AL West

The Houston Astros Version of Justin Verlander is Historically Great

Nobody wanted Justin Verlander. The 2017 Detroit Tigers were a sinking ship, loading anything of value into lifeboats and sending them off to other franchises. J.D. Martinez, Alex Avila, and even Justin Wilson all found homes with more competitive teams. But when the dust settled after the non-waiver trade deadline, Verlander was still a Tiger.

The reasons were fairly obvious. His 4.07 FIP was his worst mark since 2008. Home runs had become a problem; he surrendered 23 of them in 27 starts. At age 34 with two more years remaining on his contract at $28 million each, his borderline Hall of Fame career appeared to be winding down.

Then, after he cleared waivers in which any team could select his contract for free (!), the Houston Astros gave him sanctuary. They traded for him on August 31, 2017 (The Tigers also traded Justin Upton on the same day). He thanked them by allowing only 10 baserunners in all of September while striking out 43. He anchored the rotation through the playoffs and brought home the first World Series championship in franchise history.

Now, his Hall of Fame case is safely off the borderline. This season, he leads the AL in ERA (1.21), FIP (2.20), IP (87.1), WHIP (0.721), and H/9 (4.7). His renaissance in Houston has been extraordinary, and his combined 18 regular season starts for the franchise have surpassed any similar stretch during his Tiger days. In fact, he’s the best pitcher in the history of not just the Astros, but any single team ever.

Here are the best career ERA+ for any single franchise (minimum 100 IP):

Team Player ERA+ IP G GS ERA
Houston Astros Justin Verlander 328 121.1 18 18 1.19
Atlanta Braves Craig Kimbrel 266 289 294 0 1.43
Milwaukee Brewers CC Sabathia 255 130.2 17 17 1.65
Philadelphia Phillies Ken Giles 246 115.2 113 0 1.56
Cleveland Indians Andrew Miller 245 106 100 0 1.87
Pittsburgh Pirates Rich Gossage 244 133 72 0 1.62
Philadelphia Phillies Billy Wagner 240 126 120 0 1.86

The Astros version of Verlander blows everyone out of the water. The next best pitcher with one team is Kimbrel, who’s work as a single inning pitcher in Atlanta was arguably the best ever by any reliever. Verlander beats him by 62 points! He’s not just crushing this leaderboard of mostly relievers, he’s averaging nearly 7 innings per start while doing so!

No one knows how much longer Verlander can keep this going. His 2018 ERA+ is 312, comfortably north of the single season record (post-1900) of 291 by Pedro Martinez in 2000. If he keeps up this pace for the rest of the season, he’ll shatter that record, and this could be considered the best season ever by a pitcher.

Before he came to Houston and stepped up his game several notches, he was probably already the greatest pitcher in Tigers history. Still, the Detroit faithful have to wonder what would have happened if he had pitched like this for his entire career…

  • His career bWAR with the Tigers is 55.8. Pretty good! If he pitched at this level as a Tiger, it would’ve been 105.5.
  • At his Houston K-rate, he would’ve had 3,042 strikeouts in Detroit. In real life he had 2,373.
  • He would’ve surrendered 1,211 fewer baserunners with the Tigers. That would be 93 fewer men on base per season, and 3.2 fewer baserunners per game started.

It’s worth repeating that Verlander was possibly a Hall of Famer the day he left the Tigers. He enjoyed a highly decorated career in which he won all three major awards: Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, and MVP. He’s got black ink all over his baseball card, and led AL pitchers in bWAR three times. It’s just that he’s so incomprehensibly good in Houston.

Now, here’s a little inside baseball (pun intended) from the Off the Bench Baseball group chat.

Sean Morash: I’m kinda curious about his comment that he wants to pitch until 45. What will his career look like in 2028?

The answer is probably not very good. No one pitches to age 45 except Bartolo Colon – and there’s just no way to explain that. Really, Verlander shouldn’t emulate anything that Colon does. But what’s the fun in that?

Let’s pretend Verlander continues to pitch at this level all the way through the 2028 season. He would retire with 176.o bWAR, beating Cy Young’s career record of 168.0 by a pitcher. Amazingly, he still wouldn’t top the all-time record of 182.5 by Babe Ruth. (Maybe he should pitch to age 46.) However, he would surpass Nolan Ryan‘s strikeout record of 5,714, finishing his career with 5,830 punchouts. All he has to do is continue being the best pitcher in the world for another ten and a half seasons.

-Daniel R. Epstein

Copyright © 2019 | Off The Bench Baseball

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