Justin Verlander signing with the Giants is fascinating on multiple levels, regardless of how you consume baseball.
For the eternal optimist, he’s a worthwhile gamble on a potentially top-flight starting pitcher on a one-year contract. For the casual fan, he’s someone they’ve heard of. For the cynic, he’s a pitcher turning 42 years old in February and coming off the worst season of his career. For the history nerds, he’s an immediate inductee into the pleasantly amusing wing of the Giants’ Hall of Fame, joining Warren Spahn, Steve Carlton and Randy Johnson in the rotation.
For Buster Posey and Bob Melvin, Verlander is someone who helps the rest of the roster fall into place.
The Giants had a lot of options to fill out their rotation. There was a chance to sway Corbin Burnes with more money and the promise of opt-outs in his contract. The Yankees might be looking to trade Marcus Stroman. Jack Flaherty offers upside without a draft-pick penalty. There was also the easiest (and likeliest) option of all: doing nothing. Posey was pretty explicit when it came to the idea of trusting his young arms.
Instead, they went with the hardest pitcher to predict on the market. The potential upside is undeniable. The potential downside is as obvious as last year’s stat line.
Verlander made just 17 starts last season, but he made 27 the season before that. He made 28 starts three seasons ago, when he was the unanimous winner of the American League Cy Young, and in the two seasons before that, he combined for a single start because of an elbow injury and Tommy John surgery. That’s five seasons of highs, lows and in-betweens. Even considering what one might typically expect from a soon-to-be-42-year-old, that’s a lot of uncertainty.
Verlander’s career has had a lot of ups and downs the past five seasons. (Tim Warner / Getty Images)
Consider the teams that might have been scared away by that kind of uncertainty. These are the teams whose seasons would only be a success if they win the World Series, and they don’t want to spend April money for an October pitcher who might not get to October. The Dodgers and Yankees, et al, will either spend at the top of the market or wait until the trade deadline and reevaluate their options. Heck, if Verlander is pitching well in July and the Giants aren’t contending, there could even be a reunion with the Astros. These are the teams that are worried more about the events of the postseason than getting there in the first place.
The Giants would certainly love to win the World Series, but the first step is to make the postseason again. Spending April money on April pitching seems like a pretty good plan. But that doesn’t mean they’d be against the kind of pitcher who could start a Game 2 or 3 if the stars align. That pitcher would preferably sign a contract without too many zeros and commas. Verlander definitely fits from that perspective.
At the same time, the Giants and Posey are optimistic about the young pitching. Not so much that they’re going to pretend that’s the path to the postseason, but enough to not be scared away by the what-ifs of Verlander. If he makes just 15 starts, that doesn’t mean that they’re left with a season that’s half-empty; it means they’re left with a season that’s half-Birdsong. Or half-Landen Roupp. Or half-Tristan Beck, Carson Seymour, Carson Ragsdale, Mason Black or someone else or, more likely, some combination of all of the above.
None of them have proven enough to start the season in a major-league rotation, but most of them have done enough to make the Giants comfortable signing a 42-year-old with durability concerns. And while young starters getting experience when their $15 million pitcher is hurt or ineffective isn’t exactly the Giants having their cake and eating it too, they’ll at least know if the filling is raspberry or liver paté.
Getting even 15 starts out of Verlander would be remarkable, historically speaking. Just 31 pitchers have done it at the age of 42 or older. But it wouldn’t be surprising for Verlander, specifically. He missed the entire 2021 season and then returned in 2022 with 32 starts (including the postseason) in one of the best pitching seasons in modern history. I don’t know what to expect from a 42-year-old, but I do know that nobody should ever, ever, ever expect that from a 39-year-old. He did it, though. So maybe don’t count him out in 2025, even if time has to win eventually.
It might have already won. You can use a pencil to connect the dots on this velocity chart and imagine Calvin & Hobbes sledding down it. Most of Verlander’s worst work last season came in the second half of the year, when he was returning from a “weird” neck injury, and it would have been more encouraging if he’d started the season slow and finished strong. While the batted-ball data suggests that he’s still adept at allowing weak contact, he’s missing far fewer bats than he used to. No pitcher allows more fly balls, and Oracle Park can hold only so many of them in.
It can hold plenty of them, though, and that’s part of the appeal for Verlander. His season wasn’t just defined by first- and second-half splits, but by home and away splits, too. He started six games in Houston, allowing 26 earned runs and seven homers in 29 innings. He started 11 games away from Houston, allowing 29 earned runs and eight homers in 61 innings. It’s like the batters there knew what was coming, and it led to a 7.98 ERA when the Crawford Boxes were leering over his shoulder and a 4.28 ERA when they weren’t. It’s too neat and clean to blame everything on the ballpark, but this is just as much about the fit for Verlander as it is the fit for the Giants.
The obvious comparison to make is with the Giants signing Randy Johnson in 2009, and that might make you wince a bit, considering that Johnson was mediocre at best in his one season in San Francisco. That was on the field, though. Off the field, a group of young pitchers got to watch and learn from him, and that same group happened to win the World Series the next season. That could have been coincidental, but there’s value in an all-time great just being there. Or, as Baggs described it earlier in the offseason:
If the Giants are building a future around their young pitching staff, how do you quantify the value of allowing those pitchers to play catch with someone like Scherzer? Or watch someone like Verlander throw his side session? Or soak up lessons on mentality and mound presence on flights and bus rides and so many quiet moments in the dugout?
Add it all up, and it’s a risk that makes far more sense than a nine-figure contract to Flaherty or a multi-year deal for someone like Luis Severino. There’s a lot here to make everyone happy, from the fans to Verlander and his new teammates, even the young pitchers whose innings will be even harder to come by next season. Corbin Burnes probably would have made the Giants better, but few pitchers made better sense.
(Also, if you’re wondering if this is a sign that the Giants are out on Roki Sasaki, you can relax. Every team in baseball would make room for him, even the ones with a full rotation. If the Tigers had five Tarik Skubals, they’d trade one to make room. If the Giants don’t get Sasaki, it’ll be because he’s scared of Shohei Ohtani, sea lions or both. He’s welcome to prove me wrong. Until then, Giants fans can just enjoy the future Hall of Famer.)
(Top photo: Logan Riely / Getty Images)
