UTK Short 11/22/22

Verlander is not Ryan

The easy comparison for Justin Verlander is Nolan Ryan. Except, as Tom House will regularly remind people, no one else was Nolan Ryan.

Verlander came back from Tommy John surgery and functionally two years off as good as ever. Some of this was “well rested and fresh”, but most was that he prepared himself well. His first season without Brent Strom went well, but many say that he basically had access to the same data, just not the same interpretations. Verlander never fell out of whack, so the coaching wasn’t really needed, even at the end of the season when he did seem to be wearing down.

The issue is that heading into an age-40 season, Verlander doesn’t have that many comps. Baseball Reference (SFSBIC*) has him with Tim Hudson and previous close age-comps are Zack Greinke, Mike Mussina, and Kevin Brown. At this age, there’s simply not many comps who aren’t also great or at least very, very good. While you can’t convince me that Pedro Martinez or CC Sabathia have any real comp aside from greatness and profession, they’re there also.

Nolan Ryan? Nowhere to be seen. So I’m forced to make a little chart:

VERL RYAN ###

K 3198 5714 4138
WAR 78.1 83.6 60.2
ERA+ 132 112 111

The third column is Ryan’s career over the same period that Verlander has played, ages 22 through 39. Ryan had two seasons before, then seven after - his entire Texas Rangers stay! The strikeouts are simply incomparable, but everything else tilts to Verlander. Ryan’s value went up on longevity, but it’s hard to say that Verlander couldn’t play another handful of years, or decide to equal Ryan.

Sure, that’s unlikely, but if I showed you Tom Brady’s career in 2015 would you have thought he’d still be playing in 2022? Pitchers and athletes in general have the opportunity to play longer. Verlander had Tommy John, costing himself a season, while Ryan refused, pitched another decade, and then eventually had it pop, walking away.

The young guns simply haven’t been as good, which is really odd to me. Verlander, Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom - all mid-30s or later, all among the top velocity guys and they didn’t come up in the post-Driveline era. (That’s for another newsletter and we’ve barely seen that era crack the majors yet.) To be in the Statcast top 100 for average fastball, you have to throw 96. I’d love to know how many guys touched 96 just a decade ago, but I’ll guarantee you it wasn’t 100.

With Verlander technically a free agent, but more likely to return to the Astros on a deal approaching the Scherzer contract, there’s some risk and likely some opportunity cost to the deal. The Astros can afford more, but if we put them in their general context as well as a league reluctant to test luxury tax thresholds, the team could end up a victim of its success.

With Ryan Pressly and the inexplicable Rafael Montero both signed to multi-year deals, virtually every other key pitcher is in the arb window. There’s going to be some big raises in there, but they have room for that. They could do longer-term deals with Cristian Javier or more, or even jettison Lance McCullers to save some room, but that deal is the baseline for the younger pitchers coming behind and shouldn’t be seen as a failure due to McCullers’ injury issues.

The Astros aren’t scared to let players walk, but they’ll have to make some smart decisions as they hit a period that should be a bit problematic for the farm, as the gap without high picks hits. They still have a good number of players coming, including Hunter Brown and Pedro Leon, but there’s less gaps to fill and more roster construction theory to be tested. Starting with Verlander at the top is likely the smartest way to optimize that roster, even if he’s not Nolan Ryan. (He’s better.)

*SFSBIC is “Sean Forman Should Be In Cooperstown.” The slogan needs workshopped.