Reports: Max Scherzer gets 7-year deal with Nationals

The Max Scherzer sweepstakes seems to have come to an end.

And the Detroit Tigers, at least publicly, did not appear to be involved in them.

Scherzer has agreed to a seven-year deal with the Nationals, according to CBS Sports' Jon Heyman.

MLB.com reporter Jesse Sanchez later confirmed this report. Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal reports the deal is worth more than $180 million.

Scherzer turned down a six-year, $144 million extension from the Tigers last spring.



As multiple national media outlets reported Sunday afternoon that Scherzer was entertaining a seven-year contract from at least two teams, Tigers president and general manager Dave Dombrowski stuck with the company line on the free-agent right hander.

When asked if the team's pursuit of Scherzer was still considered inactive – as he has said multiple times in the past month – Dombrowski said "Yes" in a text message.

Scherzer, 30, is the best pitcher on the free agent market.

Smoke started billowing out of his free agency earlier in the day, when SB Nation's Chris Cotillo reported there was an increasing sense throughout the league that the Nationals would be the team to land him.

This past season, he posted a 3.15 ERA with 252 strikeouts in 220 1/3 innings.

The strikeouts were a career high. The ERA was second-best in his career, only to his American League Cy Young-winning season in 2013.

Scherzer finished fifth in Cy Young voting in 2014.

Throughout the off-season, the Tigers have shuffled their starting rotation – acquiring righties Shane Greene and Alfredo Simon while trading Rick Porcello – and have steered clear of any public admission of interest in Scherzer.

At the MLB winter meetings last month, Dombrowski said the Tigers were not in active pursuit of Scherzer. He reiterated those comments earlier this month and again this evening.

And at the owners meetings last week, Dombrowski told the New York Post, "I would say no, probably not" when asked if he thought the Tigers would re-sign Scherzer.

Scherzer is represented by Scott Boras and is seeking a lucrative, long-term deal that could have priced the team out of his services.

The pitcher has said he is interested in returning to Detroit, where he has helped head a rotation that has won four consecutive AL Central championships.

In five years with the Tigers, Scherzer is 82-35, winning 70 percent of his decisions.

But the fire on his free agency front appears to be out.

Contact Anthony Fenech: afenech@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @anthonyfenech.