yes. My thought was you sign him for two more years and you lower the CBT hit this year, to create more room to negotiate an extension for Turner or possibly Soto.
Turner is at something like $13MM this year, and the Nats have about $16MM room below the first CBT threshold, using the more conservative Cot's estimate rather than the others that are floating around. A reasonable extension offer for him might be 6 or 7 years at $25MM AAV. Assuming the Nats want to leave close to $10MM room for deadline deals, other in-season moves, and bonuses, lowering Max's CBT amount from $28.7MM to $20MM via an extension, do that sort of extension and you could extend Turner at $25MM while leaving $12MM+ in CBT room.
It would require someone who is smarter about the CBT calculation to check my math, above. Basically, rip up the last year of Max's contract at $35MM, give him a new contract for 2021-2023 for $60MM, payable over 2021-2016 at $10MM a year. Including the $15MM signing bonus from his first contract payable in 2021 and deferred money for 2019 and 2020, that gives him an income stream of $25M per year from 2021-2026, and $5MM in 2027. This gets way more complicated if the deferral is impacted by the 60 game season.
Main point, if you can lower Max's CBT hit by giving him an extension this year, you may generate room to extend Turner this year at a reasonable AAV.
I think Scherzer is very solid for the next year. While some of his numbers were off last year, that was still not far from an All Star season (13th in fWAR among NL starters with 30 innings, 9th in K/9, 15th in innings, middle of the pack ERA but top 1/4 xFIP). No loss of velocity, but a little bump in his walk rate and an elevated HR/FB with fewer pulled balls and more balls in the air. At worst, he's the 3rd head of a triple headed monster.
If I'm right about the CBT, this would have been a nice move to lock in Scherzer and sing Turner with the CBT room it generated.
