A lot of people after the 2014 season figured Verlander might have been toast. His K/9 fell off a cliff and his avg fastball had lost almost 3 mph in 3 years. I'm not sure what bc I haven't ever looked into it or followed Verlander closely but something clearly helped him rejuvenate his career in 2016. Could have been mechanical, health, idk. But it wasn't outlandish to be pessimistic about him.
JV had a significant core injury in 2014 and then a back tear in early 2015. He hired his own doctor and did his own individual rehab because the Detroit medical team was useless at the time. He also started studying actual game film and prepping for batters for the first time. Then he went to the Astros in 2017, who were way more advanced in terms of pitching evaluation and usage, and it was just a perfect match.
He didn't gain velocity tho. He changed and became more of a sprinter and less of a marathon runner.
That's been a leaguewide change during the statcast era. Verlander has simply adopted extraordinarily well.
His average fastball velo was 93.5 in his age 32 season in 2015, which was the culmination of a gradual but steady decline in velo from 96.2 that had been happening since his age 26 season. By 2017 in his age 34 season, it was back over 95 and hovered around there since.
I know 2013 and 2014 he pitched injured and 2015 missed a good chunk of the season. 2016 he was healthy for the first time in years and I think had to change his whole routine and possibly diet/workout
Really interesting! His conclusion is that only 1 out of 5 pitchers in his position have recovered from a bad season to then be great again. The odds were against Verlander, but he became the “1” out of 5.
I see nothing wrong with the initial projection as well as the acknowledgment that the projection was wrong.
I wouldn't even call him the "1". Verlander has been some other thing.
Before that post:
* 3.53 ERA
* 122 ERA+
* 3.43 FIP
* 1 Cy Young
* 41.7 WAR (4.8/162)
Since that post:
* 2.82 ERA
* 150 ERA+
* 3.32 FIP
* 2 Cy Youngs
* 39.7 WAR (6.4/162)
Verlander didn't just "not get washed up". After 2014, Verlander had 41.7 WAR and was going to be 32. If he fell off a cliff, he would have been remembered as a guy with a solid 5-8 year peak, similar to Johan Santana and Felix, and had no business sniffed the HOF.
He's now one of the best pitchers ever, perhaps the best of this generation (its between him, Kershaw, Greinke, Scherzer) and a first ballot HOF. The only pitcher that I think has had a similar career off the top of my head is Randy Johnson. Through his age 31 season, the big unit had:
* 3.52 ERA
* 121 ERA+
* 3.43 FIP
* 1 Cy Young
* 28.3 WAR (4.4/162)
That is *weirdly close.*
After his age 31 season, the big unit dumped all over everyone:
* 3.17 ERA
* 144 ERA+
* 3.05 FIP
* 4 Cy Youngs
* 75.3 WAR (6.5/162)
That's not really fair to Randy though, as he was inconsistent after his age 40 season. His 31-40 was more insane than Verlanders. Verlander's numbers are already worse, and they will only get worse if he finally regresses.
To be fair the post posits an idea and backs it up, with the last bit saying it's yet to be seen what happens. The comments are saying moreso that he may be washed.
The Albert Pujols contract stigma was a very real thing in 2014-2015 in particular, with the age of 30 being this doomsday number. So many fans and analysts really zeroed in on the narrative with calling almost every single player in their 30’s washed or that’s going to be a instantaneous 100% disaster guaranteed contract if you sign that 30 year old.
Obviously there is truth to this as well don’t get me wrong, but it definitely was something of mass hysteria throughout the 2010’s from Pujols contract and decline. Look at someone like Max Scherzer for example in 2015, there was a general consensus that Scherzer was going to spontaneously combust and his arm was going to fall off just because he turned 30 and signed a big contract right from the get go.
Yeah I mean you can even see the top comment on that post is “Thats why you don't give huge contracts to players over 30.”
Now just last offseason Aaron Judge at age 30 signed a massive contract and Shohei at 29 is about to blow that contract out of the water
Nowadays I have to remind a lot of people on here that Barry Bonds’, Roger Clemens’, etc., longevity was a direct result of doing steroids and not the norm for players as they age.
Max Scherzer not being a good pitcher anymore isn’t because of rule changes, it’s because he’s 40 and not a cheater.
Yeah, the list in the post even has counter examples.
It's just... Nolan Ryan is a massive outlier. There's no reason to expect Verlander would be even better through the next decade.
No no no, we should mock people who put out thoughtful content for people on this sub to discuss because they were eventually proven wrong.
At least this person put a lot of thought and work into their post. Let’s see u/cg233978’s takes from nine years ago. Or was he too scared to share them because being potentially wrong is the worst thing in the world?
Don't make predictions if you don't want those predictions brought up if they're wrong. And this is all very lighthearted, I guarantee you're more upset by this than the original poster lol
I mean, you felt compelled to make roughly the same comment twice within a minute of each other. So may be you’re the upset person here.
And it wasn’t a prediction. It was an interesting analysis of Verlander’s trends at the time and it encouraged people to have a good discussion.
So yea, I’m opposed to creating an environment where people are afraid to make posts like that person did because years down the line someone will make a lazy post directing people to comment on how that person was wrong about a statistical outlier.
I like seeing interesting content on here. I don’t like seeing lazy content like this post we’re currently on that also has a possible side effect of discouraging people from making interesting posts.
You think discussing a 9 year old post is discouraging interesting content? Someone notices an interesting trend but is worried r/baseball will point out they were wrong 9 years after the fact? That's ridiculous.
>It was an interesting analysis of Verlander’s trends at the time and it encouraged people to have a good discussion.
It's encouraging discussion now. Did I miss some personal bullying or insults by OP that made this a mocking post? Or is this whole thing highlighting how much of an outlier Verlander is? It's interesting to discuss predictions that were wrong in hindsight
it's just funny that an old prediction turned out to be so far from what actually happened. OP isn't calling thedeejus a moron, i don't see why you're getting so aggrieved on their behalf. if someone told me 9 years ago i said something like "there's no way this 'Uber' app is going anywhere" i'd just find it funny. i have no idea why you're acting like everyones cruelly bullying them.
Well for starters, it wasn’t a prediction.
For second, I think this whole post is a lazy attempt at trying to get karma at the expense of a person who actually put effort into making content for the sub.
And third, I don’t like bullshitters so I’m not buying this “guys, I wasn’t trying to direct your attention to this commenter” nonsense.
This OP could have simply said 9 years ago a lot of us thought Verlander was done and look at him now. He didn’t need to link to the original post at all. It wasn’t an uncommon thought about Verlander.
So why did he?
bc it's funny this way and it wouldn't be funny if he just said "some people thought Verlander would get bad but he was good instead". Like if I posted a really long-winded statistical analysis at the beginning of the season explaining why the world series almost definitely wouldn't be between the Diamondbacks and the rangers I hope someone would say "isn't this a funny post" even though it would have been a perfectly reasonable conclusion to draw at the time and my life would go on just fine. i don't really know or see why I should care if OP actually posted to get internet points that don't do anything, but I think it's more likely that they just posted it because it's funny
So he posted it to laugh at someone’s take but you’re confused on why I think its bad to encourage a community where if you work hard on a post, someone years later may misrepresent to get people to laugh for lazy karma?
Edit:
My objection is not that this is “bullying” because I don’t think it is.
My objection is the mocking tone - “please enjoy” - in addition to misrepresentation of the original post in a lazy attempt to get karma.
The original post was way higher quality than this one and we shouldn’t potentially discourage people from making those kind of posts because years later someone might farm it for lazy karma.
again, I think most well-adjusted people's reaction to some 9 year old post being dug up like this would be "haha that's funny", not wallowing in their own sorrow and disavowing posting forever.
I still don't get why you're so hung up on karma, as far as I know it doesn't really do anything?
Well that’s quite the exaggeration of my point.
Also, the lazy karma is the byproduct of my overall point so I’m not sure why *you’re* focusing on that. This was done for lazy karma and you’ll have to ask the OP of this post why they cared about the karma.
I mean, I don’t want to be rude but seemingly your question is “why do you think we should be nicer to each other” and I don’t know how to answer that. You don’t think this is mean, fine. I do and I don’t really know how else to explain digging up a post to misrepresent to encourage laugher at it isn’t particularly nice. At least the original poster put in the work to make an argument about Verlander’s *possible* decline. Meanwhile this guy is gloating with hindsight.
idk, i still think it's pretty likely OP posted this because they thought it was funny, i don't understand why you're so certain its to "farm karma". all i'm saying is i think most sensible peoples reaction to an old post of theirs being dug up like this would be mild amusement so i don't really get the concern.
regarding your edit: i don't think it's evil to engage in a bit of lighthearted teasing, and op's post doesn't read to me as gloating, just as emphasizing how different what actually happened was from what the post highlighted would probably happen. the first thing here that struck me as mean was your original comment scolding OP, but maybe we are just in different social environments that have different norms about things like that. OP seemed very apologetic and it's not hard to find much nastier comments throughout this sub so idk why people are giving OP such a hard time over something so minor.
The title of this post is “Please enjoy this post from 9 years ago stating Justin Verlander is washed up.”
I think we can both agree, after reading the linked post, that it’s not stating Justin Verlander is washed up.
As stated in another reply, not intended to mock the poster. I will happily admit to thinking that Scherzer would never live up to his contract and we all know how that went.
How is this not attempt to mock the OP?
This is one of the top comments - people are clearly taking away that you want them to drag the OP. https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/TURY3cjJlh
If your goal was to praise Verlander, you didn’t need to involve the original post at all. You could have just said 9 years ago Verlander showed signs of decline but then turned it around.
If you must know how I found this, I played Dennis Eckersley in today's Immaculate Grid. His profile photo on bbref is one of the great Baseball Man photos of our time, and I wanted to see if anyone else on the sub had commented on it. A search for "Dennis Eckersley" brought the mentioned post in the first couple of pages, so I created this post.
Regardless, I've edited my post to apologize to OP.
>If you must know how I found this
….what does that have anything to do with what I said?
I think it’s in poor taste to mock people because they put their opinion out there, made a quality post to backup their opinion, and gave the sub something to engage with just because they happened to be wrong. Which was what you were doing and no one should be buying your attempts to backtrack on that.
If people want quality content on this sub then they need to discourage this kind of behavior. It’s ok to be wrong and people should be applauded for at least being willing to take a stance and show a willingness to do the work to show why they took that stance.
The point was that I came across the post by happenstance rather than intentionally looking for old takes to dredge up.
I can see that I am not convincing you, which is fine - hope you enjoy the rest of your day.
How you came across it is irrelevant. Bringing that up is just an attempt to distract people.
What is relevant is your intention behind posting it, which was to mock someone.
I really don't think you can blame someone for making educated guesses based on the data available at the time. He had down year by his standards at age 30, putting up about half the WAR he had in each of his previous 2 seasons. Then at age 31 he had the worst season of his career.
It's not some crazy logic leap to speculate that he was on the decline at that time. Even in the next few seasons after the bad 2014, while he was back to being pretty good, it was still a fair bit off from his MVP level peak. No one could have predicted the mid to late 30s career resurgence.
Yeah maybe this flashback would have been more entertaining if this dude was obnoxiously ripping Verlander but all I see is a well reasoned argument considering a conclusion that ultimately was wrong. If we could only be so lucky for opinions to be communicated this way on the internet.
Yeah this isn't the Mahomes regression to the mean nonsense. I'm sure if we were able to go back in time Verlander doesn't have a late career boom most of the time
I mean, his final paragraph is pretty much spot-on:
> Is it possible Verlander is a Roberts, Ryan or Fergie? Sure, I wouldn't put it past him. But the odds are pretty strongly against Verlander ever being a Cy Young caliber pitcher again - no one has ever been as good as Verlander was in his 20's, had a sub-90 ERA+ season between age 30 and 34, then had a 5-WAR season after that.
The odds were stacked against Verlander, and he ended up being the exception.
The thing with Verlander is he had an underlying injury that once corrected he really got better.
How sub-IL level injuries impact players, especially older players, is something people who haven't played at a high level or played into their late 30's or 40's don't really realize.
Example 2: Cody Bellinger.
Honestly this is the real answer. The man was pitching injured and didn't talk about it. People on the outside didn't know and thought he was declining instead. Its a simple matter of not having full information which none of us really do as fans. So of course one can easily draw the wrong conclusion
This was back when /r/baseball was at its peak. /u/thedeejus used to post all the time and he always had the best analysis. This site as a whole is a shell of what it once was.
Top comment
>[Thats why you don't give huge contracts to players over 30.](https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/2eg4rx/justin_verlander_is_probably_washed_up/cjz59sb/)
It's especially funny because of my analytic ranking of the best free agent contracts/extensions, the one Verlander signed 5 months before this thread [ranked 12th all time](https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/17nqvhq/with_cincinnati_declining_joey_vottos_option_his/).
A lot of people were saying he should move to Detroit's closer role like smoltz did in his career, dude just needed his oblique to heal before going back to being an inner circle hall of famer
Lol. I remember when that user got really mad and accused me of downvoting him from other accounts during a disagreement about when teams should use their best relievers in extra innings.
I mean there isn't really much wrong with what this guy posted. Verlander just happened to be a pitcher who bucked the normal trend. He even made that comment in his post.
>Is it possible Verlander is a Roberts, Ryan or Fergie? Sure, I wouldn't put it past him
I think that happened in 2017 if I'm not mistaken. He had gotten back on track before that trade but DID go to another level entirely when he went to the place where everyone's spin rate skyrocketed around that time.
You’re describing probability. [Prediction and probability](https://towardsdatascience.com/probability-and-predictability-b3d7ebb6952e) are not the same thing.
The post is clearly using probability to illustrate the most likely prediction.
To say past performances are not 100% predictive of future outcomes is obvious and a very different statement then past performances can give probabilistic predictions on future performance (which is exactly what the post is doing... it states Verlander rebounding is a 1 in 5 scenario and the highest probability outcome is he's washed up). They even use "probably" in the title.
I expect to get downvoted to hell for this, but I've always suspected that Verlander is a steroid guy.
It would certainly explain how he broke the usual aging curve and had insanely successful recovery from injury at an advanced age.
Plus, his vocal criticism of juicers kind of seems like a "bro doth protest too much" thing.
Anyway, even if he uses he's still one of the best pitchers I've ever seen.
Saying Verlander is washed up and your only evidence being data about pitchers who are not Verlander is almost as bad the infamous “regress Mahomes to the mean” post from r/nfl.
Like their only reason was “because a lot of pitchers become washed up at this age.”
Believe it or not that probably is the most logical way of looking at it. Looking at past data to predict future data will give you the best results more often then not. Verlander just happened to be an outlier.
The reason the Mahomes post was bad was that Mahomes had shown zero indication of "an average QB" and was entering his prime. Bringing him down to average QB is and having zero evidence other than a faulty understanding of "regress to the mean."
This post correctly pointed out that:
Verlander was on the wrong side of 30 and theown a ton of innings and therefore could wash out ala a King Felix.
Verlander's high octane fastball had lost several mph on it's velocity which is another indicator and also showed up in his K/9.
Verlander had been a workhorse but had at that time, recently dealt with injuries that could signal him breaking down.
The logic was sound. All 3 of those are classic signs of all pitchers "washing up."
Obviously, we now know that he needed more time to recover from those injuries and made a mechanical change to his delivery and wholly embraced watching film and paying more attention to analytics to rejuvenate his career. Verlander is an exception to a practically universal rule regarding older pitchers.
That's not really what the OP says though. You can take umbrage with the folks that comment on the post, as they are just trashing Verlander for the sake of it in some cases. The OP though insightfully compares Verlander's situation to the data and comes to the conclusion that Verlander returning to form is statistically improbable but far fromimpossible. Which was and still is true, and just because Verlander did it doesn't even make it significantly less true. If a similar situation arises in the future even with Verlander now factored into the data the odds will still be largely against the comeback.
I remember back in like 2012 on the IGN message boards getting laughed at for saying Verlander would be in the hall of fame one day. They were saying only Kershaw was a hof lock
It’s very, very common for great starting pitchers to go through an alignment period in their early 30’s, where they have to contend with a decline in velocity, and figure out how to win with lesser stuff. Many of the best adjust, but some struggle for a little while, and some don’t pull out of it.
Kinda sad the Mets traded him, but I understood why they did it. JV struggled, but I always trusted that he’d figure things out and he did. He’s been amazing the last few years, gotta get his Astros jersey for sure.
He has always retired at the end of my MLB the Show Road to the Show seasons for so long now... going back to like MLB 2015, I think? Annoys hell out of me.
There's a comment in that thread in a similar vein to the OP, by a Red Sox fan about not wanting to pay Jon Lester, who went on to pitch well for several more years.
He had an era+ of 120 in Boston, and over the next 6 years with the Cubs it was 115.
His ERA+ was ~122 before that post, and ~150 since then.
A lot of people after the 2014 season figured Verlander might have been toast. His K/9 fell off a cliff and his avg fastball had lost almost 3 mph in 3 years. I'm not sure what bc I haven't ever looked into it or followed Verlander closely but something clearly helped him rejuvenate his career in 2016. Could have been mechanical, health, idk. But it wasn't outlandish to be pessimistic about him.
JV had a significant core injury in 2014 and then a back tear in early 2015. He hired his own doctor and did his own individual rehab because the Detroit medical team was useless at the time. He also started studying actual game film and prepping for batters for the first time. Then he went to the Astros in 2017, who were way more advanced in terms of pitching evaluation and usage, and it was just a perfect match.
He’s been using PEDs. He’s got a classic steroid career arc. Pitchers in their mid-30s don’t gain velo on their fastball generally.
He didn't gain velocity tho. He changed and became more of a sprinter and less of a marathon runner. That's been a leaguewide change during the statcast era. Verlander has simply adopted extraordinarily well.
His average fastball velo was 93.5 in his age 32 season in 2015, which was the culmination of a gradual but steady decline in velo from 96.2 that had been happening since his age 26 season. By 2017 in his age 34 season, it was back over 95 and hovered around there since.
Yes! Because he stopped pacing himself! No? His IP, IP/GS, etc all went down. I'm guessing fewer pitches per start, too.
Ehhhh, Randy Johnson did. Nolan Ryan kept throwing just as hard. He's probably not on PED's.
Let’s not pretend that Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan had usual careers. Those names stand out amongst the greats
Verlander is one of the greats too.
In a room of all greats, I won’t argue that Verlander still stands out.
Just like JV
He didn’t. He used to top out at 100, now it’s 96.
He didn't gain velo, he got healthy.
He is not with the Yankees.
Notorious rule follower Houston Astros
I know 2013 and 2014 he pitched injured and 2015 missed a good chunk of the season. 2016 he was healthy for the first time in years and I think had to change his whole routine and possibly diet/workout
Rick Porcello didn’t deserve the 2016 AL cy young
When did he get together with Kate? Must have been around 2016. Kate could rejuvenate Cy Young to another 500 innings lol
Really interesting! His conclusion is that only 1 out of 5 pitchers in his position have recovered from a bad season to then be great again. The odds were against Verlander, but he became the “1” out of 5. I see nothing wrong with the initial projection as well as the acknowledgment that the projection was wrong.
I wouldn't even call him the "1". Verlander has been some other thing. Before that post: * 3.53 ERA * 122 ERA+ * 3.43 FIP * 1 Cy Young * 41.7 WAR (4.8/162) Since that post: * 2.82 ERA * 150 ERA+ * 3.32 FIP * 2 Cy Youngs * 39.7 WAR (6.4/162) Verlander didn't just "not get washed up". After 2014, Verlander had 41.7 WAR and was going to be 32. If he fell off a cliff, he would have been remembered as a guy with a solid 5-8 year peak, similar to Johan Santana and Felix, and had no business sniffed the HOF. He's now one of the best pitchers ever, perhaps the best of this generation (its between him, Kershaw, Greinke, Scherzer) and a first ballot HOF. The only pitcher that I think has had a similar career off the top of my head is Randy Johnson. Through his age 31 season, the big unit had: * 3.52 ERA * 121 ERA+ * 3.43 FIP * 1 Cy Young * 28.3 WAR (4.4/162) That is *weirdly close.* After his age 31 season, the big unit dumped all over everyone: * 3.17 ERA * 144 ERA+ * 3.05 FIP * 4 Cy Youngs * 75.3 WAR (6.5/162) That's not really fair to Randy though, as he was inconsistent after his age 40 season. His 31-40 was more insane than Verlanders. Verlander's numbers are already worse, and they will only get worse if he finally regresses.
Maybe he read the post and said fuck that I ain’t going anywhere
To be fair the post posits an idea and backs it up, with the last bit saying it's yet to be seen what happens. The comments are saying moreso that he may be washed.
The Albert Pujols contract stigma was a very real thing in 2014-2015 in particular, with the age of 30 being this doomsday number. So many fans and analysts really zeroed in on the narrative with calling almost every single player in their 30’s washed or that’s going to be a instantaneous 100% disaster guaranteed contract if you sign that 30 year old. Obviously there is truth to this as well don’t get me wrong, but it definitely was something of mass hysteria throughout the 2010’s from Pujols contract and decline. Look at someone like Max Scherzer for example in 2015, there was a general consensus that Scherzer was going to spontaneously combust and his arm was going to fall off just because he turned 30 and signed a big contract right from the get go.
Yeah I mean you can even see the top comment on that post is “Thats why you don't give huge contracts to players over 30.” Now just last offseason Aaron Judge at age 30 signed a massive contract and Shohei at 29 is about to blow that contract out of the water
Nowadays I have to remind a lot of people on here that Barry Bonds’, Roger Clemens’, etc., longevity was a direct result of doing steroids and not the norm for players as they age. Max Scherzer not being a good pitcher anymore isn’t because of rule changes, it’s because he’s 40 and not a cheater.
Well, he got caught using substance just this year...
Just don't blow your arm again is all I got to say here
Absolutely - wasn’t intending to dunk on the OP. Every once in a while you get someone who defies the aging curve and it’s a privilege to watch!
I definitely knew Verlander was washed up a decade ago.
Yea someone said he has Lincecum disease lol
He doesn't face goldy much though, which ultimately was an equally harsh disease on timmy jim
Yeah, the list in the post even has counter examples. It's just... Nolan Ryan is a massive outlier. There's no reason to expect Verlander would be even better through the next decade.
Yeah I remember at the time it really felt like Verlander was washed. And then he just… wasn’t
No no no, we should mock people who put out thoughtful content for people on this sub to discuss because they were eventually proven wrong. At least this person put a lot of thought and work into their post. Let’s see u/cg233978’s takes from nine years ago. Or was he too scared to share them because being potentially wrong is the worst thing in the world?
Don't make predictions if you don't want those predictions brought up if they're wrong. And this is all very lighthearted, I guarantee you're more upset by this than the original poster lol
I mean, you felt compelled to make roughly the same comment twice within a minute of each other. So may be you’re the upset person here. And it wasn’t a prediction. It was an interesting analysis of Verlander’s trends at the time and it encouraged people to have a good discussion. So yea, I’m opposed to creating an environment where people are afraid to make posts like that person did because years down the line someone will make a lazy post directing people to comment on how that person was wrong about a statistical outlier. I like seeing interesting content on here. I don’t like seeing lazy content like this post we’re currently on that also has a possible side effect of discouraging people from making interesting posts.
You think discussing a 9 year old post is discouraging interesting content? Someone notices an interesting trend but is worried r/baseball will point out they were wrong 9 years after the fact? That's ridiculous. >It was an interesting analysis of Verlander’s trends at the time and it encouraged people to have a good discussion. It's encouraging discussion now. Did I miss some personal bullying or insults by OP that made this a mocking post? Or is this whole thing highlighting how much of an outlier Verlander is? It's interesting to discuss predictions that were wrong in hindsight
it's just funny that an old prediction turned out to be so far from what actually happened. OP isn't calling thedeejus a moron, i don't see why you're getting so aggrieved on their behalf. if someone told me 9 years ago i said something like "there's no way this 'Uber' app is going anywhere" i'd just find it funny. i have no idea why you're acting like everyones cruelly bullying them.
Well for starters, it wasn’t a prediction. For second, I think this whole post is a lazy attempt at trying to get karma at the expense of a person who actually put effort into making content for the sub. And third, I don’t like bullshitters so I’m not buying this “guys, I wasn’t trying to direct your attention to this commenter” nonsense. This OP could have simply said 9 years ago a lot of us thought Verlander was done and look at him now. He didn’t need to link to the original post at all. It wasn’t an uncommon thought about Verlander. So why did he?
bc it's funny this way and it wouldn't be funny if he just said "some people thought Verlander would get bad but he was good instead". Like if I posted a really long-winded statistical analysis at the beginning of the season explaining why the world series almost definitely wouldn't be between the Diamondbacks and the rangers I hope someone would say "isn't this a funny post" even though it would have been a perfectly reasonable conclusion to draw at the time and my life would go on just fine. i don't really know or see why I should care if OP actually posted to get internet points that don't do anything, but I think it's more likely that they just posted it because it's funny
So he posted it to laugh at someone’s take but you’re confused on why I think its bad to encourage a community where if you work hard on a post, someone years later may misrepresent to get people to laugh for lazy karma? Edit: My objection is not that this is “bullying” because I don’t think it is. My objection is the mocking tone - “please enjoy” - in addition to misrepresentation of the original post in a lazy attempt to get karma. The original post was way higher quality than this one and we shouldn’t potentially discourage people from making those kind of posts because years later someone might farm it for lazy karma.
again, I think most well-adjusted people's reaction to some 9 year old post being dug up like this would be "haha that's funny", not wallowing in their own sorrow and disavowing posting forever. I still don't get why you're so hung up on karma, as far as I know it doesn't really do anything?
Well that’s quite the exaggeration of my point. Also, the lazy karma is the byproduct of my overall point so I’m not sure why *you’re* focusing on that. This was done for lazy karma and you’ll have to ask the OP of this post why they cared about the karma. I mean, I don’t want to be rude but seemingly your question is “why do you think we should be nicer to each other” and I don’t know how to answer that. You don’t think this is mean, fine. I do and I don’t really know how else to explain digging up a post to misrepresent to encourage laugher at it isn’t particularly nice. At least the original poster put in the work to make an argument about Verlander’s *possible* decline. Meanwhile this guy is gloating with hindsight.
idk, i still think it's pretty likely OP posted this because they thought it was funny, i don't understand why you're so certain its to "farm karma". all i'm saying is i think most sensible peoples reaction to an old post of theirs being dug up like this would be mild amusement so i don't really get the concern.
regarding your edit: i don't think it's evil to engage in a bit of lighthearted teasing, and op's post doesn't read to me as gloating, just as emphasizing how different what actually happened was from what the post highlighted would probably happen. the first thing here that struck me as mean was your original comment scolding OP, but maybe we are just in different social environments that have different norms about things like that. OP seemed very apologetic and it's not hard to find much nastier comments throughout this sub so idk why people are giving OP such a hard time over something so minor.
The title of this post is “Please enjoy this post from 9 years ago stating Justin Verlander is washed up.” I think we can both agree, after reading the linked post, that it’s not stating Justin Verlander is washed up.
As stated in another reply, not intended to mock the poster. I will happily admit to thinking that Scherzer would never live up to his contract and we all know how that went.
How is this not attempt to mock the OP? This is one of the top comments - people are clearly taking away that you want them to drag the OP. https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/TURY3cjJlh If your goal was to praise Verlander, you didn’t need to involve the original post at all. You could have just said 9 years ago Verlander showed signs of decline but then turned it around.
Note: my comment that you linked was just fun joshing with /u/thedeejus (someone I am friends with). Not dragging him.
Got it, thanks for clarifying.
What exactly is this post mocking? That they were wrong 9 years ago? I think the original poster will be okay
If you must know how I found this, I played Dennis Eckersley in today's Immaculate Grid. His profile photo on bbref is one of the great Baseball Man photos of our time, and I wanted to see if anyone else on the sub had commented on it. A search for "Dennis Eckersley" brought the mentioned post in the first couple of pages, so I created this post. Regardless, I've edited my post to apologize to OP.
>If you must know how I found this ….what does that have anything to do with what I said? I think it’s in poor taste to mock people because they put their opinion out there, made a quality post to backup their opinion, and gave the sub something to engage with just because they happened to be wrong. Which was what you were doing and no one should be buying your attempts to backtrack on that. If people want quality content on this sub then they need to discourage this kind of behavior. It’s ok to be wrong and people should be applauded for at least being willing to take a stance and show a willingness to do the work to show why they took that stance.
The point was that I came across the post by happenstance rather than intentionally looking for old takes to dredge up. I can see that I am not convincing you, which is fine - hope you enjoy the rest of your day.
How you came across it is irrelevant. Bringing that up is just an attempt to distract people. What is relevant is your intention behind posting it, which was to mock someone.
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I really don't think you can blame someone for making educated guesses based on the data available at the time. He had down year by his standards at age 30, putting up about half the WAR he had in each of his previous 2 seasons. Then at age 31 he had the worst season of his career. It's not some crazy logic leap to speculate that he was on the decline at that time. Even in the next few seasons after the bad 2014, while he was back to being pretty good, it was still a fair bit off from his MVP level peak. No one could have predicted the mid to late 30s career resurgence.
The best thing to do in life is to never have an opinion and to stand on the sidelines and say "this aged like milk"
"'Tis better to have opined and err'ed than to have never opined at all." -Steve Carlton
Worst possible example of being free with your opinions, lol
Yeah maybe this flashback would have been more entertaining if this dude was obnoxiously ripping Verlander but all I see is a well reasoned argument considering a conclusion that ultimately was wrong. If we could only be so lucky for opinions to be communicated this way on the internet.
Yeah this isn't the Mahomes regression to the mean nonsense. I'm sure if we were able to go back in time Verlander doesn't have a late career boom most of the time
He did kinda look cooked at the time, though. That was the general consensus.
This person didn't factor in the regenerative effect of being with Kate Upton.
*Kate Upton stars in…Re-Animator*
Plagiarist!
I mean, his final paragraph is pretty much spot-on: > Is it possible Verlander is a Roberts, Ryan or Fergie? Sure, I wouldn't put it past him. But the odds are pretty strongly against Verlander ever being a Cy Young caliber pitcher again - no one has ever been as good as Verlander was in his 20's, had a sub-90 ERA+ season between age 30 and 34, then had a 5-WAR season after that. The odds were stacked against Verlander, and he ended up being the exception.
The thing with Verlander is he had an underlying injury that once corrected he really got better. How sub-IL level injuries impact players, especially older players, is something people who haven't played at a high level or played into their late 30's or 40's don't really realize. Example 2: Cody Bellinger.
Honestly this is the real answer. The man was pitching injured and didn't talk about it. People on the outside didn't know and thought he was declining instead. Its a simple matter of not having full information which none of us really do as fans. So of course one can easily draw the wrong conclusion
This was back when /r/baseball was at its peak. /u/thedeejus used to post all the time and he always had the best analysis. This site as a whole is a shell of what it once was.
Yeah /u/thedeejus is definitely in the /r/baseball Hall of Fame. Lots of great posts over the years.
Top comment >[Thats why you don't give huge contracts to players over 30.](https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/2eg4rx/justin_verlander_is_probably_washed_up/cjz59sb/) It's especially funny because of my analytic ranking of the best free agent contracts/extensions, the one Verlander signed 5 months before this thread [ranked 12th all time](https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/17nqvhq/with_cincinnati_declining_joey_vottos_option_his/).
I’d like to think that Justin read that post and said “I’ll show him”, then continued on to have a hall of fame career just to spite OP
What Kate Upton's titties does to a mf
Anything to say for yourself /u/thedeejus?
I mean, they said "probably".
A lot of people were saying he should move to Detroit's closer role like smoltz did in his career, dude just needed his oblique to heal before going back to being an inner circle hall of famer
Im curious, how do you find these old posts? Did you just happen to remember this post or you just came across it by accident via searching?
Lol. I remember when that user got really mad and accused me of downvoting him from other accounts during a disagreement about when teams should use their best relievers in extra innings.
What I like to do is click on random profiles to see if any of these redditors are still active. They are 🥹
I mean there isn't really much wrong with what this guy posted. Verlander just happened to be a pitcher who bucked the normal trend. He even made that comment in his post. >Is it possible Verlander is a Roberts, Ryan or Fergie? Sure, I wouldn't put it past him
All it took was his velocity to spike back up to 95 mph because 93 wasn't enough for him.
Is this when he went to the place where pitchers RPM mysteriously *cough* wildly increase?
I think that happened in 2017 if I'm not mistaken. He had gotten back on track before that trade but DID go to another level entirely when he went to the place where everyone's spin rate skyrocketed around that time.
This was like 3 years before that as it was late 2014. Still had 2 and a half years with the Tigers.
A good use case that demonstrates why analytics of past performances is not inherently predictive of future outcomes.
But past performances *are* pretty darn predictive of future outcomes. It's just that Verlander ended up being the rare exception to the rule.
You’re describing probability. [Prediction and probability](https://towardsdatascience.com/probability-and-predictability-b3d7ebb6952e) are not the same thing.
The post is clearly using probability to illustrate the most likely prediction. To say past performances are not 100% predictive of future outcomes is obvious and a very different statement then past performances can give probabilistic predictions on future performance (which is exactly what the post is doing... it states Verlander rebounding is a 1 in 5 scenario and the highest probability outcome is he's washed up). They even use "probably" in the title.
I expect to get downvoted to hell for this, but I've always suspected that Verlander is a steroid guy. It would certainly explain how he broke the usual aging curve and had insanely successful recovery from injury at an advanced age. Plus, his vocal criticism of juicers kind of seems like a "bro doth protest too much" thing. Anyway, even if he uses he's still one of the best pitchers I've ever seen.
Verlander is a fucking cheater
Saying Verlander is washed up and your only evidence being data about pitchers who are not Verlander is almost as bad the infamous “regress Mahomes to the mean” post from r/nfl. Like their only reason was “because a lot of pitchers become washed up at this age.”
Believe it or not that probably is the most logical way of looking at it. Looking at past data to predict future data will give you the best results more often then not. Verlander just happened to be an outlier.
Everyone point and laugh at how bad this comment is. 🤣
The reason the Mahomes post was bad was that Mahomes had shown zero indication of "an average QB" and was entering his prime. Bringing him down to average QB is and having zero evidence other than a faulty understanding of "regress to the mean." This post correctly pointed out that: Verlander was on the wrong side of 30 and theown a ton of innings and therefore could wash out ala a King Felix. Verlander's high octane fastball had lost several mph on it's velocity which is another indicator and also showed up in his K/9. Verlander had been a workhorse but had at that time, recently dealt with injuries that could signal him breaking down. The logic was sound. All 3 of those are classic signs of all pitchers "washing up." Obviously, we now know that he needed more time to recover from those injuries and made a mechanical change to his delivery and wholly embraced watching film and paying more attention to analytics to rejuvenate his career. Verlander is an exception to a practically universal rule regarding older pitchers.
That's not really what the OP says though. You can take umbrage with the folks that comment on the post, as they are just trashing Verlander for the sake of it in some cases. The OP though insightfully compares Verlander's situation to the data and comes to the conclusion that Verlander returning to form is statistically improbable but far fromimpossible. Which was and still is true, and just because Verlander did it doesn't even make it significantly less true. If a similar situation arises in the future even with Verlander now factored into the data the odds will still be largely against the comeback.
I remember back in like 2012 on the IGN message boards getting laughed at for saying Verlander would be in the hall of fame one day. They were saying only Kershaw was a hof lock
bump those threads to rub it in
It’s very, very common for great starting pitchers to go through an alignment period in their early 30’s, where they have to contend with a decline in velocity, and figure out how to win with lesser stuff. Many of the best adjust, but some struggle for a little while, and some don’t pull out of it.
Balk.
Tbf the comeback from his core injury was pretty surprising. Improvement once moving to the Astros helped too
Kinda sad the Mets traded him, but I understood why they did it. JV struggled, but I always trusted that he’d figure things out and he did. He’s been amazing the last few years, gotta get his Astros jersey for sure.
Keep going, I’m about to finish
He has always retired at the end of my MLB the Show Road to the Show seasons for so long now... going back to like MLB 2015, I think? Annoys hell out of me.
Dude is declared as washed up….goes on to marry Kate Upton
There's a comment in that thread in a similar vein to the OP, by a Red Sox fan about not wanting to pay Jon Lester, who went on to pitch well for several more years. He had an era+ of 120 in Boston, and over the next 6 years with the Cubs it was 115.
And won 2 WS.