The Major League Baseball postseason can flip the upcoming free agency window on its ear, depending on which players step up and perform when the lights are brightest.

We saw it happen a year ago, when starting pitcher Walker Buehler shone in the playoffs after an awful regular season and wound up getting a $21 million contract from the Boston Red Sox. Will we see a similar scenario play out with future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer?

The 41-year-old Scherzer had a horrific September for the Toronto Blue Jays and wasn’t included on the team’s roster for the American League Division Series. But in the last two rounds of the playoffs, he pitched 14 1/3 strong innings, including 4 1/3 innings of one-run ball in Game 7 of the World Series.

Scherzer appears to have every intention of continuing to pitch, and the Blue Jays have a fairly clear need for at least one more starter. But according to an insider, there may be a different team with the inside track to landing the three-time Cy Young Award winner.

On Monday, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported that the San Francisco Giants were early front-runners for Scherzer, pointing out the longtime friendship the eight-time All-Star has had with new Giants manager Tony Vitello.

“Some in the industry expect Scherzer to land with the San Francisco Giants, reuniting with new manager Tony Vitello, his pitching coach at Missouri in the mid-2000s,” Rosenthal wrote. “A return to Toronto also might be an option. Scherzer, like virtually all of the Blue Jays, speaks with great fondness about the unique bonds the players and their families forged last season.”

Vitello getting a managerial gig with no professional coaching experience (but a highly decorated career as the head coach at Tennessee) was one of the biggest shocks of the offseason so far. It’s noteworthy, then, that Scherzer immediately came out in support of the hire.

Technically speaking, Scherzer’s arrival would also make the Giants’ rotation younger if Justin Verlander, who is entering his age-43 season, moved on to a new team.

Though Scherzer won’t be competing for Cy Young Awards any more (we think), he proved in the playoffs that he’s better than the 5.19 ERA he put up during the regular season, which seemed to be impacted by a pesky thumb injury that he claims to be fully healed from, per Rosenthal.

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