Justin Verlander has already built a Hall of Fame career and he’s not done yet

Justin Verlander has won his third Cy Young Award. This puts him in elite company. It’s also pretty humorous to consider that he’s won more Cy Youngs in his time with the Astros than the Tigers, though there’s really no reason to delve further into that right now. 

I would, however, like to do a deeper dive with Verlander and it concerns his run toward eventual enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame. It feels like he’s a first ballot Hall of Famer and that he’ll be an easy checkmark for me the first year he’s eligible, which is five seasons after he’s retired. 

We can still walk through it right now. I’ve got time. It’s the offseason! 

Verlander, with three Cy Young wins, joins Sandy Koufax, Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer, Pedro Martinez, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer. The only pitchers with more are Roger Clemens (7), Randy Johnson (5), Greg Maddux (4) and Steve Carlton (4). I think we can all agree that list contains top level Hall of Famers, as the only ones who aren’t there yet are still active or connected to PEDs. 

One could also argue that Verlander should have won the Cy Young in 2016 when he got the most first-place votes. He also came in second and had a strong argument in 2012 and was the runner-up in 2018, though that vote wasn’t quite as questionable. Still, it was very close (169 to 154) and Verlander is a few votes in a few years away from even more trophies.

We don’t need to stray from the actual facts in order to make a Hall of Fame case here, though. 

Additional hardware: 9 All-Star Games (he started the game twice), an MVP, a Rookie of the Year, two-time World Series champion and ALCS MVP. 

Verlander is now 244-133 in his career. Pitchers never needed to get to 300 wins to make the Hall of Fame, but wins are much harder to come by these days with a five-man rotation and more bullpen specialization. Even with the bar being lower, Verlander is 56th in career wins and has more than Juan Marichal, Three Finger Brown (I told you 300 was never a requirement!), Whitey Ford, Catfish Hunter, Bob Lemon, Hal Newhouser and several other Hall of Fame starting pitchers. 

He has a career 3.24 ERA (132 ERA+), which puts him 42nd in career ERA+ (minimum 1000 innings pitched) and ahead of Hall of Famers like Bob Gibson, Koufax, Seaver, Palmer, Bob Feller, Don Drysdale and Tom Glavine. His 1.117 career WHIP is 38th all-time (minimum 1000 innings pitched) and…