{"id":101022,"date":"2025-05-27T11:16:24","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T15:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=101022"},"modified":"2025-05-27T11:16:24","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T15:16:24","slug":"auld-lang-syne-is-justin-verlanders-career-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/05\/27\/auld-lang-syne-is-justin-verlanders-career-done\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Justin Verlander Might Be Done"},"content":{"rendered":"

Justin Verlander<\/a> has been a fixture of the sport for almost 2o years. He’s won 3 Cy Youngs, an MVP, 9 All-Star nods, and 2 World Series rings. Verlander is a no-doubt first-ballot Hall of Famer. He’s won it all and done it all, a franchise legend for both Houston and Detroit. However, at 43 years old, Verlander’s storied career might be coming to an end. Can he keep holding on, or is this season the last ride for the legendary veteran?<\/p>\n

Is the Legendary Career of Justin Verlander Coming to a Close?<\/h2>\n

Current Stats<\/h3>\n

When you hear the name “Justin Verlander”, you think of unrivaled dominance, of a fastball that melts bats, and a curveball that breaks minds. But when you look at Verlander’s current stats, a different story is being told. In 10 games started this year, Verlander is pitching to a 4.33 ERA, a 4.78 FIP, and a rather ordinary 1.95 strikeout-to-walk ratio. All of these numbers are either career worsts for Verlander or very close to it.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, this isn’t just a poor season by the impossibly high standards set by Verlander’s prime; it’s also just a poor season by regular league standards. His 4.33 ERA translates to a 90 ERA+, meaning that he is currently pitching 10% worse than league average. His strikeout rate, which was his calling card in the past, is now below league average. He’s in the longest awards drought of his career. Even in the Giants rotation<\/a>, he’s only the 3rd best pitcher, clearly behind Robbie Ray<\/a> and Logan Webb<\/a>. Just looking at the numbers, it doesn’t look great for Verlander.<\/p>\n

The Last of His Kind<\/h3>\n

Verlander is different from today’s pitchers. Verlander came from an era where pitchers went 7-8 innings deep into games and threw 240-250 innings per year. Nowadays, things are different, and I don’t say that to be bitter. Change is good, but we should still appreciate the old workhorses like Verlander.<\/p>\n

All of his contemporaries have long since retired. Sabathia, Wainwright, and King Felix they’ve all left the yard for the last time. Only Verlander is left, a monument to a time long since passed, defying age, expectations, and a changing sport, to keep slinging it. He isn’t as quick or as good as he once was, but you still have to respect it. This is the final act of the epic that is Justin Verlander’s career.<\/p>\n

Whether this season is the end or not, one thing is certain. There will never be another Justin Verlander.<\/p>\n

The Last Word on Justin Verlander’s Career<\/h3>\n

Father Time comes for everybody eventually, but that doesn’t make it any less sad to see a legend approaching the end of his career. Verlander was a special talent in MLB history, a one-of-a-kind player, and it’s hard to envision any pitcher emerging soon who could match him. When he eventually does retire, the game will miss him dearly. So, while he is still around, let’s take the rare opportunity to savor every start of his because the game will lose something big when he retires.<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credits: Bob Kupbens-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Justin Verlander has been a fixture of the sport for almost 2o years. He’s won 3 Cy Youngs, an MVP, 9 All-Star nods, and 2 World Series rings. Verlander is a no-doubt first-ballot Hall of Famer. He’s won it all and done it all, a franchise legend for both Houston and Detroit. However, at 43 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5013,"featured_media":101031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[31,1071],"tags":[247],"class_list":["post-101022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-giants","category-mlb","tag-justin-verlander"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5013"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101022"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101033,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101022\/revisions\/101033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}