Justin Verlander’s Inexorable March towards the Hall of Fame

Last night in Philadelphia, Justin Verlander got a big proverbial monkey off his back when he finally was the winning pitcher in a World Series game. With five innings of one-run ball, Verlander earned the win when the Houston Astros completed a 3-2 victory over the Phillies to take a 3-to-2 series lead in the Fall Classic. Before that start, Verlander had struggled this postseason after a brilliant comeback regular-season campaign. After missing virtually all of 2020 and 2021 due to Tommy John surgery, the 39-year-old Verlander returned to the mound this year and had one of the most brilliant campaigns of his 17-year career, going 18-4 with a 1.75 ERA, the lowest in all of Major League Baseball.

Earlier in this Fall Classic, Verlander was the Game 1 starter in Houston; the Astros gave him a 5-0 lead after three innings. Given that Verlander had only given up more than four runs twice in the 2022 regular season, a victory seemed assured. But the Phillies battered the Astros’ ace for 5 runs of their own in the 4th or 5th inning and wound up surprising Houston for a 6-5 victory thanks to a 10th-inning home run by catcher J.T. Realmuto. With the no-decision, Verlander’s World Series career World Series record stood at 0-6 with a 6.07 ERA; he was the only pitcher in the history of baseball to start at least eight World Series games without winning a game. That all changed last night. After giving up a leadoff home run by Kyle Schwarber, Verlander tossed five innings of scoreless ball before turning the game over to Houston bullpen, who hung on for the victory, putting the Astros one win away from a second World Series title.

“I can say I got one. It was one of the best feelings in my career. I just truly love these guys. I love this team. So many people were a part of this win. They rallied around me and they were almost just as happy that I got the win as I was. Just an incredible feeling. It feels great.”

— Justin Verlander (November 3, 2022)

As Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci noted, Verlander has won 260 games in his MLB career (including the postseason). This was the only one in which he lasted five innings, the minimum required for a win, while allowing eight baserunners and letting just one score. Verducci eloquently described Verlander’s performance this way: “It was like watching a circus acrobat ride across a tightrope on a unicycle: scary and thrilling at the same time, or also a bit like undergoing Tommy John surgery with almost 3,000 innings on your arm.”

The surgery that Verducci referred to was done late in 2020, the COVID-shortened season in which Verlander started just one game. That surgery caused Verlander to miss the entire 2021 season, although he actually started his throwing regimen on March 17, 2021, during spring training. Even at the age of 39, Verlander averaged 95.1 miles per hour on his fastball in 2022, actually a tick higher than he averaged in his 2019 Cy Young campaign, when he won 21 games, pitched his third no-hitter, struck out exactly 300 batters, and passed the 3,000 K mark for his career.

“After the surgery, this year I’ve been able to reach back a few times and get 99. I think that’s because the ligament is tight again. In a little bit of a way, it probably helped me, just to be able to perform like I am naturally gifted to. The offspeed stuff I think I’ve struggled a little bit. The slider I’ve been kind of working all year to keep it good.”

— Justin Verlander (in si.com, November 4, 2022)

The Astros will have two chances tomorrow or on Sunday to secure the World Championship. A few weeks later, the writers will vote on the Cy Young Award and Verlander is the odds-on favorite to win the award for the third time in his career. Given that Verlander led the American League in wins (with 18, against just 4 losses), ERA (a career-best 1.75), and WHIP (0.829), it would be a big surprise if he doesn’t get the nod. If he gets the award, he’ll be just the 11th pitcher in baseball history to win it three times: the others are either in the Hall of Fame, not in Cooperstown because of alleged PED use (Roger Clemens) or still-active (Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer).

In this piece, I’ll take you on a journey through the career of Justin Verlander and explain what may already be obvious, why he’s already a lock for the Hall of Fame.

Cooperstown Cred: Justin Verlander (SP)

• Detroit Tigers (2005-17), Houston Astros (2017-20, ’22)
• Career: 244-133 (.647 WL%), 3.24 ERA, 3,198 K
• Career: 9.1 SO/9 IP (7th best in MLB history with min 2,000 IP)
• 9-time All-Star
• Won 2011 A.L. Cy Young and MVP awards (24-6, 2.40 ERA, 250 K, 0.920 WHIP)
• Won the 2019 A.L. Cy Young Award (21-6, 2.58 ERA, 300 K, 0.803 WHIP)
• Top 5 in A.L. Cy Young Award voting 8 times (runner-up 3 times)
• 2006 A.L. Rookie of the Year (17-9, 3.63 ERA)
• Led A.L. in strikeouts five times
• MVP of 2017 ALCS (2-0, 0.56 ERA)
• Career WAR (Wins Above Replacement): 78.2 (better than 43 non-Negro League Hall of Fame SP)
• Career-adjusted ERA+: 132 (better than 52 non-Negro League Hall of Fame SP)

(cover photo: USA Today Sports/Bill Streicher)

This piece was originally published on August 20th, 2018, the day after Verlander won his 200th game. It is currently being updated to reflect Verlander’s 2022 regular season campaign and the postseason.

Career Highlights

Justin Verlander’s Early Years

Justin Brooks Verlander was born in 1983 in Manakin-Sabot, Virginia, an unincorporated community 15 miles northwest of Richmond consisting of the villages of Manakin and Sabot. A simple Google search lists the population of the villages at 4,724 people. Verlander was the older of two brothers; his younger brother Ben (born in 1992) was also a professional baseball player; he was a right fielder in the Detroit Tigers organization who was released in July 2017 in the middle of his third year of A-ball with the Lakeland Flying Tigers.

The older Verlander brother starred at Goochland High School and Old Dominion University (both in Virginia) before being the 1st round draft pick (#2 overall) of the Detroit Tigers in the 2004 Amateur Draft. Verlander didn’t sign until October, so he made his professional debut in 2005, his one and only season in minor league baseball. Pitching at Lakeland (in the Florida State League) and Erie (in the Eastern League), Verlander dominated the opposition, going 11-2 with a 1.29 ERA in 20 starts.

Verlander made his Major League Baseball debut with the Tigers in September 2005, losing both of his starts for outgoing manager Alan Trammell, who is a recently minted Hall of Famer.

Rookie of the Year in 2006

The 2005 Tigers were a 71-win ball club but, with a new manager in 2006 (veteran Jim Leyland), a stud rookie pitcher (Verlander), and a veteran free-agent hurler (Kenny Rogers), the 2006 edition made it all the way to the World Series. Returning to the squad was future Hall of Fame catcher Ivan Rodriguez.

Verlander, in 30 starts in his rookie campaign, went 17-9 with a 3.63 ERA, which was good enough to earn him A.L. Rookie of the Year honors while placing him 7th in the A.L. Cy Young vote and 15th in the MVP vote.

As a team the Tigers, winners of 95 games, were the A.L. Central’s runner-up (to the 96-win Minnesota Twins), making them the Wild Card entry for the league. The Tigers defeated the New York Yankees and Oakland Athletics in the ALDS and ALCS, advancing to the World Series against Tony La Russa’s St. Louis Cardinals. Verlander would go on to become a future post-season star but, as a 23-year-old rookie, was on the losing end of both Games 1 and 5 of the Fall Classic, a harbinger of the one blemish in his illustrious career.

The decisive blow in Game 1 came in the form of a 2-run 4th inning home run off the bat of Cardinals’ great Albert Pujols. Ultimately, the Redbirds prevailed in 5 games. All in all, Verlander went 1-2 with a 5.82 ERA in 4 October starts in ’06.

An Ace Starter Emerges:

Verlander followed up his Rookie of the Year campaign with an equally dominant 2007, going 18-6 with a 3.66 ERA, which was good enough to place the young right-hander in 5th place in the Cy Young vote. Verlander made his first All-Star team in 2007 and pitched his first no-hitter.

After a mediocre 2008 campaign (11-17, 4.84 ERA), the pride of Old Dominion rebounded with a brilliant season in 2009. Now 26, Verlander led the majors with 19 wins, 240 innings pitched, and 269 strikeouts. Along with a 3.45 ERA, JV finished 3rd in the Cy Young vote behind Zack Greinke and Felix Hernandez. The 269 K’s, 86 better than his previous career best, was the first of nine seasons with 200 or more whiffs for the hard-throwing righty.

Verlander followed up 2009 with an 18-9 record (3.37 ERA) in 2010.

2011-2012: Best Pitcher in Baseball

The Tigers didn’t make the playoffs in the four seasons between 2007-2010 but returned to October baseball in 2011, thanks to the best season of Justin Verlander’s career. Now 28 years old, Verlander went 24-5 with a 2.40 ERA. He led the majors in wins, innings pitched (251), strikeouts (250), WHIP (0.920), and park-adjusted ERA+ (172). In May, he tossed the 2nd no-hitter of his career.

With those numbers, JV was the unanimous choice for the Cy Young Award and edged the Red Sox’ Jacoby Ellsbury and the Jays’ Jose Bautista to pick up the MVP Award as well, the first pitcher to do it since Roger Clemens in 1986.

Led by Verlander and another future Hall of Famer, first baseman Miguel Cabrera, Leyland’s Tigers returned to October baseball. Still, despite the dominant regular season campaign, Verlander struggled again in the post-season. In four starts, JV posted a 5.31 ERA while winning two of those starts.

The Tigers wound up beating the Yankees in 5 games but fell 4 Games to 2 to the Texas Rangers in the ALCS.

In 2012, Verlander didn’t win the Cy Young or MVP but had almost as good a season as in 2011. He went 17-8 with a 2.64 ERA, again leading the majors with 239 K’s and a 161 ERA+. He finished 2nd in the Cy Young voting to Tampa Bay’s David Price but had superior numbers in WAR, ERA+, and WHIP; Price’s 20 victories gave him the award.

A Post-Season Ace Emerges Except…

The Tigers only won 88 regular season games in 2012 but that was good enough to win the A.L. Central and return to October baseball. It was in this season that the 29-year-old hurler became a post-season ace. In Game 1 of the ALDS (against the Oakland A’s), Verlander gave up just 1 run on 3 hits with 11 strikeouts in 7 innings of work, good enough for a 3-1 Tiger win. In the “win or go home” Game 5, Verlander upped his game, tossing a complete game 4-hit shutout while striking out another 11 A’s.

Matched up once again with the New York Yankees (this time in the ALCS), Verlander won Game 3 by tossing 8.1 innings of 3-hit, 1-run ball. This was part of a 4-game sweep over the Bronx Bombers.

In the World Series, the Tigers faced the San Francisco Giants and, at least in Game 1, were heavily favored because of the pitching matchup (Verlander against the Giants’ Barry Zito). Between his last 4 regular season starts and 3 starts in October, Verlander had posted a 0.69 ERA in his last 52.1 innings.

So, in the first inning at AT&T Park in San Francisco, Verlander started by getting the first two Giants to ground out. Then, the third batter (3rd baseman Pablo Sandoval), stroked a 95-mile-per-hour 0-2 pitch over the center field wall for a solo home run. So, this was just a blip, right? Verlander retired the next 6 batters.

However, in the third inning, Angel Pagan hit a ground ball double to left, Marco Scutaro hit a ground ball single to center and the Kung Fu Panda hit an opposite-field 3-run tater to give the Giants a 4-0 lead. The game was essentially over and the Giants wound up sweeping the series. At this point in his career, Verlander had an 0-3 record with a 7.20 ERA in his three World Series starts.

Justin Verlander’s Tough Times

Verlander started to feel pain in his pitching arm during the 2013 season. He still had a respectable campaign (13-12, 3.46) but it was not up to the “best pitcher in baseball” standard he had set in the previous two seasons.

Still, after the 2013 season, which included his sixth All-Star berth in eight seasons and three superb post-season starts (giving up just one run in 23 innings), Verlander seemed like he was on a glide path to the Hall of Fame.

However, an injury while working out in December 2013 resulted in the need for core muscle surgery and he just wasn’t right in either 2014 or 2015. He was flat-out mediocre in 2014 (posting a 4.54 ERA in 206 innings) and missed much of 2015, in which he went 5-8 with a 3.38 ERA in 133.1 innings. Not that anyone was feeling sorry for him, with a $28 million annual income and a girlfriend (now wife) named Kate Upton.

For more on Verlander’s injury and how Upton helped him through those tough times, I recommend this Bleacher Report piece.

The Road Back to Dominance

Anyway, if Verlander had remained the mediocre pitcher that he was in 2014 and 2015, it’s unlikely that Cooperstown would ever have come calling. At his best, Verlander was always the guy who managed to save a few bullets late in his starts where he could approach 100 miles per hour but, after that core muscle surgery, he wasn’t the same, his average fastball velocity declining to 93 MPH in 2014 from a high of 96 in 2011.

In 2016, however, Verlander’s fastball velocity started creeping back up. Although used infrequently, he also developed a cutter and started using his slider more. In his 2011 MVP campaign, according to his FanGraphs page, he threw his slider 8.6% of the time. By 2016, he was featuring his slider 17.1% of the time. In 2017, he used it on 21.1% of all pitches thrown, all while maintaining his curveball but de-emphasizing his change-up.

In 2019, Verlander has upped his slider usage to 28%, compared to 50% fastballs (a career low) and 17% curve balls. Now healthy, Verlander’s average fastball velocity remained at about 95 MPH from 2016-219.

For those four years, Verlander once again showed something approaching his 2011 form, the form that made him a dual MVP/Cy Young Award winner. In 2016, he went 16-9 with a 3.04 ERA and finished 2nd in the A.L. Cy Young voting. He fell back a bit in the first five months of 2017 (a 3.83 ERA in 28 starts with Detroit) but the deadline trade from the rebuilding Tigers to the contending Houston Astros rejuvenated the hard-throwing righty. In five starts with Houston, Verlander went 5-0 with a 1.06 ERA.

An October to Remember

What Justin Verlander did in October 2017 was the stuff that builds legends and cements legacies that end with plaques in Cooperstown. In Game 1 of the A.L. Division Series (against the Boston Red Sox), Verlander out-pitched Chris Sale, leading the Astros to an easy 8-2 victory. Verlander also won Game 4, coming out of the bullpen to pitch 2.1 innings in relief of Charlie Morton, getting the win (rather than the save) after giving up a 2-run HR to the first batter he faced, Andrew Benintendi.

The game that will likely be the signature moment when looking back at his long career was Game 2 of the ALCS against the New York Yankees. In his classic, Verlander channeled his inner Jack Morris and threw 9 innings of one-run ball, giving up 5 hits while striking out 13 and walking just one batter. After Verlander’s 124-pitch effort, the Astros won Game 2 in the bottom of the 9th.

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Subsequently, Houston also won Game 6 behind Verlander’s 7 innings of shutout ball. Verlander was the MVP of the Astros’ 7-Game ALCS series win, going 2-0 with a 0.56 ERA. In 16 innings, JV gave up 1 run on 10 hits, striking out 21 batters while walking just 2.

The Astros would go on to win the franchise’s first-ever World Championship by defeating the Los Angeles Dodgers in 7 games. In the series, Verlander was effective but not quite as dominant, giving up 5 runs in 12 innings of work, lowering his career Fall Classic ERA to 5.67. Regardless, without his two superlative starts in the ALCS, the city of Houston would not have been able to celebrate a Fall Classic win.

More of the Same in 2018 & 2019

In 2018, Justin Verlander followed up his two months of brilliance with the Astros by authoring a campaign that put him 2nd in the Cy Young balloting to Tampa Bay’s Blake Snell. Verlander went 16-9 with a 2.52 ERA while fanning a career-high 290 batters and posting a league-best 0.902 WHIP (walks plus hits per 9 innings).

On August 19th in Oakland, Verlander picked up his 12th win of the season and 200th of his MLB career. In today’s sabermetric world, pitcher wins are becoming increasingly devalued as a meaningful statistic. But don’t tell that to Justin Verlander:

“I’ve always said that I still believe in the win. That’s why we play games: to win them. To be able to get a win as a starting pitcher is a special accolade. Each time I win one now, I appreciate it more and more.”

— Justin Verlander (Houston Chronicle, August 19, 2018)

In October, Verlander’s postseason got off to a good start but didn’t have the same happy ending. After wins in Game 1 of the ALDS (against Cleveland) and Game 1 of the ALCS (against Boston), JV was out-pitched by the Red Sox David Price in the series-deciding Game 5 of that series.

2019: Verlander Sees 300/3,000

In 2019, on the second to last day of the 162-game regular season, Justin Verlander struck out the 3,000th batter of his career. Verlander struck out Kole Calhoun on a 88 MPH slider in the dirt for K #3,000. The veteran right-hander became just the 18th hurler in baseball history to reach that milestone.

Verlander’s 3,000th strikeout wasn’t exactly how you draw it up in Hollywood. Calhoun reached first base on a wild pitch because catcher Robinson Chirinos couldn’t handle the ball in the dirt. Calhoun scored when the next batter, Andrelton Simmons, homered to left-center field.

But Verlander wasn’t done with Calhoun. In the bottom of the 6th inning, he blew a fastball by the Angels’ right fielder for his 12th strikeout of the game and his 300th of the season. This time, Chirinos held on. In one night, JV hit two milestones. Just two innings after becoming the 18th pitcher with 3,000 K’s, he became the 19th since 1901 to log at least 300 in a season. Verlander is also the oldest pitcher in modern baseball history (since 1901) to notch 300 K’s in a campaign for the first time.

A Season to Remember

The 2019 campaign was quite a season for Justin Verlander. Prior to the night of his 3,000th whiff, he won his 20th game in his second to last start of the season on the previous Sunday in Houston. It was the 2nd time in his career Verlander has been credited with 20 victories. The win against the Angels gave him 21, the most in MLB this season.

In addition, earlier in the month, on September 1st, nearly exactly two years after being acquired from the Tigers, Verlander tossed the third no-hitter of his career. Verlander, facing the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre, faced one batter more than the minimum, walking just one against 14 strikeouts in a 120-pitch masterpiece. With his third career no-no, Verlander became only the second pitcher (after Nolan Ryan) to author three such starts in the last 50 years. He joined Ryan, Sandy Koufax, Bob Feller, Cy Young, and 19th-century hurler Larry Corcoran as the only pitchers to toss at least three no-hitters in their careers.

In the playoffs, in Houston’s third straight postseason party with JV in an Astros uniform, the veteran ace got off to a great start, throwing 7 innings of scoreless ball in Game 1 of the ALDS against the Tampa Bay Rays.

After that, perhaps running out of gas after a long season, Verlander went 0-4 in 5 starts with a 5.40 ERA. He lost both of his starts in the World Series, a 7-game series loss to the Washington Nationals, dropping his career Fall Classic record to 0-6 with a 5.68 ERA.

After the season, Verlander was rewarded with his 2nd Cy Young Award trophy. In a close vote, Verlander received 17 first-place votes (out of 30) to edge out his teammate Gerrit Cole to claim his 2nd Cy. The 13 writers who voted for Cole to win the award all listed Verlander in 2nd place. Overall, Verlander finished the 2019 regular season with a 21-6 record and a 2.58 ERA; he logged an MLB-best 223 innings and struck out 300 batters.

2020 & 2021: The Lost Seasons

The 2019-2020 offseason was a tumultuous one for the Houston Astros. In January, Major League Baseball announced that manager A.J. Hinch and General Manager Jeff Luhnow would be suspended for the entire season due to the scandal about the team’s sign-stealing scheme which may have helped the Astros win that first World Series title in 2017. The team officially fired both men one hour after MLB’s ruling. A few weeks later, the Astros hired veteran skipper Dusty Baker to replace Hinch in the dugout, a move made as much for Baker’s experience as for the goodwill he has throughout the sport.

Anyway, still on the top of his game at age 36 and with 225 career victories, Justin Verlander came to spring training as arguably the one pitcher in baseball with the best chance to eventually reach 300 wins. But, as it would turn out, the veteran righthander would only start one game in the entirety of 2020 & 2021. Initially, more than half of the 2020 campaign was lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When the season finally began, Verlander was Houston’s Opening Day on July 24th against the Seattle Mariners. Verlander gave up two runs in six innings and earned his 226th career victory. A few days later, however, it was discovered that Houston’s ace had a forearm strain.

For several weeks, Verlander and the Astros hoped that he would return but, in mid-September, it was announced that he would miss the rest of the season and undergo Tommy John surgery, which also caused him to miss the 2021 campaign, realistically ending any hopes at 300 career victories.

As we’ve already chronicled, Verlander had a remarkable comeback season in 2021 (18-4, 1.75 ERA), one which will likely result in his third Cy Young Award.

Will Justin Verlander make the Hall of Fame?

Despite the disappointing finish in October 2019 and the lost seasons of 2020 and 2021, Justin Verlander’s 2019 campaign, with his 21 wins and 300 strikeouts, his 3,000th career whiff, and third career no-hitter, added multiple building blocks to the foundation of his Hall of Fame resume.

While becoming just the 18th pitcher to log those 3,000th strikeouts, he became the 9th to accomplish the feat before his 37th birthday.

The question here is whether he’s already earned his Cooperstown plaque. It’s a question that has an answer that seems more and more obvious every day.

First, let’s see how he ranks among the pitchers of his generation. I’m going to define the “Verlander” generation as pitchers born between 1978 and 1988 (since JV was born in 1983). There are 11 pitchers in that group who have accumulated a pitching WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of at least 42.0.

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Clayton Kershaw tops in every “rate” stat (including many not shown) by a mile and will be an obvious first-ballot selection. From the rest, it’s pretty clear to me that Verlander is the second strongest candidate, although former teammate Max Scherzer (he of the 3 Cy Youngs) may surpass him.

Note: Zack Greinke has a total career WAR of 76.4. Because he’s spent most of 2011-19 pitching in the National League. Greinke had to bat in the vast majority of his starts. He is in fact quite a good hitter for a pitcher, with a career .225 BA. For that, he’s earned 5.1 WAR as a batter along his with 71.4 WAR on the mound. On Baseball Reference “play index” leaderboards, only pitching WAR is shown. 

Justin Verlander’s Career: 244 Wins, 132 ERA+, 3,198 Strikeouts

Let’s look at this another way: Verlander has thrown 3,163 career innings; he’s now won 244 games with an ERA+ of 132 while striking out 3,198 batters.

There are two pitchers in the history of baseball who are NOT in the Hall of Fame and have 225+ wins, an ERA+ of 125 or better, and over 2,500 strikeouts. Those two are Roger Clemens and Justin Verlander. Obviously, Clemens would be in already if not for his PED taint.

If you lower the standard to 215 wins, Curt Schilling would also be on this list. Schilling was on the BBWAA ballot for 10 years and got 71.1% of the vote for 2021 before sagging to 58.6% this January, likely because he told the writers he no longer wanted their vote. In retirement, Schilling has become a controversial figure for his political views. His Twitter habits have likely kept him out of Cooperstown; I’m fairly certain that will change in the next few years. He certainly deserves a plaque.

Here is where Verlander’s career statistics rank, compared to those already enshrined in the Hall of Fame (excluding those who pitched in the Negro Leagues, due to the statistical record being incomplete):

• 244 Wins (behind 41 Hall of Fame starters, ahead of 26 others)
• 3,198 Strikeouts (behind 10 Hall of Fame starters, ahead of 57 others)
• 132 ERA+ (behind 14 Hall of Fame starters, tied with Greg Maddux, ahead of 52 others)
• 78.2 WAR (behind 24 Hall of Fame starters, ahead of 43 others)
• 3.63 SO/BB ratio (behind only Pedro Martinez & John Ward, ahead of 65 Hall of Fame starters)
• 1.117 WHIP (walks + hits per inning) (behind 11 Hall of Fame starters, ahead of 56 others)

This looks pretty good for Justin Verlander, methinks.

A Comparison to Mike Mussina and Roy Halladay

Let’s do one final comparison now: in 2019, two of the six inductees to the Hall of Fame were Mike Mussina was the late Roy Halladay, who did not appear on the previous chart because he was born in 1977. Mussina, a 270-game winner for the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees, was on the BBWAA ballot for the 6th time. Halladay, the ace right-hander for the Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies, who tragically died in a plane crash in the fall of 2017, was a first-ballot Cooperstown inductee. Halladay and Mussina are the two most recent inductees to be granted Cooperstown plaques by the writers (Jim Kaat was elected by the Eras Committee last December).

How does Justin Verlander stand up statistically to Mussina and Halladay?

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As you can, Verlander compares quite favorably to Mussina and Halladay. Mussina has a clear advantage in overall volume because he remained healthy for his entire career, but JV was clearly the more dominant hurler.

As for Halladay, there are many similarities with Verlander:

• Both pitchers authored at least two no-hitters (with Halladay getting both in 2010, including Game 1 of the NLDS)
• Both hurlers have 2 Cy Young Awards (with Verlander likely to get a 3rd in a few weeks)
• Halladay made 8 All-Star squads; Verlander has also made98 so far.

Halladay’s case has one key advantage: he authored 67 complete games and 20 shutouts, compared to JV’s 26 CGs and 9 shutouts.

Verlander’s case has another key advantage: a greater body of post-season work, including the World Series title he was instrumental in delivering to Houston in 2017. Also, obviously, the 39-year-old Verlander will be returning to the mound in 2023. Shoulder woes prematurely ended Halladay’s career at the age of 36.

What’s the point of this boring story? The point is that the writers voted in Halladay this January with 85.4% of the vote and Mussina with 76.7% of the vote. If Roy Halladay deserved to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 2019, so does Justin Verlander six years after he retires.

Conclusion

In the 2021 version of The Bill James Handbook, the sabermetric pioneer of the same name, in revealing his new “Hall of Fame Monitor,” has Justin Verlander over the line already when it comes to the accomplishments that voters tend to reward. Verlander has accumulated 166 Hall of Fame “points” on James’ scale about who will get into the Hall, not necessarily who should. On this scale, 100 makes you a likely Hall of Famer. (JV’s “monitor points” brilliant 2022 campaign isn’t known yet, but his “score” will go up significantly.

About our current subject, James wrote (after the 2017 campaign), “I assume Verlander is in, although it will help him if he coasts past 200 career wins.” Well, since James wrote that line, Verlander has won a World Series and three pennants, coasted to 244 wins, won 20+ games for the 2nd time, reached the 3,000 strikeout plateau, and has added a third no-hitter. The question for JV now is where he will wind up among baseball’s all-time greats.

Unless there’s some unforeseeable scandal in his future, I now estimate Justin Verlander’s Hall of Fame odds at 100%. He’ll almost certainly get a richly deserved plaque in Cooperstown.

Thanks for reading.

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