Seattle Mariners GM For A Week: A Call To Arms

Oct 2, 2014; Baltimore, MD, USA; Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Max Scherzer (37) pitches in game one of the 2014 American League divisional series against the Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

If there was one thing that the 2014 Seattle Mariners had in abundance in 2014, it was good pitching. Even with the team trying to use Brandon Maurer, Hector Noesi and Erasmo Ramirez in the rotation, the Mariners had one of the best pitching staffs in baseball.

But with uncertainty looming (Chris Young is a free agent, Taijuan Walker and James Paxton had injuries, can Roenis Elias have a successful follow-up season?) the last thing the Mariners can afford to do is to sit on their hands and do nothing.

So for today’s edition of GM for a Week, I going to run down some possible starting pitchers that the M’s should be looking at and then at the end, tell you whom I would try to sign.

Max Scherzer

One of the biggest free agent arms on the market this offseason is the 2013 Cy Young award winner. Is there a better addition the M’s could add to this staff?

In five years with the Detroit Tigers, Scherzer is 82-35 with an ERA of 3.52 with an average of over 200 K’s per year. But in the past two seasons, Scherzer has been virtually untouchable.

In his back-to-back All-Star seasons, Scherzer is 39-8 with a 3.02 ERA, WHIP’s of 0.970 and 1.175 respectively to go along with a WAR of 6.7 and 6.0 respectively.

The 30-year old Scherzer looks to land an impressive deal this offseason. Whether the Tigers aggressively look to re-sign him or not remains a mystery. But you can bet that teams like the Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox and possibly the Cubs will be in on the bidding.

I expect Scherzer to get a 6 to 7 year deal worth an average of $21-23 million per year. Depending on what the M’s do for offense, I’m not sure if they will sign another big contract like that. But can you picture a rotation of Felix Hernandez, Scherzer, Hisashi Iwakuma, Taijuan Walker and James Paxton with Roenis Elias as a backup or trade bait?