Two years ago, as baseball’s winter meetings approached, Justin Verlander was one of the hottest names on the free-agent market. Weeks earlier, the ultra-accomplished right-hander had added yet another accolade to his collection when he won the 2022 AL Cy Young Award unanimously, becoming the 11th pitcher in MLB history to win three Cy Youngs. Not only had he delivered a sparkling campaign in his first year back from Tommy John surgery, but he had also done so at age 39, making him the fourth-oldest pitcher to claim the game’s top pitching prize. And if his individual triumphs weren’t enough, Verlander’s Astros had just won the World Series.
Such a sensational season at such an advanced age made Verlander an especially unique free agent following the expiration of his Astros contract. Still seemingly at the top of his craft, Verlander deserved a significant payday. But for a pitcher who was about to turn 40, it seemed likely that such a deal would come in the form of a shorter-term pact with a massive average annual value.
Sure enough, the 2022 winter meetings in San Diego started with the New York Mets signing Verlander to a two-year, $86.66 million deal — one with a nearly identical $43.3M AAV to the three-year, $130M contract the Mets gave fellow future Hall of Fame right-hander Max Scherzer the winter prior. Signing Verlander was one of several huge expenditures for the Mets that offseason, as they also spent big to retain Edwin Diaz and Brandon Nimmo, in addition to signing Japanese right-hander Kodai Senga to a $75M deal.
But the active offseason failed to translate to results the next season, prompting the Mets to dramatically deconstruct their roster at the 2023 trade deadline, including sending Verlander back to the Astros, ending his stint in Queens prematurely. It was a tenure further abbreviated by a spring training shoulder injury that forced Verlander to miss the first month of the season, meaning he made only 16 starts for New York — a stunningly small total considering the titanic contract the team had given him months earlier.
As a 40-year-old in 2023, Verlander didn’t pitch at a Cy Young level for the Mets or the Astros, but he was still an above-average starter once he returned from injury. While his fastball velocity had dropped a tick and his strikeout rate declined considerably, from 27.8% in 2022 to 21.5% in 2023, his stellar run prevention was intact: Verlander’s 3.22 ERA ranked ninth among qualified starters. He also…