My Favorite Wife: The Justin Verlander Thread

A couple of excellent 40-year-old seasons: Jamie Moyer and Bartolo Colon.

final rando aside, sorry:

if i could go back in time and try to be a pro baseball player again (I topped out at age 13), but have to deal with the same constraints (my ISO is 0.00; all of my skills are like "mini" versions of what larger people can do), i would appear out of nowhere to myself and say "hey squirt! hey lil fucker! you're done for. you cannot be ozzie smith. instead, you must learn how to throw a knuckleball. a knuckleball specialist is like a placekicker - a wild card, the only possible way that lil squirts can possibly be useful to a professional team. also, don't worry about hannah not liking you back -- she ends up being a meth head. ok good luck! also, don't go to college!" *poof*

haha great asides, Karl

haha, glad it's not a threadender at least :)

Another random great age 39 season from a guy who pitched forever: Hoyt Wilhelm in 1962, in 93 innings of relief he posted a 1.94 ERA (192 ERA+) and 90 K's in 93 IP (8.7 K/9 IP). His rate stats wouldn't look out of place in a discussion of the best relievers of today, except that the league average was 5.3 K/9 IP. So he was a 39 year old reliever with a sub-2.00 ERA striking out the equivalent of about 14 K/IP today. And he remained good for another six or seven years!

14 K/IP

should be 14 K/9 IP, obviously

Easing his way back: 5 IP, 0 H, 1 BB, 9 K. Probably finished for the night, but not sure.

I don’t want to clutter up the postseason thread with any more Verlander talk, but I had some stuff to add and remembered I could post that here.

Two people who disagreed with me about G1, Thermo and Tracer, were on the postseason thread kinda sorta saying that they understood leaving in McCullers; Verlander should have been pulled in the 5th (maybe even the 4th), but McCullers wasn’t as clear-cut.

All those runs were home runs tho, right? I tuned in part way through but it didn’t look like he was getting into constant jams and walking people or anything.
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Wednesday, November 2, 2022 8:56 AM

yeah the 3rd and 4th he was three up three down. the other innings he only gave up a walk and a hit (apart from the homers lol)
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, November 2, 2022 9:16 AM

it did seem like he was (basically) in control. what you may be able to ding baker for is using mccullers in the first place, who relies on breaking balls. philly, as we have seen, enjoys that stuff. javier, as fine a starter as the astros have imo, with an absolutely wicked fastball, may not even pitch until game 6. if there is a game 6.
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, November 2, 2022 9:22 AM

McCullers gave up five home runs--they were teeing off on him. He didn’t have time to get into jams; baseballs kept leaving the park. I find the McCullers-maybe vs. Verlander-definitely-not argument bizarre.

I also looked into some of the analogies that NoTime drew in his post the other day:

Re:Verlander, in G7 of the 2003 ALCS (the Pedro-Grady Little game), Torre pulled Clemens in the fourth inning. There was speculation at the time that he was retiring and it was his final game. Didn't matter to Torre, Clemens was done. Bochy won three championships with the Giants by not being sentimental with his SP's. He had former CY winners like Zito, Peavy, and Lincecum and used a quick hook with them, reassigned them to the bullpen, whatever it took to win.

With Clemens in 2003, I just see a world of difference. The Red Sox were up 4-0 when Clemens got pulled, in an inning that went HR/BB/single--and it’s G7, not G1. And they’re facing Pedro Martinez. Verlander squandered a lead, but he was never behind. And it’s G1. (I want to go all Allen Iverson here with those four words.)

Former Cy Young winner Barry Zito was already eight years removed from his Cy in 2010--he was hardly the same pitcher by then--and former Cy Young winner Jake Peavy was seven years removed from his; I don’t think they make very good analogies for Verlander, who’s going to win the Cy Young this year (and never mind the totality of their careers). And for what it’s worth, Peavy gave up 4 runs in 5 innings in his first WS start in 2014--almost identical to Verlander--and in his second, he gave up 6 runs in 1.1 innings. I don’t see a quicker hook there in either game.

The Tim Lincecum of 2010 (but not 2012 or 2014) is a much better comparison for Verlander--he didn’t win the Cy, but he finished 10th and was coming off two in a row.

Lincecum started two games in the 2010 Series. In the first (a G1), he gave up 4 runs in 5.2 IP--again, very similar to Verlander. In the second start, with the Giants up 3 games to 1, he pitched exceptionally well and completed 8 innings. I don’t know where the quick hook is there, either.

I can’t win this argument, because everybody already knows the answer: Verlander gave up two more runs. (Nobody posted as it was happening, just the next day.) Sometimes good decisions blow up, and sometimes bad ones work out. But even after this one blew up, it’s 5-5 with both starters out. Houston should still win that game. I put most of the blame on Verlander, and a little bit on the offense that didn’t score a run in the next four innings. I don’t blame Baker at all for G1.

I blame Baker almost totally for G3.

(Yes, I do have the game on right now.)

i'm not sure i want to cosign your post, but i agree that verlander deserved more leeway in game one than mccullers did in game three

but that's mostly due to mccullers deserving none at all

I wasn't making an exact analogy, I was saying that those winning managers understood (when many of their peers didn't) that playoffs aren't like the regular season, and require different strategies for pitchers. I think we're in agreement here! That was the lesson of the Pedro-Grady Little game, Little was sentimental about his SP ("Pedro's my guy!") instead of ensuring that they won the game. And I think that's what happened with Dusty and Verlander in Game 1.

To expand on that, it's part sentimentality and expectation, going into the game, I'm sure Dusty envisioned that Verlander could give him six or seven strong innings. When he was strong in the first three innings, it only reinforced that point in Dusty's mind. Then Verlander got into trouble and Dusty didn't alter his mindset quickly enough. Bochy, for instance, to his credit, rarely fell into that trap.

I went through your examples just because I didn't think any of them really fit Verlander's situation, but fair enough. I think pulling Nola last night and having that decision blow up shows, yet again, that there's no right answer--anything can happen.

Not counting bad stuff people do off the field, there are very few great players I've rooted against in my time watching baseball. I almost always want great players to do great things (not against the Jays, of course, although sometimes even then). So I hope Verlander finally has a great Series game tonight. I wanted David Price to get out from under his cloud in 2018, and I was really happy when he did (still think he should have won Series MVP). Kershaw's still kind of unpredictable, but I'm glad he's had two or three really good postseason starts no.

And then, after the game, I want Verlander to say, "All credit to Dusty, because after G1, I knew he had my back, knew that he trusted me. So I never looked over my shoulder once tonight, even when I got into that jam in the 6th." And then I want him to say, "Thanks to Clemenza, too. You took my side against the world--you're an inspiration."

fuck Justin Verlander imo

Is it the Trump connection? Truthfully, I was disappointed to hear that.

indeedy

Ya. I’m now on team fuck Verlander too, now that I know that. I hope his arm flys off mid fastball.

There’s no need to hope for that, just hope he continues to have a worse WS record than Barry Zito. Which he will, unless he plays until he’s 70.

And he can take his shithead brother with him as well.

Fine. I hope his penis turns into an innie instead. His arm can stay.

i just assume any white baseball player is a conservative republican

Yeah but there’s voting that way, which is obviously bad in itself, and there’s being golf buddies with Trump.

Slightly related, I have been watching US feeds of the ws, and I have to say some of these election ads are appalling. Like absolutely grotesque garbage that would get pulled off the air up here.

Some?

i've seen a couple that were merely cringy/questionable. but a lot of been hair-raising in their unhinged lunacy.

Running tabulation I enjoy checking in on: award shares on Baseball Referencew. With his unanimous Cy Young, Verlander now sits third all-time in CY shares.

1. Roger Clemens (7 wins) - 7.66
2. Randy Johnson (5 wins) - 6.50
3. Justin Verlander (3 wins) - 5.21

He passed five guys this year: Pedro, Carlton, Kershaw, Scherzer, and Maddux.

He should share his secret of how he returned from TJ surgery at age 39 (looking twice that) with his lowest ERA ever.

You think PEDs? I have to assume that on the cusp of the HOF, and all the financial rewards that go along with that, that he couldn't possibly be that stupid...But then Cano got caught in the homestretch, so who knows? (Verlander also spent time on the IL this year, which would seem at odds with PED use.)

I follow enough other things to be suspicious of people making sudden, late career improvements, yeah.

I don’t think the league is even testing this season cos of the collective bargaining agreement lapsing so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As I say, anything's possible, witness Tatis, who will take years to climb out of this, if he even manages to. (They must have been testing last season for him to have been caught, no?) It's just hard for me to imagine the level of stupidity it would require for Verlander to risk losing the HOF for the sake of two or three extra seasons. I guess it's possible he's someone who just doesn't care about getting in there, but after money, players play for championships, and they play for awards/honors/legacy. Verlander's already rich as God, he's got two WS now, so that last, especially legacy, would seem to me to be what it's all about right now.

Clemens and Bonds presumably had both tons of wealth, honours and promising hall of fame cases before they started on the bad stuff. I don’t know for definite about JV, obviously, it’s just my inclination to suspect it with the way his stats took off, his age and especially his history of injury and surgery.

Clemens and Bonds also played in an era where steroids were really common and nobody had really been punished for using them yet, if Verlander was pitching in that era he'd 100% be using them

That's the difference to me--that Bonds and Clemens and the others did so in 1998-2004, not 2022.

Found this, which I have zero recollection of:

https://www.si.com/si-wire/2013/08/09/justin-verlander-retorts-peds-allegations

Clemens and Bonds also played in an era where steroids were really common and nobody had really been punished for using them yet, if Verlander was pitching in that era he'd 100% be using them

xp that’s what I kept thinking about watching him pitch in postseason too - his velocity was pretty sustained even when he was being drawn out on lots of pitches.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also this, which was maybe a reaction to the above:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/15429713/justin-verlander-asks-changes-ped-rules-dee-gordon-tests-positive

(Made me laugh: "Verlander said he is strict about what he puts in own body. He said his girlfriend, supermodel and actress Kate Upton, has suggested he take some of the vitamins she does, but he refuses unless things are NSF-certified.")

There were definitely lots of people who didn't get caught, including, I'm pretty sure, a handful in the HOF. But I think what we're saying is that using in the year 2000 had no repercussions, not yet. Using in 2022, if you get caught, has major repercussions.

Verlander was Cano gets suspended vs. Verlander when former Tigers teammate Jhonny Peralta got suspended. pic.twitter.com/rnKEdhkeIZ

— Mike Axisa (@mikeaxisa) May 15, 2018

Twitter's demise will be a great gift to every living baseball player.

i will say that i was sort of surprised when i saw Verlander’s face recently. i hadn’t paid too much attention to him in a couple of years. he suddenly looks kind of beefy and bloated around the jowls in a way that i associate with mcgwire, clemens etc.

comeback player of the year (AL)

More like PEDs are making a comeback! (Kidding.)

Steeling myself for when these ads are every other commercial on Houston TV in the autumn:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGiKhz_5YFI

Lost, but pretty solid start yesterday: 7 IP, 2 runs, 2 BB, 4 K. Of course hoping for him vs. Scherzer in a crucial September game.

I didn't realize he won his 250th game the other day (and 251st last night)--did that get any attention? There must have been stories about how he'll be the last guy ever to win 250. He turned 40 in February, so 300 seems almost inconceivable. But I wouldn't rule it out completely if he wants to keep going. Ryan pitched till he was 46, Randy Johnson 45, Clemens 44; whether one or all of them got some help, probably.

Carlton lasted to 43, but his was terrible his last two seasons.

"he"

He seems quite ready to play till nobody wants him, so I guess it'll be health and money, in that order--if he's healthy, I'm sure someone will be willing to pay him.

https://www.sportico.com/leagues/baseball/2023/justin-verlander-mets-300-wins-chase-1234730600/

I feel like 300 wins is one of those achievements that'll definitely be accomplished but it'll truly require a Maddux-like level of being consistently injury free and declining slowly vs precipitously.

There's no one under the age of 30 with 100 career wins. Top 3: Berrios (29 yrs old, 81 wins), Marquez (28 yrs old, 65 wins), Giolito (28 yrs old, 60 wins).

I wonder if Verlander's injury troubles the last few seasons have been a trade-off: costing him wins, obviously, but saving him innings and extending his career. If he is serious about 300, I'd do my best to stay in Houston.

Had the game on in the background last night, listening more than watching. Two outs away from a shutout; got a great inning-ending DP early in the game after loading the bases.