My favorite thing about Justin Verlander is that he is an absolute raging psychopath as much as anyone who has played MLB in his time. He’s a looney bin. He reads everything that’s written about him. He holds massive grudges over the smallest slights. He wants to prove everyone wrong and is still mad he didn’t get drafted 1st overall out of Old Dominion. For all intents and purposes, there are no better stories of an MLB superstar taking things wayyyyyyyy too personally than Verlander’s body of work.
With that in mind, I think it’s important to revisit the fact that the only reason he is still playing MLB is because there was an outside chance of him getting to 300 wins YEARS FROM NOW.
Specifically…
He began the season with 262 career wins. And in explaining his decision to sign a free agent deal with the Giants, he explained in great detail that he very well could be the last pitcher to ever come close to 300 wins and it’s his responsibility to pursue that goal.
Part of that I agree with.
The responsibility bit at the end I don’t understand.
But that’s what drives a 42 year old Justin Verlander to keep logging starts and boy is he logging them.
13 so far this year.
And the last 8 have been quite good: 3 point 5 something ERA with MLB average peripherals and absolutely nothing to show for it.
The Giants are 2-6 in those 8 starts and 4-9 for the season when Verlander takes the mound.
Which at some point becomes a problem because the Giants are only 1.5 back of the Wild Card and it’s an organization that actively wants to be in the playoffs every year. Which sounds obvious but it’s not. There’s plenty of MLB clubs that don’t care one bit and would much rather have a gimmick to promote like 300 career wins.
But the Giants are also a forward thinking place that challenges boundaries, like whether a 42 year-old Justin Verlander should even still be pitching.
So in a sense it’s a good match on paper but how much longer can he be winless when that’s literally the #1 reason he’s still playing baseball.
Hard for me to figure this one out, but I think it’s on Verlander to ultimately retire at some point. I can’t imagine the Giants outright DFA him without some kind of back-channel conversation about the right way to end his career. That had to be part of his original deal as he’s EXTREMELY sensitive to public relations and optics and image. But nothing that would be public knowledge because that’s kinda shady shit.
So that’s where we stand with Verlander.
The active starting pitcher leader in wins, WAR, innings, strikeouts and basically everything in between is out here laying eggs every 5th game for no other reason than he thinks there’s 38 more wins in the tank to get to 300.
At this point, most certainly not happening but definitely worth following as things are prime to explode here any start now.
For more on his demeanor, I recommend checking out Joe Posnaski’s Top 100 players