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The story of how the St. Louis Cardinals failed to see the talent of a future Hall of Fame pitcher who grew up in their own backyard continues to haunt the minds of many Cardinals fans. Max Scherzer, who attended Parkway Central High School in Chesterfield, Missouri, and went on to the play at the University of Missouri, has fashioned a major league career that comprises eight All-Star appearances and three Cy Young Awards.

But Cardinals fans’ anger toward the team for not pursuing Scherzer more aggressively is misguided.

The Cardinals were aware of Scherzer while he was in high school. Their scouting director at the time, Marty Maier, had gone to a game to watch Parkway West’s Lucas May, and he happened to witness Scherzer taking the mound as the opposing pitcher. Later that year, Maier urged the Cardinals to draft Scherzer, and the team obliged, taking him in the 43rd round.

Despite growing up a Cardinals fan and being offered above-slot money to sign, Scherzer spurned his hometown team and opted to proceed to college. According to Scherzer, the Cardinals would have needed to offer at least $1 million for him to sign.

There was no reason for the Cardinals to select him early in the draft, as Scherzer was not considered a prized prospect coming out of high school. He was extremely raw, with a max-effort, head-whipping delivery, and a lot had to break just the right way for Scherzer to transform into the dominant force he became at Missouri.

The Cardinals can’t be faulted for not grabbing Scherzer earlier out of high school, but once his time at Missouri was over, he had become a blue-chip prospect. The Cardinals surely would have liked another chance to grab him, but they were saddled with the final pick in the first round of the 2006 draft. The Arizona Diamondbacks grabbed Scherzer with the 11th overall selection, while the Cardinals took pitcher Adam Ottavino, who has gone on to have a long and successful career of his own.

When Scherzer reached free agency after the 2014 season, he made it known to Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright that he would be amenable to playing in St. Louis if they offered anything resembling the seven-year, $210 million offer he had received from the Washington Nationals. However, the Cardinals reportedly never contacted Scherzer.

It’s easy for fans to become incensed at the front office for not following up with Scherzer. But the Cardinals were coming off of a year with a strong rotation that had finished tied for third in baseball in average game score, and they were about to enter a season with a still-dominant Wainwright, a dependable No. 2 in Lance Lynn, a strong mid-rotation pitcher in Jaime Garcia, a veteran bulldog in John Lackey, and a young, upstart arm in Michael Wacha.

Starting pitching was not an area of concern for the Cardinals, so signing Scherzer was likely seen as unnecessary. Scherzer was also going to hit age 30 in the middle of the 2015 season, and the risk-averse Cardinals didn’t want to gamble on a player who they surmised was in the back half of his career and could go down with injury.

Cardinals president Bill DeWitt III has said that not trying to land Scherzer is among his biggest regrets of his time running the team. But the Cardinals did their due diligence in pursuing Scherzer out of high school and were unable to draft him early enough after college, and when the time came for Scherzer to test the waters of free agency, the Cardinals had no reason to dangle the fishing rod.

There are plenty of reasons to for fans to be up in arms regarding the recent iterations of Cardinals squads, but berating them for not grabbing Mad Max shouldn’t be among them. It’s a massive instance of hindsight being 20/20.