The Verlander Trade Means the Astros Have Decided to Focus on 2023 and 2024
By trading some of the team's best prospects, Jim Crane has made it clear the Astros are all in on '23 and '24, and will figure out '25 and beyond later.
The Astros traded for Justin Verlander at the deadline. The last time they did this, the season ended like this.
So if the pattern repeats itself….
Yesterday, the Astros acquired Verlander and a lot of cash to cover his salary (more on that later) in exchange for two of the teams top prospects—Drew Gilbert and Ryan Clifford. The trade shows that owner Jim Crane is all in on winning another World Series his season or next season. It also shows the Crane has made a choice to focus on the 2023 and 2024 seasons at the expense of the team’s future in 2025 and beyond.
That choice is absolutely justifiable. And some might say it is wise. At the end of the 2024 season, both Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman will be free agents. Verlander and closer Ryan Presley have vesting options, so they could be free agents after that season, too. All four are older players at this point, so one would certainly expect that these four will give less production in 2025 than they did last season. Heck, three of the four have produced less well in 2023 than they did last season.
Regardless of how well or poorly these four play in in the rest of 2023 and 2024. Gilbert represented the teams best opportunity to develop a young (i.e. cost controlled) regular for 2025 from its current set of minor leaguers. Clifford, a younger prospect, had a chance to establish himself by 2025 or 2026. They obviously will not do so for the Astros now.
In short, there are lots of reasons to believe that the Astros need to go for it in 2023 and 2024. And the move for Verlander shows that Jim Crane agrees with that analysis.
Meeting the Need for a Playoff Starter
As I wrote in my trade deadline preview, the Astros had a clear need for a starting pitcher. Lance McCullers and Luis Garcia have suffered season ending injuries. Jose Urquidy has been injured most of the season, and is, at peak, a mid-tier pitcher. JP France has been a revelation, taking over one of the rotation spots left vacant by the injuries, but France's inability to strike out batters (13th percentile strike out rate) leaves him vulnerable to the vagaries of BABIP luck. To this point, he has overcome that. But I do not trust that he will do so in October.
Verlander slots in ss one of the team’s Top 4 starters in a playoff series and, if the Astros end up as a wild card and need to play a three-game series, he is certain to be one of those three pitchers.
How Diminished is 2023 Verlander?
How good is Verlander? Well, most Astros fans, of course, remember his last two full seasons with the team in 2019 and 2022. He won the Cy Young Award in both seasons, sandwiched around Tommy John Surgery. In his first tenure with the Astros, Verlander was able to stave off the effects of aging and was one of the most effective—if not the most effective—pitcher in Major League Baseball.
Verlander has not been that good this season. Verlander suffered a back injury at the end of Spring Training which delayed his season debut. Since returning to the rotation, Verlander has struck out batters at the second lowest rate of his career. He has also walked more batters this year than he did in his tenure with the Astros (8.0% this season vs. 4.5% with the Astros). In short, Verlander has not been as sharp as we remember him from his last time in an Astro.
Mike Petriello of MLB.com tweeted out Verlander’s K% over his career and said he was “not *not* worried about this.”
There is good news though in reviewing Verlander stats from 2023. In July. Verlander was one of the top pitchers in the National League, particularly when it came to limiting hard contact. Jayson Stark of The Athletic Tweeted that Verlander was second in the National League in OPS allowed and third in Opponent Batting Average in July.
Friend of the Substack Dan Martin of the Crawfish Boxes also pointed out that Verlander’s strikeout rate has been increasing throughout the season. Though, I will add, not to the level he had with the Astros, which was 33.1%
These numbers provide hope that Verlander’s struggles early this season were mostly a function of the injury. And even though he had returned to the majors, his body had not fully healed. As it has gotten healthier, his performance has improved.
Of course, Verlander is 40 years old. Injury concerns always exist for pitchers, but they particularly exist for pitchers of that age. And Verlander’s worst seasons—2014 in Detroit and this season—have both been tied to him recovering from muscle injuries.
With that being all that being said. Verlander, of course, provides an upgrade to the rotation. It bounces Branon Bielak back to Sugar Land, and that is a definite improvement.
And with Jose Urquidy expected to return to the active roster this week, the Astros can go to a six man rotation. Doing so will allow the team to limit the innings of starters like Hunter Brown and Christian Javier. Even if Verlander isn't going to win this young award, he still represents a clear improvement over the alternatives we have seen.
A Significant Cost in Prospects
The biggest issue with the Verlander trade is the cost. It is not the cost of what Jim Crane will have to pay for Verlander. The cost is in the two prospects the Astros had to send to the Mets—Drew Gilbert and Ryan Clifford. Both were drafted in the 2022 draft and both had shown their promise in the minor leagues. The Astros farm system is thin, but these two seem to be strong candidates to make the major leagues. Gilbert, who had reached AA Corpus Christi earlier this season, seemed to be a candidate to play in Minute Maid Park in the 2024 season. Clifford was drafted out of high school in 2022 was on a longer timeline, but again both had shown promise in a farm system where only a handful of players had done them.
Whatever promise these two have to be, major players will. now be realized by the Mets. The Astros have built their dynasty by creating a player development machine that constantly produces young, cost-controlled players who take the place of more expensive veterans. The Astros can still do this, but Jim Crane has made this task—which is already difficult—even harder.
There are two reasons that the Astros had to send good prospects to the Mets for Verlander. The first is that the Mets were not obligated to trade Verlander and thus, needed significant prospects to deal him. And the second is that Mets owner Steve Cohen used his financial might to buy Gilbert and Clifford. The Mets sent $35 millon to the Astros as part of the deal. This will make the Astros obligation to Verlander in 2023 about $17 million. That takes Verlander’s contract down from the highest per season contract in baseball history to matching what the Rangers paid Nathan Eovaldi this offseason.
That Jim Crane was able to save some money is not anything that should matter to an Astros fan who is not a Crane heir. But one can—and should—hope that the savings on Verlander and the decision to focus on 2023 and 2024 will compel the Astros to be aggressive this offseason in addressing their needs in left field and in the bullpen.
All-In on 2023 and 2024
The choice by Crane to focus on 2023 and 2024 does not mean the window closes in 2025. The Astros do have long term assets. Yordan Alvarez and Christian Javier are signed through 2028 and 2027 respectively. Jeremy Pena is not a free agent until after the 2027 season; Chas McCormick until after 2026. And Kyle Tucker? He's not a free agent till after 2025.
Of course, key players like Altuve and Bregman are on shorter timeline. The front office will have to decide what to do in second base and third base in the near future. Whatever they do is likely to be expensive. There do not seem to be options in the farm system to take over those two positions—and Gilbert, an outfielder, and Clifford, who seems likely to end up at first base—would not have addressed that issue.
The front office had a number of choices on how to deal with the team’s post 2024 future and today staked out a clear path. It’s all in on 2023 and 2024 and will figure out 2025 at a later date.
The future always has value, but for the Astros, the present has a lot of value. The team is one of the handful of best in the majors. It is not a favorite to win the World Series in 2023 but has one of the better chances to do so. And unlike in recent seasons, the Astros are in a race to win the AL West. Winning the division is not just about bragging rights, but about winning a bye to the Division Series, eliminating one more short short playoff series. And since each playoff series is essentially a coin flip, the fewer times you have to go through that, the better your chances are.
Yesterday’s trade sets a clear direction for the franchise in the next two seasons. Let’s hope they—and the baseball gods—pay off that decision this or next October.