“It was one of the first questions Buster asked me: ‘What are you doing? Do you still have a passion?” Verlander said on a video conference call Monday. “It’s a great question and I think I gave him a really long answer, longer than he intended on me giving him. But I think you can tell that the passion’s still there, the fire’s still burning.”
Verlander, whose one-year, $15 million deal with the Giants became official Saturday, will turn 42 next month. He is coming off arguably the roughest season of his decorated career, one in which he went 7-10 with a 5.48 ERA and missed time with shoulder and neck issues. He already owns a résumé that will send him to Cooperstown after his playing career ends.
Yet on Monday, Verlander made it clear he does not consider the latter outcome imminent. The right-hander who is entering his 20th major-league season — and spent parts of his past seven with the Astros — voiced optimism about his ability to bounce back from his 2024 struggles and reiterated his long-held intent to pitch to an age few reach.
“I’m really viewing my past year’s issues as a potential to send me down the path I want to go down to finish my career and be able to play to 45 or more,” Verlander said.
Verlander declined to say if the Astros were among a “handful” of teams that reached out with interest this winter. Astros general manager Dana Brown told an ESPN podcast in November the team had “had conversations” with Verlander’s agent “just to try to feel him out,” but Houston’s lone rotation addition this offseason has been Hayden Wesneski, acquired in the trade of Kyle Tucker to the Cubs.
In his first Astros tenure from 2017-22, Verlander won two Cy Young awards — on either side of a Tommy John surgery — and two World Series titles and threw his third career no-hitter. He left in free agency for a two-year deal with the Mets prior to the 2023 season, but Houston re-acquired him at that year’s trade deadline. Overall, he owns a 73-28 record and 2.71 ERA in 130 regular-season starts with the Astros.
“I’ve had a phenomenal ride with Houston,” Verlander said Monday. “It’s been a hell of a chapter in my career. The second chapter coming back from New York wasn’t what I would have hoped. When I got traded back, I felt like I pitched pretty well to help them get to the playoffs (in 2023). But really last year left a sour taste in my mouth — not with the organization, just with myself. I hold myself to a high standard that I want to pitch to. …
“I wish I had pitched better last year. I wish the injuries hadn’t happened. But look, man, I’m not somebody that lives in the past. I’ve had just, like I said, a phenomenal run in Houston. And if that’s done, it’s done. Never know what’s going to happen. Obviously, I never would have forecasted going back as quickly as I did. So you never want to close a chapter on anything in this game. But this new chapter I couldn’t be more excited about, man.
“I can’t tell you how … exciting it is for me when you can tell the energy of not only the organization, but a lot of the players that reached out and how excited they are to have me here. Not that it wasn’t exciting to be in Houston, but I’ve been there for seven or eight years now, so everybody knows me, you kind of lose that a little bit. So just having the guys reach out and everybody I’ve spoken to, especially once the deal was done, telling me how excited they are, means a lot.”
The Giants, who finished fourth in the NL West last year, made an earlier splash in free agency by signing shortstop Willy Adames and will add Verlander to a rotation led by Logan Webb and Robbie Ray. Verlander acknowledged he joins a difficult division but said he sees the Giants as a team with “a lot of upside that maybe is a little bit overlooked.” Posey said the Giants did not consider Verlander merely a valuable influence for their younger pitchers.
“First and foremost, we all see this guy pitching at the top of the rotation and being very, very good,” Posey said. “That’s our hope; I know that’s his hope and expectation as well.”
In light of his injuries last year, Verlander said he changed his offseason program and is “feeling great” at this point. Verlander began last season on the injured list with a shoulder injury that he termed a “capsule issue” Monday. In a career first, he said, he never stopped throwing this winter and is “miles ahead” of where he was this time last year. Verlander said he thinks the neck injury that cost him more than two months reflected an underlying issue and hopes it was a “blessing in disguise” that helped him address it.
Verlander will begin next season 10th on the all-time strikeouts list and the active leader in wins with 262. He made a vague reference Monday to a remaining milestone “that is kind of a no-brainer that I would like to achieve” — surely 300 wins, a mark that would likely require him to pitch several more seasons. Asked his goal for the upcoming year, Verlander replied: “I think personally, proving that I still have it.
“I wouldn’t be coming back and playing — I’ve accomplished enough in my career — I wouldn’t be back if I didn’t think I could be great,” Verlander said. “I really, truly believe that the experiences I had last year and leading into this year, I can be back to the pitcher I was not all that long ago when I won a Cy Young.
“I still feel like I have something to give. And if I still feel like that, then I want to play, simple as that.”
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