Justin Verlander (twitter photo)
Photo: Justin Verlander's Twitter page
Perhaps if you step back and take a deep breath, and set emotions aside, you'll come to the same conclusion as Detroit News baseball writer Lynn Henning: The Justin Verlander trade is good for everyone.
As much as you can score a trade in the early hours of Friday, it looks as if three parties won Thursday night.
The Tigers, Astros, and Justin Verlander all agreed, one minute before midnight’s deadline, to a trade that sends a man of royal Detroit sports blood to Houston and, more important for Verlander, to October’s playoffs where he so often has been radiant.
The Tigers are trying to reconstruct a baseball roster in Detroit and needed young bodies. They got three potential stars from the Astros in pitcher Franklin Perez, center fielder Daz Cameron, and catcher Jake Rogers. They are, respectively, 19, 20, and 22 years old, and all were top 11 prospects in a rich Astros farm system.
The Astros, of course, have a fabulous big-league team that needs but one element, a rotation pillar, which Verlander figures to be as he continues at age 34 to look more like the snarling, fire-wielding, get-out-of-here ace he was during the Tigers past playoff heyday.
But he needed to sign off on Thursday’s deal. Initially, he balked, for reasons known to Verlander. With the midnight candle almost snuffed, Verlander finally said yes to a trade that should offer flood-ravaged Houston a measure of glee as it duels with one of the most destructive natural disasters in American history.
This Deadline reader agrees the outcome makes sense:
Losing seasons are never fun. Unloading the aging Verlander probably good for the future.
— pjkool (@pjkool) September 1, 2017
