Max Scherzer joined the Toronto Blue Jays convinced he can win a World Series with a third team following titles with Washington and Texas.

“Winning cures everything,” the 40-year-old right-hander said Friday, three days after his $15.5 million, one-year contract was announced. “All you need to do to wake up in the morning is to have that drive to win and the rest kind of takes care of itself.”

A three-time Cy Young Award winner, Scherzer was 2-4 with a 3.95 ERA last year for the Rangers. He started the season on the injured list while recovering from lower back surgery and was on the IL from Aug. 2 to Sept. 13 because of shoulder fatigue. He didn’t pitch after Sept. 14 because of a left hamstring strain.

Scherzer feels healthy as spring training approahes.

“Normal ramp up kind of in the lifting, normal ramp up in the throwing, right where I need to be in terms of my bullpen progression,” he said during a Zoom news conference. “So I’m looking to come in here into spring training at full tilt.”

He joins a rotation projected to include José Berríos, Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt and Bowden Francis.

“The backbone of any team is always the starting rotation,” Scherzer said. “It doesn’t matter how much offense you got, if you don’t have a starting staff, you’re always going to be in trouble if you don’t have starters going out there and eating innings.”

Scherzer learned about the current Blue Jays when he spoke with Bassitt, a New York Mets teammate in 2022, and assistant hitting coach Hunter Mense, a University of Missouri teammate from 2004-06.

“Just understanding how the team is, how the organization is, how they treat the families and how the guys on the team are, where the state of the organization is, how they want to improve,” Scherzer said. “I had a good chat with those guys how the Blue Jays handle everything and felt like this was going to be a fit.”

A Florida resident, Scherzer had geography in mind when considering teams.

“First and foremost is kind of staying here on the East Coast, especially with my family here in Florida, the kids are in school,” he said. “That makes it very easy to be able to get back and forth, be able to see them and have them be able to travel in, as well.”

Scherzer is 216-112 with a 3.16 ERA over 17 seasons with 3,407 strikeouts in 2,878 innings. He was 7-0 with a 1.98 ERA in 11 starts for the Dodgers in 2021.

His average fastball velocity has dropped from 94.7 mph in 2020 to 92.5 mph last year.

“I still feel I can pitch at a very high level here. I frankly got all the pitches to be able to navigate a lineup,” he said. “It’s not about throwing 98. If you can throw 94, 95, you can get a lot of people out.”

He limits his use of analytics.

“There’s too much data actually,” he said. “What we’re talking about with pitching now I actually completely disagree with. And so for me I understand what I do well, what I need to look at, what I actually need to be thinking about in terms of all my pitches, in terms of everything I’m doing. ... There’s some data that’s good, but a lot of data is bad.”

While Scherzer spent parts of parts of nine seasons in the NL East, this will be his first time in the AL East.

“You got five teams that can all beat each other up. So that’s the good news,” he said. “When you’re in a highly competitive division, that only makes you better. ... It makes you battle-tested.”

RENGIFO WINS CASE

Infielder Luis Rengifo beat the Angels in salary arbitration for the second time in three years and will earn $5.95 million instead of the team’s offer of $5.8 million.

Rengifo set career highs last season with a .300 batting average and 24 stolen bases. He hit six homers and had 30 RBIs in 78 games. He was sidelined between May 3 and 17 by a viral infection, and between July 3 and 23 by right wrist inflammation. He played his last game of the season on Aug. 2 and had right wrist surgery four days later.

Rengifo defeated the Angels in arbitration two years ago when he was awarded $2.3 million instead of the team’s $2 million proposal, then agreed to a $4.4 million salary last season. He has a .253 career average with 53 homers, 187 RBIs and 42 stolen bases in 61 attempts over six big league seasons, all with the Angels. He will be eligible for free agency after this year’s World Series.

JOE JOINING PADRES

Connor Joe is going home, signing a one-year contract with the San Diego Padres.

Joe hit .228 with nine homers and 36 RBIs in 123 games for Pittsburgh last year. The San Diego native played his college ball for the University of San Diego.

The 32-year-old Joe has made big league starts at first base, right field and left.

Joe is a .242 hitter with 35 homers and 141 RBIs in 438 career games, also playing for San Francisco and Colorado. He made his major league debut with the Giants in 2019.

D-BACKS SIGN MANCINI

The Arizona Diamondbacks agreed to a minor league contract with Trey Mancini as the outfielder and first baseman attempts a comeback after sitting out all of last season.

Mancini, 32, has 129 home runs over a seven-year career that includes time with the Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs. He hit a career-high 35 homers for the Orioles in 2019.

Mancini missed the 2020 season after surgery to remove a malignant tumor from his colon. He returned in 2021, hitting 21 homers. He was traded to the Astros midway through the 2022 season and helped them win a World Series title.

He last played in the big leagues with the Cubs in 2023, batting .234 with four homers over 79 games. He signed a minor league deal with the Miami Marlins last season and was released near the end of spring training.

RULE CHANGES

Major League Baseball is implementing two new rules this season:

It has increased the penalty for a violation of the shift rule requiring two infielders to be on the infield dirt on each side of second base when a pitch is thrown. A batter will now reach on an error, with a manager having the option of taking the result of the play. During the 2023 and ’24 seasons, the penalty was a ball being added to the count or the manager taking the result of the play. There were just four violations of the shift rule in 2023 and two last year.

If a baserunner runs through second or third base on a potential force play and doesn’t try to hold the base or advance, he will be called out for abandonment. If a lead runner crosses the plate, a video review would determine whether he touched the plate before the trailing runner’s second foot touched the ground on the other side of the base. The intent is to discourage baserunners from going through second and third with no attempt to hold the base in order to allow a lead runner to score.