There weren't many reasons to be optimistic about Justin Verlander in 2014. He spent the season producing like a below-average pitcher and all too often looked the part.
Take a listen to what's being said about Verlander now, however, and you'll pick up quite a bit of optimistic talk. And given the state of the Detroit Tigers, it sounds like just what the doctor ordered.
On Sunday, the 32-year-old right-hander pitched a live batting practice session. Not exactly Game 7 of the World Series, but Verlander showed enough life to draw rave reviews.
"That's the best I've seen Ver stuff-wise, off the mound, since I've gotten this job," Tigers skipper Brad Ausmus told Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press, adding, "It was exactly what he wanted. He looked very good today."
Granted, this is only Ausmus' second year on the job. But knowing that his first year involved watching Verlander riding weak stuff to an ugly 4.54 ERA, Ausmus liking what he's seeing is welcome news.
And it's not the first bit of welcome Verlander news of the spring. We learned two weeks ago that he had added 20 pounds of muscle over the offseason, and more recently that he's feeling far more ready for 2015 than he was for 2014 after undergoing offseason core surgery.
"To be honest, it's night and day," Verlander told Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports. "I feel better than I have in years. I was able to get back into my normal routine, get into the weight room. I also was seeing a physical therapist for an hour-and-a-half, three days a week, just learning about my body, how the surgery could have affected me. I feel great right now."
The disclaimer here is that you have to take spring training talk like this for what it's worth. But still, if you consider it all at once, you wonder if a bounce-back season might be in order for the former American League Cy Young and MVP winner.
For the Tigers' sake, here's hoping. Because if they want to have even so much as a chance at a fifth straight AL Central title, they're going to need at least a bounce-back season from Verlander.
In lieu of a crystal ball, what we have for looking ahead to the 2015 season are projections. And though they don't agree on too much, the projections at Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs agree on this: The Tigers are only going to win 83 games.
The bright side is that the projection systems do tend to be conservative with win totals. The not-so-bright side is that neither system thinks Detroit's projected record will mean an easy AL Central title. Baseball Prospectus has the Tigers finishing only two games ahead of the Cleveland Indians, while FanGraphs has them finishing a game behind the Indians.
As for where Verlander fits into all this, here's what Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs are projecting for his follow-up to 2014:
*That 0.8 WAR comes from FanGraphs' runs-allowed calculation of WAR.
Both projection systems anticipate significant improvement from Verlander in 2015. Though they don't think he'll go back to being the ace who authored a 2.52 ERA and averaged 8.3 WAR across 2011 and 2012, his being more like the pitcher who had a 3.46 ERA in 2013 is good enough.
At any rate, here's the point: The projections figure that even if Verlander turns the clock back to 2013, it will only put the Tigers in the mix for the AL Central title rather than clearly in the lead for it. The only Verlander powerful enough to give the Tigers a push like that is Vintage Verlander.
Which, given what we know about these Tigers, shouldn't be too hard to believe.
Max Scherzer and Rick Porcello are gone. Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez are another year older, and banged up to boot. J.D. Martinez is a regression candidate. Detroit's bullpen still looks as stable as a lie detector attached to Homer Simpson.
To be sure, Verlander isn't the only Tigers player who could outplay his projections and potentially save the team by doing so. But nobody's track record bodes as well as his, and all the positive talk that's coming out now only bolsters the notion that he might again be the ace the Tigers need him to be.
But beyond the talk lie the practicalities of Verlander regaining his ace status. Naturally, that's where things get more complicated.
The one thing everyone wants Verlander to have again is velocity. It's something he used to have in spades but not anymore. According to FanGraphs, his average fastball velocity has fallen from 95.0 miles per hour in 2011 to just 92.3 miles per hour in 2014.
As for what Verlander thinks about his velocity possibly coming back, he told Rosenthal: "I don’t think I need it to—but I hope it does. The ball is coming out of my hand much better now than it was a year ago."
That sounds like a promise, but it's one to be careful about getting excited over.
Head to Brooks Baseball, and you'll see a graph of Verlander's velocity going down as his age has gone up. So as convenient as it is to chalk his velocity struggles up to last year's surgery, it looks more like a natural byproduct of the ongoing and futile battle between Human Mortal and Father Time.
With that being the case, it's in Verlander's interest to accept reality and make his game less about power and more about deception. You know, maybe incorporate a cutter and sinker to go with his four-seamer.
However, it doesn't sound like he's ready to do this.
"I think it's a little unfair to judge on last season. I think it's a different story if I go out there this year and it's the same thing," he said, via Chis Iott of MLive.com. "I'm not going to judge changing my entire career based on an injury that plagued me last year. I don't think that's the right way to approach things."
Basically, Verlander has it in mind to try to do the same things he did last year and expect different results. That's typically the definition of insanity, and he may find that out the hard way.
Fortunately, there's more to pitching than stuff. There's also command, and that's something Verlander's return to health could actually improve.
This is from Chris McCosky of the Detroit News: "As he would discover later, the core muscle issues adversely impacted his right shoulder, which in turn forced him to alter his throwing motion which ultimately led to the second-worst season of his career in 2014."
There is some evidence that Verlander's throwing motion wasn't the same in 2014 as it had been before. That didn't manifest in fewer pitches in the strike zone—his Zone percentage actually went up—but Verlander's 2014 is a case study in how more pitches in the zone isn't necessarily a good thing.
Take Verlander's fastball command. Between 2011 and 2013, we can see he mainly played with the arm-side edge of the zone, thereby pounding lefties away and righties in:
Now, compare that to what Verlander's fastball command was like in 2014:
Relative to the three prior years, Verlander worked in the strike zone with his fastball a lot more often in 2014. Worse, he was mainly working up in the zone.
That's the kind of approach you can get away with when you're throwing 95. But 92? Not as much.
And though this didn't necessarily create problems for Verlander's heat, it did create problems for his secondaries.
Because the velocity separation between Verlander's heat and his secondaries is getting smaller as his fastball velocity decreases, he needs to be more careful about where he puts his secondaries. That's something he wasn't doing in 2014, as Baseball Savant says he shattered his previous high for secondary pitches in the strike zone. He paid for it, too, as those were hit at a career-worst .294 clip.
So, in a nutshell: Verlander was throwing way too many hittable fastballs in 2014 and exacerbating matters by throwing too many hittable secondaries. He was giving hitters every excuse to sit fastball and making it too easy for them to adjust when they didn't get one.
Verlander may not be able to fix his velocity, but he can fix this—especially if what he said about his core surgery affecting his throwing motion is true. If he can get back to where he was and recapture his old command, then he has a chance to overcome his lost velocity and pitch more like an ace.
That's what the Tigers should be crossing their fingers for, anyway. Because the way they're shaping up for 2015, having Vintage Verlander wouldn't be a luxury.
It would be more like a necessity.
Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted/linked.
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