The Giants are coming for a Verlanding

It’s another bold signing for newly appointed Supreme Prefect of Baseball Operations Gerald D. “Buster” Posey, who officially took over the position a little more than three months ago. Yet, if we give Posey the credit he is due for Matt Chapman’s extension, more than a quarter of San Francisco’s payroll (by CBT’s calculations) is now dedicated to the players Posey is responsible for signing.

But Verlander could very well have cost more. He made nearly three times as much last season, and if he reached the 140-inning threshold in 2024, he could have activated a player option worth $35 million, not $15 million. So why get such a big haircut? This is Justin Verlander, for God’s sake.

The phrase “it takes one to know one” definitely doesn’t apply to future Hall of Famers. You don’t need Posey’s immaculate playing credentials to appreciate what Verlander has done over the course of his career.

One of the more interesting conversations happening around baseball recently concerns how Hall of Fame voters should treat starting pitchers in this era of fives and dives and multiple Tommy John surgeries. Virtually no one publishes traditional Hall of Fame numbers anymore, and Félix Hernández’s first nomination is an obvious entry point into the matter. Something has to give, or we’ll spend decades among Hall of Fame starting pitchers, the argument goes.

And then he stops for the necessary warning: except Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer and Verlander.

Because Verlander’s accomplishments — 262 wins, 3,415 strikeouts, 82.0 WAR, a Rookie of the Year award, an MVP, three Cy Young Awards and four other top-three finishes — play out in any era and by any standard. He’s not just a Hall of Famer, he’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer. And not only is he a first-ballot Hall of Famer, but his candidacy is such that any voter who excludes him from their ballot will be (correctly) dismissed as an eccentric.

Surely Posey knows this. His Giants defeated Verlander’s Tigers in the 2012 World Series. In fact, Verlander was already a star when Posey was merely a prospect, even a prospect of sorts. In 2008, Posey posted a 1.17 ERA with six saves as a two-way player at Florida State. That year, the Giants selected him fifth overall. Verlander finished that season with as many as 600 major league innings pitched for his career.

Verlander is only four years older than Posey. The Giants director of baseball operations admitted he retired young, but that’s not the case That young. Verlander turns 42 next month and, like most civic institutions born during the Reagan administration, is falling apart.

Verlander has aged very well, all things considered; he won two of his Cy Young Awards after turning 36, one of which came after he missed (essentially) two full seasons with a torn UCL. At age 40, he got $43.3 million a year in a free agent contract with the Mets, and pitched well that season, which included a second midseason trade to Houston.

But last year was really bad. Jay Jaffe revealed the gory details in September, as the unthinkable was becoming increasingly likely: The Astros would have to leave Verlander off their postseason roster. And that’s not just an artifact of Houston’s great pitching depth; Verlander’s fastball lost velocity, his changeup lost some travel, his curveball wasn’t curving, his slider wasn’t sliding.

In his 2022 Cy Young season, Verlander threw four types of shots; opponents couldn’t manage a .200 batting average or .300 slugging against any of them. In 2024, Verlander’s two most common pitches were his fastball (against which opponents hit .299 and hit .497) and his curveball (.340 and .560).

I apologize for being a little rude with this next part, but here are some select stats from two veteran starting pitchers who hit the free agent market this winter. One is Verlander. Can you guess which one and who the other is?

Player B is Verlander. Player A is Patrick Corbin.

And at the risk of complaining about both the food and the portion sizes, Corbin stayed healthy all year and Verlander did not. Two stints on the IL — one for shoulder inflammation and another for neck discomfort — limited Verlander to 17 starts and just 90 1/3 innings. That’s a career low, aside from his two-start debut in 2005 and his Tommy John-enforced sabbatical.

It’s why Verlander is making $15 million to play for the Giants instead of $35 million to play for the Astros, which seems like it would have been Armageddon for a team that just traded Kyle Tucker before he became too expensive.

Nowadays, $15 million isn’t worth much on the early launch market. I’m certainly not the first observer to notice that Verlander got the same guaranteed contract from San Francisco that Alex Cobb got from Verlander’s old team, the Tigers. Cobb made just three starts last year and, at 37, isn’t much younger than Verlander. Nor does he have anything like Verlander’s superstar history.

But $15 million is about what it costs to get a no. 5 starters for one year on the free agent market. And as hard as it is to believe, this is where Verlander fits into the Giants rotation, behind Logan Webb, Robbie Ray, Jordan Hicks and Kyle Harrison.

Posey, the retired superstar with zero experience in baseball operations, is unique among baseball’s 30 prince-bishops in roster construction. His appointment is a return to an older, less enlightened time. It’s Wayne Gretzky coaching the Arizona Coyotes or Ted Williams managing the Senators.

I’m fascinated by Posey’s every move. Partly because, in the post-Theo Epstein gold rush to fill every front office with private-school MBAs until the team-branded zip quarters run out, front office thinking has become more or less same. Whatever Posey does, it’s different and therefore interesting. But if you go into this work without adequate foresight and humility, it could also be a very entertaining failure.

Yet, while my attitude toward the current Giants can best be described as “skepticism,” I know Posey is no idiot. He won’t sign Verlander because he thinks he’ll get a no. 1 starter for the cost of a lightly used Cleveland Guardians scrap. He’ll sign Verlander because, like any team, the Giants need innings in droves. And while Verlander may be cooked, it bears repeating that he got hurt last year and played in an unfavorable home stadium. Additionally, Verlander gave his opponent the highest BABIP in a decade, and his xERA was more than a point and a half lower than his ERA. There’s an argument (I don’t know if I buy it, but it exists) that Verlander’s decline was exaggerated by batted ball misfortune. Which would make him ripe for a bounce-back season, despite his advanced age.

Free Verlander’s neck, settle his score with the BABIP gods, and put him in a stadium with a big outfield; you could get 100 league-average innings out of him. This is certainly a worthwhile investment of $15 million in this market. At least, that seems to be the logic. We’ll see if it turns out to be valid.