NEW YORK -- The Yankees have let it be known they are not interested in any of the Big Three starting pitchers available in this year's free-agent market, based on the perfectly reasonable premise that it is unwise to sign a pitcher who is past his 30th birthday to a long-term deal.

#37 SP

Detroit Tigers

2014 STATS

GM 33

W18

L5

BB63

K252

ERA 3.15

In the cases of Jon Lester (31 in January) and James Shields (33 on Dec. 20), it certainly makes sense.

But in the case of Max Scherzer, the best of the three, it may not.

Because as incredible as it may seem, even though Scherzer, 30, is about four years older than Yankees starter Masahiro Tanaka, Scherzer has logged fewer innings (and probably fewer pitches) on his right arm. And if you ascribe to the belief that it ain't the years, it's the mileage that matters, then compared to Tanaka, Scherzer is the proverbial 10-year-old car owned by the old lady who kept it in the garage and drove it only once a week to her church bingo game.

The Yankees saw fit last winter to sign Tanaka to a seven-year, $155 million contract, but publicly at least, they say there is no way they would make the same kind of deal with Lester, Shields or Scherzer.

I'm on board with the first two; Lester and Shields, both nine-year vets, have both already made more than 250 major league starts, worked more than 1,500 innings -- Shields is closing in on 2,000 -- and thrown close to 30,000 pitches. They are well within striking range of the levels CC Sabathia reached in 2014, his 14th season: 423 career starts, 2,800-plus innings pitched, 41,000-plus pitches thrown, a fastball that can't break 90 mph anymore, and a contract that has two more seasons plus an option year to go, at a cost of a minimum of $53 million for those two years.

Scherzer, however, actually has less mileage on his arm than Tanaka despite facing his 31st birthday next July 27, the same day A-Rod turns 40. In fact, Scherzer has less mileage on his arm now, after seven big league seasons, than Tanaka had when the Yankees entered the posting process for the right to bid on his services last winter. Their statistics are remarkably similar.

After seven seasons with the Rakuten Golden Eagles, Tanaka had started 172 games, rolled up 1,315 innings, struck out 1,238 and walked 275. If you add in his half-season with the Yankees, the numbers are 192 starts, 1,451 innings, 1,379 Ks and 296 walks.

Meanwhile, Scherzer has made 198 starts, worked 1,239 innings, struck out 1,321 and walked 389. According to FanGraphs.com, he has thrown 20,947 pitches, and although it is difficult to find out exact pitch counts for Tanaka's career in Japan, the numbers seem to indicate he has thrown a similar amount.

#19 SP

New York Yankees

2014 STATS

GM 20

W13

L5

BB21

K141

ERA 2.77

Where Tanaka does have an edge, if you can call it that, is in complete games -- he threw three last year, which is three times as many as Scherzer has in his entire career (he got his first in 2014). In Japan, Tanaka threw a whopping 53 complete games. Which means, of course, that he often worked deep into games and likely threw more pitches than a comparable U.S. pitcher, which might negate the once-a-week workload pitchers shoulder in Japan.

In fact, it is an interesting debate whether Tanaka's less-frequent Japanese workload was a factor in the torn UCL he suffered just 18 starts into his big league career, which required him to pitch every five days. Scherzer, of course, has been pitching on such a schedule his entire professional career.

Still, as far we know, the Yankees didn't consider Tanaka to be an injury risk, nor signing him to a long-term contract -- his deal does contain an opt-out clause after four years, which works only to the player's advantage -- to be an unusual gamble.

So how can they logically apply those reservations as a reason not to pursue Scherzer?

The answer, of course, is they can't. And when the time comes, they probably won't. Scherzer isn't going anywhere fast -- his agent, Scott Boras, is known for taking his sweet time on a deal, sometimes to the detriment of a client (ask Stephen Drew) -- and the Yankees don't seem to be in any rush to spend owner Hal Steinbrenner's money just yet.

But in time, they probably will, just as they did last offseason. (Remember, Tanaka wasn't signed until Jan. 22.)

And when they look at the numbers, which I'm pretty sure they already have, they'll see that there's really very little difference between the 30-year-old righty on this year's market and the 25-year-old righty they signed last January.

That doesn't mean the Yankees will end up with Scherzer -- there's bound to be a bunch of teams interested in a former Cy Young winner in his prime -- but I don't believe for a moment that they're out of the hunt.

General managers and agents may lie, but numbers don't. For the Yankees, the risk of signing Max Scherzer this winter is no greater than the risk of signing Masahiro Tanaka was last winter. And maybe even less.