The San Francisco Giants have themselves a big-name signing in the pitching department. They splashed with Willy Adames at shortstop, and now they're building up their pitching ranks.
According to ESPN's Jeff Passan, the Giants have an agreement on a one-year deal with the 42-year-old Justin Verlander who spent last year with the Houston Astros.
Verlander had a poor year last season. He posted a 5.48 ERA, and 9.8 hits/nine innings, and 1.5 home runs/nine innings, all the worst marks of his career, not including his 11.1 innings in his rookie year in 2005. His 1.384 WHIP was the worst mark for him since 2014, and he pitched in just 90.1 innings, the third-lowest mark in his career.
In short, the 42-year-old, three-time Cy Young winner is coming off arguably the worst season of his career, after signing a two-year, $86.67 million deal with the New York Mets in 2023 (before being traded), a two-year, $50 million deal with the Astros in 2022, and a two-year, $66 million deal with the Astros in 2020.
The deal with the Giants is for one year, $15 million, according ESPN's Jesse Rogers.
For the Astros, it is unsurprising they let Verlander walk, but yet another sign of the changing roster from some familiar faces.
They traded Kyle Tucker to the Chicago Cubs this offseason. Alex Bregman is likely to sign elsewhere, though his market does not appear to be as robust as anticipated. And now Verlander is gone again, this time to the West Coast.
Houston's five-man rotation according to FanGraphs is projected to be Framber Valdez, Hunter Brown, Ronel Blanco, Spencer Arrighetti and Hayden Wesneski, a Houston-area native who was acquired in the Tucker trade with the Cubs.