Max Scherzer is a New York Met.

Max Scherzer is wearing blue and orange, he’s been photoshopped into uniform, and the team has posted that it’s official. Yet it still doesn’t seem real. Let’s try again.

Max Scherzer is a New York Met.

That’s better. The overwhelming joy Mets fans have expressed about his acquisition will only rise until he steps on the mound for the first time at Citi Field. This time, pitching for the home team.

The ink is dry and Scherzer signs a three-year, $130 million contract to pitch in Queens. After winning three Cy Young awards and a World Series trophy he wants to bring another of each to the Mets.

“Obviously that’s the goal,” Scherzer said “That’d be the ultimate dream is to do that and win the whole thing.”

Scherzer enjoyed winning a title with the Nationals in 2019 and was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers last summer as part of their pursuit of the same goal. The Mets only have one holdover from their 2015 World Series appearance. Jacob deGrom.

Mad Max brings an intensity and bravado to the mound that is unlike any pitcher in baseball. He mows you down like a bull seeing red. You expect steam to come out of his ears like a Looney Toons bit.

“Max brings this interior leadership that it’s not so much by way of how he talks it’s going to be by way of examples,” general manager Billy Eppler said.

Scherzer brings a relentlessness and obsession to win, Eppler added.

He was at the top of the Mets free agent list. The organization knew that if they wanted to deliver on the promises they made last season that they’d need to make a splash. They’ve done so by catching Eduardo Escobar, Mark Canha, and Starling Marte.

Cohen still wants to do more. That’s how they reeled in the big fish.

“When I took the Zoom call with Steve and Billy and got to know those two and Steve said ‘it’s whatever it takes to win the championship and he’s going to do whatever it takes this win,'” Scherzer said. “You don’t hear that from owners too often today.”

The embarrassingly new commitment to winning games will attract free agents. Players don’t care about owners’ tweets, they care if owners support players like their teammates in the clubhouse support them. That’s what Scherzer wanted and that’s what he got.

If anyone knows what a commitment to winning looks like it should be Scherzer. He has a seat at the table at the collective bargaining agreement negotiations and thinks there are teams who fail to create a highly competitive team. Kind of like the Nationals heading into 2022.

It’s a new era in Mets-land. Steve Cohen has committed $267 million to the Mets’ payroll next season. Is a team led by Scherzer and deGrom going to be the one to break the 35-year championship dry spell? Cohen did say he wanted to win a trophy in his first five years as owner.

“I called Jake after a meeting to get a sense of what New York was like and how he’s feeling and get a state of where he’s at and I came away happy with it,” Scherzer said. “The dream of pitching with him. We can do some great things together.”

Could they be the best pairing since in Mets history? In 1969 you had Seaver and Koosman, in 1986 you had Dwight Gooden and Ron Darling. Even in 2006, you had two future hall of fame members in Pedro Martinez and Tom Glavine.

Scherzer said this won’t be his last contract and has a commitment to being the best athlete possible just like deGrom. He knows his body just as well and can explain why he couldn’t perform at certain levels. There’s no one more similar than them. In detail, Scherzer stopped to explain what happened to his body during the 2021 postseason and the different preparations compared to 2019. Sounds a lot like deGrom discussing himself.

Scherzer is committed to the Mets and the Mets are committed to him. He refused to discuss other offers on the table for him.

“Today is about the New York Mets, it’s not about the Dodgers,” Scherzer said. “At some other point we could talk about that but today’s about the New York Mets and their fans.”

It might be a long time until we see Scherzer take the mound with an impending lockout. But when he does, he can’t wait to hear Mets fans having his back.

“The Mets fans have a nice, blue-collar approach,” Scherzer said. “They really let you have it. It’ll be nice to flip the script this time and have them cheering for me.”

Hopefully, those cheers end with him delivering a championship trophy.