Someday – probably soon, certainly in the next decade – Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw are all going to enter the Hall of Fame.

They’re all, obviously, locks. Between them, they have a combined nine Cy Young Awards, two MVP Awards, 27 All-Star Game selections and six World Series rings. These are the three best pitchers over the past 15 years. Zack Greinke, who last pitched in 2023, is perhaps the only one who is close.

They are also, well, pretty old. Next season, Verlander will be 42, Scherzer will be 40 and Kershaw a relatively spry 37. And while their runs at Cy Young Awards are probably in their past -- though Verlander did just win one in 2022 -- they are all still planning on pitching again in 2025. They are also all free agents.

We can respect the history of these great pitchers, and the Cooperstown speeches they will someday give, while still looking dispassionately and rationally at what they might have to offer a hypothetical team on the mound in 2025.

So today, we look at these three pitchers, what we might reasonably expect from them, and what teams could end up being interested. These guys aren’t ready to leave yet, which works out great: We’re not ready to say goodbye.

Justin Verlander

None of these three pitchers threw 100 innings in 2024, but Verlander threw the most, putting up 90 1/3 for the Astros. Unfortunately, they might have been the worst 90 innings of his career. Verlander was knocked around for a 5.48 ERA – almost a full four runs higher than his 2022 ERA – and he had both the lowest strikeout rate and highest home run rate of his career. He was particularly rough after returning from a neck injury in late August, putting up an 8.10 ERA in seven starts over 33 1/3 innings down the stretch, and he didn’t even make the Astros’ roster for the AL Wild Card Series.

Verlander is on record saying that he wants to reach 300 wins, which is going to be an uphill climb. He has 262, which means he’s almost certainly going to have to play at least three more seasons. That’s asking a lot at his age. And if he’s going to pitch long enough to win 300 games, he’s going to have to get through 2025 first.

Verlander has said he feels “like I have a lot more to give pitching-wise,” and he mostly blames the neck injury for his inability to ever quite get right last year. While neck injuries aren’t great for pitchers, they’re certainly better than arm injuries, and remember, this was the best pitcher in baseball just two years ago. Verlander isn’t going to be anybody’s ace anymore, but for a contender, he can eat innings and give his team a chance to win every single night. And if he gets that neck injury fully healed, he may well be a lot more than that.

The Astros could bring him back, though any team that’s willing to take a chance on a one-year deal and wants to win a World Series makes some sense. It’s hard not to get excited about the potential possibility of him coming full circle and returning to the Tigers, the team he broke in with back in 2005. He sure would look great in that uniform again. Either way, someone will give Verlander a chance to reestablish himself as a rotation mainstay. We’ll all be the more fortunate for it.

Max Scherzer

First off, batters will be intimated to face Scherzer staring down the mound at them when he’s 83. I’m a little scared of him, just typing this.

Scherzer was more effective than Verlander was in 2024, but he only made nine starts and was never really a factor for the Rangers, who were never much of a factor themselves. Scherzer opened 2024 on the IL while recovering from back surgery, later dealt with arm fatigue and nerve issues, and ultimately missed the end of the season with a hamstring strain.

So much of Scherzer’s value was always wrapped up in his ability to take the ball every fifth day -- he made 30 starts or more every year for a full decade -- but that’s obviously not something anyone can count on anymore. But when he is healthy, he’s still Max freaking Scherzer. And he made 27 starts in a season as recently as 2023. You’re not going out on that much of a limb.

Like Verlander, the presumed one-year deal that Scherzer would get opens him up as a possibility for just about everybody. You can totally see him as a Yankee -- it’s kind of surprising he hasn’t been a Yankee already, actually -- and the Phillies love those veterans making one last rodeo. He could also go back from whence he came, returning to up-and-coming teams in Detroit (where he turned into an ace) or Washington (where he won a World Series).

Clayton Kershaw

Kershaw is a half-decade younger than both of these guys, but it’s easy to understand why it doesn’t seem that way. The three-time Cy Young Award winner hasn’t been an innings-eater in a decade, last throwing more than 130 innings in 2019 and last reaching 180 in 2015. Sometimes, his pitching can feel like a tightrope act: He’s doing something amazing, but you know he might fall any minute.

This offseason has already been an active one for Kershaw, who underwent surgeries on both his left foot and left knee but says he’s going to “crush” his rehab and be ready for 2025. He also said that he is a “Dodger for life,” which should take care of all those Kershaw-to-the-Rangers rumors we heard around this time last year. “I’ll be back, somehow. I don’t care. I’ll be back,” he has said.

It is worth noting, you may remember, that the Dodgers did end up a pitcher or two short last year, particularly in the rotation, and you can be certain that they’ll leave a spot for Kershaw whenever he is ready. He’s different than Verlander and Scherzer in that no one would expect him to even try to be an innings-eater, which is why he may in fact be perfect for the Dodgers: They just need some pitchers to still be standing come October, which should allow them to let Kershaw take all the time he needs before resuming his pursuit of 3,000 career strikeouts. (He’s 32 away.)

Kershaw won’t put up any vintage numbers, and you won’t see him on the mound in 2025 nearly as often as you’d like. But you almost certainly will see him on the mound, in Dodger Blue … and that is a gift in and of itself.