a tough guy, he gets after it, he takes the ball, he attacks hitters. In the clubhouse, a magnificent teammate. In the community, does nothing but impress everybody he touches. You can't ask for more. ... He's the guy we went after very aggressively. We strengthened a strength, and who wouldn't want Max Scherzer on their club?" Said Williams: "To be able to put any of those names down every fifth day is a privilege for anybody. What it does is it just allows us to have a better chance of winning." The Nationals weren't the only suitor for Scherzer, easily the top pitcher on the free agent market. When the Cubs paid $155 million for six years of Jon Lester at the Winter Meetings in San Diego, it was assumed that Scherzer would command more in terms of years and money. That whittled down the list of pursuing teams. But as December became January, the Nationals and Boras started talking more regularly, and the Washington front office was charged with figuring out a creative way to make a deal work when most thought it wouldn't be possible. The key turned out to be the Nats' ability to meet Scherzer and Boras' financial needs without making it impossible for Washington to compete. "Winning cures everything," Scherzer said. "This is definitely the type of organization I wanted to be a part of. I wanted to continue these type of negotiations with the Washington Nationals because I thought I believe in the Lerner family and what they're committed to." Scherzer was even a little surprised by the heights of the financial negotiations. "You can't fathom it sometimes," he said. "You work so hard to put yourself in this position. For me, like I said, it's all about winning. I don't play this game for money, yet at the same time, when you have an offer like that, it just makes you go, 'Wow.' I'm very fortunate to be in this position." Rizzo has always been viewed as the kind of general manager who wouldn't commit long-term to a pitcher, given the position's penchant for breaking down able-bodied hurlers quickly rather than affording them a gradual and graceful decline. But he sees no issue with doling out the longest term ever given to a Nationals pitcher or the richest contract for a right-handed pitcher in baseball history because of his knowledge of Scherzer, culled from the days he scouted him as an amateur and reinforced by watching him become an ace with the Tigers. "He's a durable pitcher," Rizzo explained. "If I'm not mistaken, he's never been on the DL for the last five years. He takes the ball whenever it's given and he's a horse. He's got the makeup and character to take things deep into games if asked to, and for a 30-year-old pitcher has thrown really very little amount of innings and pitches for a pitcher that's had the success he's had at the age he's had. We feel that we've got a young 30-year-old arm with a lot of mileage left on the tires and a guy that's going to take us into competitive games for a very, very long time." Boras echoed those sentiments, saying Scherzer "is just a voracious competitor who's never happy unless he wins." Competitiveness aside, Scherzer's arrival doesn't answer some of the Nationals' most pressing offseason questions. Can they afford to re-sign their group of players who will be free agents after the 2015 campaign, a list that includes center fielder Denard Span, shortstop Ian Desmond, and pitchers Zimmermann and Fister? Does the signing of Scherzer give Rizzo the flexibility to deal away Zimmermann or Fister to fill another hole? Will Rizzo continue to negotiate with the free agents-to-be in season? Does the arrival of infielder Yunel Escobar in last week's trade that sent reliable reliever Tyler Clippard to the A's provide insurance for Desmond or mean his days in D.C are numbered? For at least one day, Rizzo repeated the company line about doing whatever was necessary to help the Nats reach the next level after two disappointing exits in the first round of the playoffs over the past three seasons, and basked in the glow of pulling off a coup - one that many predicted but no one really expected. "You can never have too many good players," Rizzo said. "Although at times they cause you to think more outside the box and more creatively, you can never have too many good players. And there certainly aren't enough players with the ability level of Max Scherzer running around."