Detroit Tigers vs. Los Angeles Dodgers - July 9

The Detroit Tigers will not have the opportunity to match any offers for the services of Max Scherzer, agent Scott Boras said Wednesday.

(Mike Mulholland | MLive.com)

SAN DIEGO -- Agent Scott Boras said the Detroit Tigers will not get the opportunity to match any offer free agent Max Scherzer might receive as a free agent.

"This is not church bingo," Boras told a large contingent of media members Wednesday afternoon at the winter meetings. "You pretty much are in the market on a player. You tell all the teams and everyone involved that he can sign at any time. He's open to signing at any time.

"If we get in a room and we carry out a negotiation and he's pleased with it, it can be done without notice at any time."

Boras said the Tigers offered Scherzer a seven-year deal worth $160 million this spring. Reports this spring pegged the offer at six years and $144 million. However, those numbers are actually the same.

Scherzer made $15.525 million in 2014. The number Boras mentioned Wednesday is actually the same as the $144 million that was earlier cited plus the salary number for Scherzer in 2014.

Boras confirmed Wednesday that he had met with owners of two teams about Scherzer. A source told MLive.com earlier Wednesday, after Jon Heyman had reported that two team owners would meet with Boras, that neither Mike Ilitch nor anyone else in the Ilitch family was in San Diego.

The Tigers strongly denied a report Tuesday that they were very interested in retaining Scherzer and were willing to pay big bucks to do so.

Boras, who has done major business with the Tigers in the past, was asked about the Tigers and Ilitch.

"I don't talk about my conversations with owners," Boras said. "I can only say that Mike Ilitch is very involved with his team and is one of the owners in baseball that I think fans in Detroit have to support. He deserves every bit of respect. He's always done everything, I think, to make his team and that city what Detroit's become. To draw 3 million fans in a great stadium is a real credit for the Ilitch family."

In the past, Boras clients have gone deep into the offseason before signing new deals, but there is no set timetable for Scherzer.

"Max has given me kind of a laundry list of what his needs are, what his wants are," Boras said. "As to timeframe of these things, you can't tell, because these negotiations are largely owner decisions, owner-driven. I think every general manager in baseball wants Max Scherzer on their team.

"There's no doubt about that. It's not something you have to trade for. It's just really something that the owner has to decide what the economics are."

Scherzer went 18-5 with a 3.15 ERA and a 1.175 WHIP in 2014 after going 21-3 with a 2.90 ERA and a 0.970 WHIP on his way to the 2013 American League Cy Young award.

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