Every July 1st, Like Clockwork
On July 1st, 2022, Max Scherzer was pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers. On July 1st, 2023, he was with the New York Mets. On July 1st, 2024, he was back with the Dodgers again. But no matter where the right-hander was throwing his fastball, one team never missed a payment: the Washington Nationals sent him a check for $15 million.
This wasn’t a signing bonus. It wasn’t a trade clause kicking in. It was simply the Nationals honoring a financial obligation they agreed to back in January 2015, when Max Scherzer signed his landmark seven-year, $210 million contract. The twist? The team structured roughly half of that total value as deferred money, spreading payments across years that extended well beyond his time in a Nationals uniform.
Fast forward to now. Scherzer is long gone from Washington. But every July through 2028, the Nationals will hand over $15 million to a player suiting up for someone else. It’s one of the most expensive annual deferrals in recent baseball history, and it’s a masterclass in how creative (and costly) front offices can get when they’re trying to fit a generational talent into their payroll.
The Agent’s Gamble: Scott Boras and Deferred Money
Scott Boras, Scherzer’s agent, didn’t invent deferred contracts—they’ve been around since the 1980s—but he’s been one of the most aggressive negotiators in using them. The logic is simple: a dollar today isn’t worth the same as a dollar in five years, thanks to inflation and the time value of money. From the player’s perspective, getting paid $15 million annually in deferrals means the team is essentially giving you more than $15 million in today’s dollars, because you’re getting paid later.
For the Nationals, the appeal was different. By deferring roughly $105 million of the $210 million deal, they could spread the cap hit and keep their payroll flexible in the early years of the contract. The catch? They’re paying for it now, years after Scherzer left.
When Scherzer departed for Los Angeles as a free agent in December 2021, the Nationals’ financial obligation didn’t vanish. It just got more awkward. The team was paying a former star a quarter of the way through a $15 million annual bill while he was winning championships—and potentially Cy Young Awards—for division rivals.
Why This Still Matters in 2026
You might think this is ancient history. Scherzer signed that deal 11 years ago. But the Nationals are still writing those checks, and they’ll keep doing so through 2028. That’s a total of seven years of $15 million payments for a player who hasn’t worn a Nationals jersey since 2021.
This matters because it’s a cautionary tale about how deferred money can haunt a franchise. The Nationals aren’t unique—plenty of teams have deferred contracts on the books. But few have quite as visible a reminder as an annual $15 million payment to a Hall of Famer playing for someone else.
It also matters because it shaped how front offices think about big contracts now. The trend toward deferred money has cooled considerably since the mid-2010s, partly because players and agents realized that immediate cash is more valuable than promises stretched across a decade. But Scherzer’s deal remains a high-water mark of the deferred era.
Max Scherzer got paid what the market valued him at in 2015: $210 million over seven years. The Nationals got a dominant pitcher for his prime years. Both sides won. The only awkward part is that the Nationals are still paying for it in 2026, 2027, and 2028—every July 1st, like clockwork.
The number: Max Scherzer collects $15 million from the Washington Nationals every July 1st through 2028, even though he left the team in 2021—deferred money from his 2015 contract that keeps paying out years later.
