JV needs to add another fastball , be it 2-seam or splitter or cutter . His breaking stuff is not good enough for him to get by as a solid pitcher in MLB right now His 93-95 straight fastball isn't good enough either. He needs to add more to the mix
I really hope he has success in sf. It would be painful to see him go out like he did at the end of last year.
JV has old school pride, I would not be shocked to see him go 13-3 with a sub 3 ERA....................I am rooting for him, when I look back I am somehow surprised at how long he was with us, I look at him as a true Astro even though I think he will go into the HOF with a Tiger hat.............but more importantly I will miss this
Justin Verlander accepted a trade to Houston when he didn’t have to. He was the Ace that boosted the Astros into believing they were just as talented as any team in the league. They stoped getting beat by fear and awe in the playoff, and started a dominant playoff stretch that’s been 8 years strong including 4 WS appearances. Thank you Justin.
In hindsight, the Astros not bringing Verlander back onto the team, was a bad move. With Verlander on the club, this would have definitely been a playoff playoff team. Sure nobody could have foreseen the starting pitchers breaking like fine china. Meanwhile Verlander has pitched a whopping 146 innings and has a 3.88 ERA. Nothing to scoff considering the paltry Astros starting pitching for the season.
If you count leadership so high then maybe it might have worked. Have seen few of his starts on this good run end of the season and stuff looked terrible everytime. Still no effort to implement new pitches, breaking balls just the same as always but with less velocity and spin. I would guess he had insane batted ball luck on this better run of results. Agree on the innings pitched is quite nice suprise. Love the guy but injuries, manager out of depth and rotten lazy clubhouse was not fixable with number 5 starter Verlander.
His ERA was equal to his FIP and his BAPIP was .310, so overall his results were aligned with the underlying numbers and he was not lucky on balls in play. He did a better job limiting home runs and harder hit balls than he had in the last few seasons. He added a sweeper this season, but didn’t throw it a ton.
Charlie Morton pitched his (presumably) last game today as well. JV CFM LMJ That was a hell of a rotation back when.
Morton’s ability to spin the ball was uncanny. He was so nasty, I was disappointed when we didnt retain him.
Maybe retaining any one of Morton, Cole, Verlander, even Kikuchi extends Astros run, or punches in another WS crown. Sure it's not our money. But has there been any recent season where the Astros couldn't have used the extra big arm the following season? Trading for the Zach Grienke's & Verlander again at trade deadline shows it was just correcting what they didn't resign
