They first started pitching together in Detroit, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander did, back in 2010. They would be together with the Tigers for five seasons. Scherzer was 82-35 for that period. Verlander was 87-46. They each won a Cy Young Award. Verlander was traded to the Astros, and won a World Series with them in 2017. Two years later, Max Scherzer got his own ring with the Nationals.

Scherzer would win two more Cy Young Awards with the Nationals, going back-to-back in 2016 and '17. Verlander would win another for the Astros in '19, beating out his then teammate Gerrit Cole. Because they both won World Series after leaving Detroit, you can make a strong case that the second act, for both Verlander and Scherzer, was even better than their first until Verlander got hurt. And that is saying plenty.

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Now Scherzer is 37, and once again a free agent. Verlander is 38, and also a free agent, having finally recovered from the Tommy John surgery that he underwent in September 2020. But in a way, the two of them are prospects all over again, very much in demand this baseball offseason. A long way from the time when they had made the top of the rotation in Detroit as strong and talented and dazzling as there was in baseball.

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There was even the brief period when David Price, who’d already won a Cy Young with the Rays, and Rick Porcello, who would win one later with the Red Sox, were also part of that rotation, even if the Tigers never managed to win it all.

Scherzer is a free agent, after being traded to the Dodgers at the July 30 Trade Deadline. The Astros have a qualifying offer of $18.4 million for Verlander on the table, one he has until Wednesday to accept or decline. When Verlander did some throwing last week in Florida -- his fastball reportedly topped out at 97 mph -- there were scouts from 20 teams in attendance to watch, including the Astros, who’ve made it clear they’d like Verlander back.

“We’ve kept a close eye on him,” Astros general manager James Click said. “He’s been great about letting us know when he’s going to be throwing so we can get in there and get an eye on him, see how he’s doing. The videos I’ve seen have been awesome.”

It is believed that Verlander will test the free-agent market, the same as Scherzer is doing for the second time in his career. They are both still here, this deep into careers that will eventually land them both in the Hall of Fame. Still here and still very much in demand. There is even the chance that they will both end up in southern California, if Scherzer returns to the Dodgers, and the Angels -- who were represented at Verlander’s audition and who are desperate for starting pitching -- getting big into the Verlander sweepstakes.

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Verlander and Scherzer. Scherzer and Verlander. No longer in the same rotation, but in the same pitching conversation in this offseason because both of them are available. It is funny how these things work out in baseball. By the time Verlander was with the Astros and Scherzer with the Nationals, they had even ended up at the same Spring Training complex in West Palm Beach, Fla., at The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, a long way from Comerica Park.

You could talk to Scherzer in the Nationals' clubhouse, at the south end of the complex, and then go watch Verlander throw at the other end for the Astros. There was the morning in February 2020, a few weeks before COVID-19 shut down Spring Training, when Scherzer sat in front of his locker and talked about getting the Game 7 start for his team in the '19 World Series, and how hard he fought that night without his best stuff while he waited for the Nats to come back one more time, which they eventually did to win the first Series in franchise history.

“I just believed that we were going to win,” Scherzer said. “I wasn’t nervous. I wasn’t too pumped for the moment. I believed we were going to win and that I could do the job that night. And what the job really was that night was for me to lay it all on the line.”

All that time after they had been in Detroit together, Scherzer got the ball in Game 7, one night after Verlander had gotten the ball from Houston manager A.J. Hinch in Game 6 with the Astros ahead three games to two. Verlander pitched five innings, giving up three earned runs and striking out three. But the Nationals pulled away in the end. The next night Scherzer pitched five innings, giving up two runs on seven hits with three strikeouts. And his team pulled away again.

Verlander and Scherzer, Scherzer and Verlander. Somehow the spotlight that first found them over a decade ago at Comerica Park is still following them around. Thirty seasons in the big leagues between them. One will turn 39 next year, the other 38. But somehow, they're still the hot kids that they once were in Detroit all over again.