WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — There’s a lot to like about Justin Verlander, the Astros’ great pitcher, but he’s not the “diva” a Mets official anonymously called him to the Post late last year. I don’t think so. Yes, he is a celebrity and is married to a celebrity. But a diva? No, it’s not.
I see someone obsessed with being great. I’m looking at someone who’s smart about this, someone who knows when he’s done playing games (but hasn’t yet set a schedule for when he’ll end his Hall of Fame career).
I see people who are polite (for example, they don’t want to talk about their golf partner Steve Cohen’s recent play). I think what’s more important is someone who wisely understands their own limitations as a middle-aged person, and maybe that’s the origin of being a diva. In his case, his intelligence may be just as important as his talent. Or how else does he pitch until he’s 41 (he just celebrated his birthday on Tuesday) with no clear end in sight?
Perhaps he was once a bit of a diva.
“I wasn’t always the best teammate,” Verlander told me. Going back to his time with the Tigers, he had tunnel vision as to where he was going, and he’s clearly there now. His Cooperstown ticket was long out.
“I was like a blindfolded horse running a race. I’m out there. This is what I need to do to be as great as I can be. Get out of my way,” Verlander said. spoke about his youth. “It didn’t provide a lot of bullish time. If you weren’t on that wavelength, we didn’t connect.”
He says his once icy relationship with Tigers colleague (and one-time Mets colleague) Max Scherzer is legendary, and he’s glad the Mets were able to reconcile. “I’m very grateful for the opportunity to play together again,” Verlander said.
Sometimes we work out together (we both live in Jupiter, 15 minutes from here). This is something no one in Detroit could have predicted. Verlander called Scherzer after offseason surgery. I know that Scherzer definitely didn’t provide a citation that would bother Verlander because they’re so good now.
Both have been pitching as effectively as anyone expected long ago, but Verlander has been pitching a little better lately. Both are healthy enough to remain important players on a championship-type team, but Verlander is a little healthier at the moment.
Verlander pitched for the third time here Wednesday after injuring his shoulder last month and looked and felt okay, but admitted he’s behind schedule. Opening day is once again in jeopardy. “It’s not impossible, but it’s going to be pretty tough,” he said.
Do you remember the last Opening Day? That day was Verlander’s first official game as a Met, and he was placed on the disabled list, which foreshadowed the Mets’ lost season. It’s hard to remember, but he actually pitched pretty well in Queens, though his 3.15 ERA was nearly a run and a half more than his 2022 MLB best of 1.75.
He said he and his wife, model Kate Upton, love the city so much that they keep an apartment on the Upper East Side. As for the 2023 Mets disaster, he, like everyone else, is at a loss. “I thought we had a chance to be great,” he said. “I wish I could start again. But there’s no going back.”
The comment about her being a “diva” caught her attention, so she called her teammates to confirm. “Everyone I talked to said, ‘JV isn’t like that,'” he said. Once upon a time, he wouldn’t have cared. But clearly he does now.
For a team with two Hall of Fame pitchers, a great manager, and plenty of positional talent, no one will ever quite understand what went wrong, but like Scherzer, Verlander’s direct transfer from Cohen When I heard the Mets were signing a free agent who I heard didn’t plan on adding to their team in 2024 and instead looked to 2025 and 26, I knew he had to go. Ta.
“We both knew the mission had failed,” Verlander said.
Verlander said he heard the Dodgers and Orioles were interested at the trade deadline, and said he would have accepted Los Angeles or Baltimore if given the option. “I’m from Virginia,” Verlander said. But when Houston, where he won a ring, became viable, he was happy to “lead things” that way, he said.
“I’m very happy that the matchup against Houston went well,” he said.
Verlander returned to the Astros determined to put an end to an already long and storied career. And his extra wisdom in knowing when to exit the game may help him survive longer. “He’s become less bullish about staying in the game,” Verlander said.
He has long said he wants to pitch until he’s at least 45, a year before his childhood idol Nolan Ryan, but now that he’s getting closer, he’s stopped predicting an end date. He promised to continue his hard work and keep moving forward as long as he continues to put out batters.
Of Ryan, he says, “He set the standard for what power pitchers can do physically.”
I felt the need to remind him that Ryan is “one in a billion.”
Then he answered:
“me too.”
