Coming off a World Series appearance in 2025, the Toronto Blue Jays enter 2026 as one of the limited favorites for the American League pennant. But even though the Jays look excellent on paper, they are not without questions.

How does the injury to Anthony Santander impact the lineup? Can the newly-acquired Jesus Sanchez fill the void? What's the effect of losing Bo Bichette on both the lineup and the clubhouse? Can youngster Trey Yesavage handle the full workload of an MLB season? And will the bullpen hold up?

All of those questions are fair and will impact Toronto as it navigates the challenges of a baseball season.

But there is one more question we have as spring training gets fully underway on Monday: Does Max Scherzer make sense on a reunion deal?

A future Hall of Famer, Scherzer is now 41 and an 18-year veteran. He's played for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Detroit Tigers, Washington Nationals, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, Texas Rangers and Blue Jays, going 221-117 in his career. A three-time Cy Young winner, Scherzer is also a two-time World Series champion. He led baseball in strikeouts for three straight years from 2016-2018 and is also an eight-time All-Star.

He signed a one-year deal with the Blue Jays before the 2025 season.

Scherzer was injured much of the regular season, only making 17 starts and pitching to a disappointing 5.19 ERA. However, he showed up big in the playoffs, giving up just two earned runs in 5.2 innings against the Seattle Mariners in the American League Championship Series. He also made two starts in the World Series and gave up just one run in 4.1 innings against the Dodgers in Game 7.

He appears to have enjoyed the Blue Jays experience, as evidenced by an Instagram post after the season from his wife.

Well, with Shane Bieber starting the year on the injured list and Bowden Francis out for the year with Tommy John surgery, the Jays' pitching depth is already being tested. Scherzer would give them more cover on that front, and he'd be there to alleviate some of the questions about Yesavage and Cody Ponce.

Ponce threw 180.0 innings last season in Korea, but he had never thrown more than 137.2 in a season before that. Will he hold up over the course of the year? Yesavage threw 98.0 regular season innings, plus his postseason workload. That's more than any season of his life. What can the team reasonably expect from him? The top prospect in the organization, you'd have to think they'd want to be reasonably cautious.

Scherzer would provide cover there as well.

Scherzer has already said that he's willing to wait into the season to see what situations arise. If that remains the case, perhaps Toronto is best served waiting.

This would give them a chance to see how the situation with Bieber progresses and to see how things are shaping up with Ponce and Yesavage.

Of course, they can't afford to wait too long. Somebody will call Scherzer. It's just a question of when.

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