Justin Verlander is always going to have a place on an MLB roster until it becomes very clear that he can no longer pitch at a big-league level. Heading into the 2025 season, it was the San Francisco Giants that gave Verlander a shot in free agency, signing him to a one-year, $15 million deal to bolster their rotation amid their ongoing bid to challenge the Los Angeles Dodgers for NL West supremacy.
Verlander, who is 42 years of age, is no longer the starting pitcher he once was. In 2024, he suffered through one of the worst seasons of his career, tallying a 5.48 ERA across 17 starts (90.1 innings pitched). He suffered a drop in average fastball velocity, and his strikeout rate was the worst it has been in years. Nevertheless, greatness always seems to find a way, and Verlander is hellbent that he won’t be going out like this.
Even though he’s the Giants’ elder statesman, Verlander showed how he can learn from the team’s current ace in Logan Webb as he tries not to let Spring Training results cloud his judgment regarding what kind of season he’ll be having.
“Webby was very helpful with me talking about his Spring Training last year and what he was dealing with. How he was seeing the results not be great at all and then he comes into the season and it’s like right where he wanted it,” Verlander said, per Maria Guardado of MLB.com.
Last year, Webb had an ERA of 10.97 across six Spring Training starts. This was not an indication, however, of the season he was going to have for the Giants. He put up a 3.47 ERA in 204.2 innings of work in 2024, so Verlander can certainly learn a lot from not having Spring Training numbers define the future that lies ahead.
Giants’ Justin Verlander faces the music of his old age
As great as professional athletes can be, everyone succumbs to Father Time sooner or later. For Justin Verlander, it looked like that time was going to come back in 2014 or 2015 when his fastball velocity was dipping and his overall production was slipping. But he was able to stave that off and pitch some of the best baseball of his career with the Houston Astros.
For the Giants, however, they are not expecting Verlander to be the ace version of himself. But for the 42-year-old who’s become so accustomed to greatness from himself, he is trying not to be too hard on himself moving forward.
“I think a lot of pitchers, me in particular, have a tendency to be a little overcritical and maybe tinker when you don’t need to sometimes, so I’m trying to balance that. This is the first time I’ve had competition. I’ll think about it. I’ll be thinking about it all night. I won’t get much sleep,” Verlander added.
The post How Giants’ Logan Webb helped Justin Verlander prepare for Spring Training debut appeared first on ClutchPoints.
