Thoughts on Justin Verlander as the trade deadline approaches

Justin Verlander missed the first five weeks of the season and then was nothing special immediately upon his return to action in 2023. Yet despite that awful beginning to his Mets career, Verlander somehow has a 1.6 fWAR and a 1.9 rWAR this season. That just goes to show how good he’s been over his last eight starts.

After lasting just 3 IP in a start against the Braves on 6/8, Verlander sat with a 4.85 ERA and a 4.92 FIP and was looking like a disaster as a big-ticket free agent signing. But then he went and followed that up with a 6 IP, 1 ER start against the Yankees, which turned his season around.

In his last eight games, Verlander has 50 IP with a 1.98 ERA, a 1.000 WHIP and he’s limited batters to a .520 OPS. He’s allowed just 2 HR in this span, making him the complete opposite of Max Scherzer, who gives up gopher balls in bunches. The main difference between these super veterans is when Verlander misses badly with one on his pitches, it’s usually well out of the strike zone. Scherzer hangs a slider and it sits middle-middle.

One of the complaints with Verlander this year is that he hasn’t been very consistent. We’ll use Bil James’ Game Score to illustrate this point. Game Score is devised so that an average score is 50. Most games are in the 40-60 range. If you top 60, it’s a pretty good outing and if you put up one that’s under 30, well, that’s pretty rotten.

In his second start of the season, Verlander put up a Game Score of 74, which is a really nice start. In that game he allowed just two hits and one run in seven innings. But he followed up with a start of 6 ER in 5 IP, which garnered just a 28 Game Score. And just for fun, Verlander followed up with Game Scores of 77 and 26 in his next two starts.

The pattern has sort of continued, even in his current hot streak. But while the highs are still in the 70s, the lows are now in the 50s. In his last two outings, Verlander has posted Game Scores of 78 and 70, the first time all season he’s recorded back-to-back Game Scores that high.

He certainly looks now like the guy the Mets thought they were getting.

But the question is if that’s enough. You hear talk about how if the Mets decide to be sellers that both Scherzer and Verlander will become available. It’s uncertain why anyone with playoff aspirations would give up anything worthwhile to acquire 2023 Scherzer, even if the Mets paid off the rest of what he was owed this season. But Verlander? That would be a different story.

Now, it wouldn’t be the same as when the Astros traded for Verlander in 2017. But you’d still think that Verlander would return something worthwhile. And it’s important to note that while the Tigers got three players for Verlander back then, none have been very successful in the majors. The best of the three was Jake Rogers, a catcher who’s played parts of three seasons in the majors, although he’s done fairly well this year, with a 108 OPS+ in 214 PA.

If that’s all that Verlander would fetch six years ago – what could the Mets reasonably expect to get if they traded him now?

For his part, Verlander has stated that he has enjoyed his time in New York, wants to win here and doesn’t want to be traded. And the Mets haven’t indicated that they want to deal him, either. Rather this has been generated by the mainstream media. And that’s okay. But it’s always important to consider the source.

A bunch of different things have gone wrong here this season and Verlander opening the year on the IL was certainly one of them. But while other players are still not performing up to expectations, Verlander has turned the corner and produced like the ace the Mets expected to when they signed him. It doesn’t make sense to me why the club would choose to trade him.

They’re still going to want to compete for a playoff spot in 2024 and that will be easier to accomplish with a healthy Verlander than without him. While Tyler Stuart, Blade Tidwell and Mike Vasil have made big steps forward this season in the minors, none of them should be viewed as guys you’d want starting in the majors on Opening Day next year.

And while there are always appealing options in free agency, you have to believe that outside of a long-shot run at Shohei Ohtani that the Mets would prefer not to dive as deep into that pool as they did this past offseason.

It doesn’t seem likely to me that the Mets will make major moves as a seller, whether that be moving one of their two old aces or Pete Alonso. It’s certainly possible they trade one of their old relievers or outfielders. David Robertson would likely fetch something interesting and Brooks Raley would likely bring back something better than Keyshawn Askew, who currently sits in A-ball with a 4.07 ERA as a 23 year old.

But it’s not like the return for Raley now would be significantly better, like Pete Crow-Armstrong or something.

My expectation is that just like a year ago that there won’t be blockbuster moves at the trading deadline for the Mets. Which means we’ll get to see a dozen or so more starts from Verlander. That seems like a good consolation prize to me.