Washington Nationals: Evaluating who gets into Cooperstown

Lock: Max Scherzer

Scherzer is one of the most stone-cold locks among active MLBers after winning his third Cy Young this past season. Of the nine other pitchers with at least three total Cy Young Awards, seven are in the Hall of Fame, one is still active (Clayton Kershaw), and the other is an alleged PED-user (Roger Clemens). When his time comes, Scherzer will waltz into Cooperstown.

Until then though, Scherzer is still very capable of padding the back of his baseball card, which is already checkered with bold ink. On top of the three Cy’s, he has two additional top-five finishes and has garnered MVP votes twice.

He is also a five-time All-Star, and does not turn 34 until July. There seems to be plenty left in the tank; his fastball velocity remains in the mid-90’s, and he has surpassed 200 innings in five consecutive seasons.

There are still a few milestones for Scherzer to break as well. He enters the 2018 season only 59 wins away from 200 victories, and 851 K’s short of 3,000 strikeouts. He could certainly reach both totals by 2021, which also happens to be the final season of his current seven-year contract with Washington.

Scherzer’s Hall-status is already set in stone. Now, let’s just see how high he can climb those leaderboards.