Justin Verlander has decided to retire after this season, and the announcement frames his departure as another step toward the close of the old-school ace era in Major League Baseball.
For a generation, Verlander, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer assembled résumés fit for the Hall of Fame. Kershaw, 37, retired after last fall’s World Series aside from some bullpen work for the United States team in the World Baseball Classic. Verlander is 43 and following suit, while Scherzer, 41, has battled back injuries this season and posted a 10.23 ERA in six outings.
The traditional profile of a dominant No. 1 starter — heavy innings and high win totals — is increasingly rare. The announcement notes that ace pitchers will still emerge, with names such as Paul Skenes and Jacob Misiorowski drawing attention, but their careers and statistical benchmarks are likely to differ from those of past generations.
Verlander’s peak workload and results remain part of that earlier era. In 2011 he threw more than 250 innings and won 24 games, including a 22-start stretch in which he went 20-2 with a 1.75 ERA. He has said he once managed early-game effort to preserve length, later switching to the max-effort approach now common among pitchers.
Long-term durability proved elusive. Verlander has 266 career wins since the end of last season and had publicly set goals of reaching 300 wins and pitching until age 45. He missed most of 2020 and all of 2021 after an early injury, then returned in 2022 to go 18-4 with a 1.75 ERA for the Houston Astros and win his third Cy Young Award. This season, back with the Detroit Tigers, he has started only one game because of hip and hamstring issues, not arm trouble.
The narrative around career milestones has shifted: the only pitcher on pace to reach 20 wins this season is reliever Aaron Ashby of the Milwaukee Brewers, and the report suggests it is possible the last 300-game winner remains Randy Johnson, who reached that mark on June 4, 2009.
