FAREWELL, JV!
How latest Verlander news is giving off Carlos Correa vibes
Dec 5, 2022, 4:49 pm
Justin Verlander is breaking the bank. Composite image by Jack Brame.
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If you’re real quiet you can almost hear the sighs of relief coming from Astros owner Jim Crane after hearing that Justin Verlander signed with the New York Mets on Monday.
Verlander has been a model citizen and at times an amazing pitcher for the Astros since being traded to Houston in 2017. He won two Cy Young Awards and was instrumental in the Astros two World Series titles.
But the simple fact is, the Astros don’t need him and certainly don’t need to pay a pitcher turning 40 years old $86 million over the next two seasons. Remember, he also spent almost all of 2020-21 on the injured list with Tommy John surgery.
That’s how loaded the Astros pitching staff is for 2023 and years after. They can say goodbye to the best pitcher in baseball and not sweat the future.
Sometimes a team’s best signings are the ones they don’t make. We don’t know what the Astros offered Verlander to stay but this sounds like a similar situation to last year when the Astros made a half-hearted effort to keep All-Star shortstop Carlos Correa. Correa eventually signed with the Minnesota Twins and the Astros reloaded with rookie Jeremy Pena. How’d that work out? The rookie was named MVP of the ALCS and the World Series and won the Gold Glove at short.
Here’s how the Astros starting pitching lines up for 2023: Framber Valdez, Lance McCullers, Cristian Javier, Jose Urquidy and Luis Garcia – with Hunter Brown waiting in the wings. That should be more than enough and, all things considered, cheap.
Heck, they won 106 games last season, won the AL West by 16 games and roared through the postseason 11-2 including the World Series title. And they’ve already signed coveted free agent first baseman Jose Abreu.
While Verlander was simply outstanding during the regular season, the Astros are built for the World Series, where Verlander historically has been disappointing. He entered the 2022 Fall Classic with a 0-6 career mark.
He gave up five runs in five innings in the Astros’ Game 1 loss this year. Verlander got a no-decision. In Game 5 the Astros were wringing their hands hoping he’d go five innings. Verlander gave up one run over five and the Astros won, 3-2, with JV getting his first Series win.
If you were building a team from scratch for 2023, who’d you rather have – Justin Verlander or 29-year-old, quality start machine Framber Valdez?
Verlander, age 40, will make $43 million next year. Valdez, a decade younger, will make one-fourth that. Valdez won both of his World Series starts in 2022.
Pitchers typically don’t get better and healthier after the big 4-0. Not $86 million better.
Of course, this is the Age of Stupid Money, in baseball. Last year, the Mets signed Max Scherzer for $130 million over three seasons. Scherzer won 11 games for the Mets in 2022 and got pummeled, seven runs in 4.2 innings, in his one postseason start.
The Texas Rangers just signed the supposed “best pitcher in baseball,” Jacob deGrom for $185 million over five seasons. Let’s go to the videotape, deGrom has pitched nine full seasons in the big leagues. His record is 82-57. That averages out to 9-6 per injury-riddled season. He was 5-4 last season. In his last three seasons, he’s won 5, 7, and 4 games. That’s worth $185 million? What’s that they say about the best ability … availability?
I know, deGrom has had startling earned run numbers over his career, when he actually gets on the mound. Charlie Pallilo and I have had a long-running argument. He says a pitcher’s value is based on earned run average and other statistics that can melt your mind. I say there’s only one stat that counts – wins. Jacob deGrom is not the best pitcher in baseball. The best pitcher last season was Justin Verlander, right up to the end. And then he wasn’t.
With the Astros “saving” $86 million over the next two years, they can focus on filling needs in the outfield. It will be easier to find money to keep Yuli Gurriel and Michael Brantley. The Astros can plan ahead for Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman becoming free agents after the 2024 season, and Kyle Tucker and Framber Valdez a year later. Those guys won’t come cheap.
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Astros betting big on their biggest advantage tonight
Jul 8, 2025, 12:03 pm
Adding a player of Kevin Durant’s caliber was too valuable an opportunity for the Houston Rockets to pass up, even though it meant moving on from Jalen Green just four seasons after they drafted him second overall.
Durant was officially acquired from Phoenix on Sunday in a complicated seven-team transaction that sent Green and Dillon Brooks to the Suns and brought Clint Capela back to Houston from the Hawks.
General manager Rafael Stone is thrilled to add the future Hall of Famer, who will turn 37 in September, to a team which made a huge leap last season to earn the second seed in the Western Conference.
Asked Monday why he wanted to add Durant to the team, Stone smiled broadly before answering.
“He’s Kevin Durant,” Stone said. “He’s just — he’s really good. He’s super-efficient. He had a great year last year. He’s obviously not 30 anymore, but he hasn’t really fallen off and we just think he has a chance to really be impactful for us.”
But trading Green to get him was not an easy decision for Stone, Houston’s general manager since 2020.
“Jalen’s awesome, he did everything we asked,” Stone said. “He’s a wonderful combination of talent and work ethic along with being just a great human being. And any time that you have the privilege to work with someone who is talented and works really hard and is really nice, you should value it. And organizationally we’ve valued him tremendously, so yeah very hard.”
Green was criticized for his up-and-down play during the postseason when the Rockets were eliminated by the Warriors in seven games in the first round. But Green had improved in each of his four seasons in Houston, leading the team in scoring last season and playing all 82 games in both of the past two seasons.
Pressed for details about why Green's time was up in Houston, Stone wouldn't get into specifics.
“It’s the NBA and you can only do trades if a certain amount of money goes out and a certain amount comes in and there’s some positional overlap or at least overlap in terms of on ball presence,” he said. “And so that’s what the deal required.”
In Durant, the Rockets get a veteran of almost two decades who averaged 26.6 points and six rebounds a game last season and has a career average of 27.2 points and seven rebounds.
Houston loves the veteran experience and presence that Durant brings. Stone noted that the team had arranged for some of its players to work out with him in each of the past two offseasons.
“His work ethic is just awesome,” Stone said. “The speed at which he goes, not in a game … but the speed at which he practices and the intensity at which he practices is something that has made him great over the years and it started when he was very young. So of all the things that I hope rubs off, that’s the main one I think is that practice makes perfect. And I think one of the reasons he’s had such an excellent career is because of the intensity with which he works day in day out.”
Durant is a 15-time All-Star and four-time scoring champion, who was the Finals MVP twice. The former Texas Longhorn is one of eight players in NBA history to score at least 30,000 points and he won NBA titles in 2017 and 2018 with the Warriors.
Now he’ll join a team chasing its first NBA title since winning back-to-back championships in 1994-95.
“Everything has to play out, but we do — we like the fit,” Stone said. “We think it works well. We think he will add to us and we think we will help him.”