Sports Illustrated: Mad Max's $144 Million Bet

So in a recent Sports Illustrated from the end of April, the cover story was about Detroit Tiger's star pitcher Max Scherzer. In recent years, he has turned into one of the best pitchers in the game, and also won the Cy Young last year as the best pitcher in the American League. In this past offseason, he turned down a six year, $144 million dollar extension from the Tigers, as he thought he could make more than that after another stellar season. Isn't it just crazy to think that athletes in professional sports make so much money? He turned down $24 million a year because he thought he could get even more money when he becomes a free agent. Imagine yourself being offered the chance to make $24 million- can you even process the thought of turning that offer down? It just shows how athletes make way too much money.

What if Scherzer gets hurt? What if he ends up having a bad season? Did he just make one of the worst decisions of his life? We will just have to wait until this offseason. In my opinion, I think Scherzer should've agreed to the contract extension- not just because I am a Tigers fan though, because there are many other reasons. One quote from the article, written by Albert Chen, that proves this idea is, "How could a pitcher fast approaching 30 who until last year had never reached 200 innings, never had a full-season ERA below 3.50 and never even made an All-Star team walk away from $144 million for a bigger pay-day that wasn't guaranteed?" The fact that he is almost 30 is very important because a team isn't likely to give him more than 6 years, like the Tigers were offering. I also think he should've agreed to the extension because he could suffer a serious injury and teams could just let go their interests in him. With so many pitchers having to undergo Tommy John surgery, you never know what could happen.