Scherzer Is Still Deciding, and the Skubal Clock Is the Loudest Sound in Baseball

The Short Version

• Max Scherzer, 42, told the New York Post he will pitch in “lockout games” near his Florida home this winter to decide whether a 20th major-league season happens, according to MLB Trade Rumors.
• Tarik Skubal, the two-time Cy Young winner and the winter’s top free agent, is expected to sign in November — before the collective bargaining agreement expires at 11:59 p.m. ET on December 1 — on a record contract, though the New York Post reports a deal is not imminent.
• Hanshin slugger Teruaki Sato, posted November 1 after hitting .306/.383/.609 with 39 home runs, is linked to the Dodgers, Mets, Padres, Phillies and Yankees, and effectively faces the same December 1 deadline.
• Saturday’s undercard: multiple teams are interested in first baseman Ty France, according to The Athletic, and Taiwan’s Fubon Guardians have posted reliever Jyun-Yue Tseng, according to the Associated Press.

LAS VEGAS

A week into free agency, baseball still does not have a major signing. What it has is a calendar, and on Saturday the calendar got louder. The general managers meetings open Monday in Las Vegas, the awards start rolling out the same day, and behind everything sits December 1 at 11:59 p.m. ET — the moment the collective bargaining agreement expires and, if there is no deal, a lockout freezes signings, trades and even contact between teams and players. Every story on Saturday bent toward that date, including the one about a 42-year-old who is in no hurry at all.

Scherzer will let the lockout games decide

Max Scherzer is not done deciding, and he has found the most Scherzer way possible to decide: more pitching. The future Hall of Famer told Jon Heyman of the New York Post that he plans to pitch in “lockout games” near his Florida home this offseason to gauge whether he will pitch in 2027, MLB Trade Rumors reported Saturday. Players across the league work out together through the winter, and those informal games figure to become the sport’s shadow schedule if the lockout lands.

The case for a 20th season starts with how 2026 ended. Scherzer made 18 starts around injuries for the Toronto Blue Jays in his age-41 season, and in Game 162, on short rest, he struck out seven over seven innings of one-run ball. MLB Trade Rumors noted he was noncommittal about his future before that final start, and that he did not sign until March last winter either — so a late link-up with a starter-needy team would fit the pattern if the lockout games tell him the arm still works. If they tell him otherwise, he walks away with 225 career wins and nothing left to prove. Either way, the answer is coming from a mound in Florida, not a press release.

Skubal’s market is hot, and it has a deadline

The biggest name on the market is moving at the opposite speed. Tarik Skubal, the two-time Cy Young winner who finished 2026 with the Los Angeles Dodgers after a midseason trade from Detroit, is expected to sign in November, before the CBA expires, according to the New York Post — with a record contract expected, at least in total value and possibly in average annual value. The Post also reports a deal is not imminent, which is another way of saying the bidding has started and the number has not finished climbing. The Dodgers and New York Mets are the names heard most in the early reporting, and as we wrote when free agency opened, Skubal was never eligible for a qualifying offer because he changed teams midseason — there is no draft-pick tax attached to signing him, just the price.

That price is the story. Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s $325 million deal is the current reference point for a pitcher, and multiple reports have Skubal’s market pushing past it. In a winter this thin on impact bats, the one true ace does not wait for the market to come to him. The market is already there. It is just checking its watch.

Sato is the deadline inside the deadline

Teruaki Sato does not get to wait at all. The Hanshin Tigers third baseman was officially posted on November 1, and the Dodgers, Mets, San Diego Padres, Philadelphia Phillies and Yankees are among the teams linked to him, according to the New York Post. Sato, 27, slashed .306/.383/.609 with 39 home runs for Hanshin this season, per MLB Trade Rumors, and he is the best available position player in this class by most rankings. His posting window runs 45 days, but Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic has reported that window will not pause for a lockout — and since a lockout freezes transactions, the practical deadline is December 1. Miss it, and Sato returns to Hanshin for 2027. San Diego has been the most visibly aggressive suitor: president of baseball operations A.J. Preller flew to Japan to scout Sato in person in September.

The rest of Saturday’s stove

Below the headline names, the market quietly stocked its shelves. Multiple teams have interest in free-agent first baseman Ty France, according to The Athletic, in reporting relayed by CBS Sports on Saturday; CBS ranked France 23rd among this winter’s free agents and second among first basemen. And the posting pipeline added one more arm: the Fubon Guardians of Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League have posted right-handed reliever Jyun-Yue Tseng, according to the Associated Press. Tseng’s official signing deadline is December 22, but the same lockout math applies — December 1 is the date that matters. He joins a posted class we have been tracking since Kaima Taira’s posting opened the Japan-to-MLB race.

What happens next

The sport now walks into its busiest quiet week. The GM Meetings run November 9–12 in Las Vegas, where the Skubal and Sato markets should get their first real face-to-face push. Awards week runs alongside: Rookie of the Year on November 9, Manager of the Year on November 10, the Cy Young Awards on November 11 and MVP on November 12. The eight qualifying-offer decisions — the $23.15 million questions we broke down in the offseason clock piece — are due November 17 at 4 p.m. ET. And the Winter Meetings, scheduled for December 7–9 in San Diego, only happen at all if the December 1 deadline somehow produces a deal instead of a lockout.

Saturday changed no rosters. It did something more honest: it told you exactly how much time is left, and watched a 42-year-old, a two-time Cy Young winner and a Japanese slugger each answer that clock in a completely different way. The next three weeks are the whole winter. Act accordingly.