The hour belonged to Justin Verlander, a wisecracking, philosophical, big-time presence who owns moments like these, his introductory Q&A session with Bay Area media. But it inevitably had to be about Roki Sasaki, too.
The old master jumped on a Zoom call Monday morning, brimming with good humor and optimism. But a few minutes after Verlander’s chat with reporters, Giants general manager Zack Minasian tersely revealed that Sasaki, a potential superstar, had informed the club that he wouldn’t be signing with the Giants.
There wasn’t need for many more words than that — Minasian and team president Buster Posey’s grim faces in those few seconds mirrored their predecessors’ reactions to failed attempts over recent years to sign Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Aaron Judge, and several others.
Just a bit earlier, Posey was chuckling with Verlander, volunteering that he’s younger than the 41-year-old future Hall of Fame pitcher and wanting to make sure everybody noted it. (Posey is 37.) And Verlander led off the festivities listing himself as “Kate Upton” on Zoom, honoring his famous wife, then laughed and changed it to “Justin Verlander (not Kate Upton)” after a media member loudly interrupted Posey’s opening remarks by blurting out about the original title.
It was a very busy 50 minutes or so, which said much about where the Giants are now, where Posey wants to take them in his first year running the team, and how much there’s left to do, with spring training only about a month away.
The Giants were rightfully pleased about the addition of Verlander on a one-year, $15 million deal that won’t hurt them much if he struggles with his health and performance like he did last season but could be a stroke of genius if Verlander has another career revival like his dominant Cy Young performance with the Astros in 2022.
When you’ve got 262 career regular-season victories, 3,416 strikeouts, and 17 postseason wins, what’s left for you to achieve in 2025 with the Giants, Justin?
“Personally, proving that I still have it,” Verlander said. “I wouldn’t be coming back and playing — I’ve accomplished enough in my career — … if I didn’t think I could be great. I really, truly believe that [with] the experiences I had last year, and leading into this year, I could be back to the pitcher I was not long ago when I won a Cy Young.
“As a team, I think it’s a team that, quite frankly, before Buster called me, wasn’t really in my consideration. And in doing some research after Buster called, at first you’re like, man, really tough division. … But I think this team has a lot of up-side that is maybe a bit overlooked. With [Jung Hoo Lee] coming back and [Willy] Adames’ addition, [Tyler] Fitzgerald had a great second half at second base last year, these young starters, obviously, you’ve got the guys at the top, you know what they’ve been doing. They signed [Matt] Chapman long-term. I just think that there’s a really good chance that this team could do something special.”
You can imagine that these were sweet words for Posey and Minasian to hear on the call and a few times before that, as they were negotiating with Verlander for this deal. But they also know that Corbin Burnes just signed with Arizona. Blake Snell left the Giants for the Dodgers. And Sasaki may be headed to either the Dodgers or Padres.
Unquestionably, the NL West is only getting glitzier and tougher, as Verlander pointed out. And while Adames and Verlander (added to the extension Chapman signed at the end of last season) aren’t minor pieces, the Giants continue to try to land the biggest fish — and they continue to cast in vain.
They had to try to sign Sasaki, even if the odds were never in their favor. It would’ve been malpractice if Posey — who was in on several of the previous free-agent pursuits led by Farhan Zaidi — opted out of this one just because he didn’t want his feelings hurt.
What the Giants have to do now is build themselves up to the point where somebody like Sasaki recognizes the momentum and comes running to sign up. It’s what they tried and failed to do in the years before Ohtani, Judge, and all the rest became available. That’s what got Zaidi fired. That’s why Posey is out front running things now.
And that’s why the Giants signed Adames in December and Verlander now. They’re different players at different positions and very different stages in their careers, but you can see the theme. The Giants want players with presence on the field and also off of it. This is not strictly about analytics, but it’s not dismissive of that kind of approach, either. It’s about a larger picture of production, accountability, and leadership.
“It’s interesting, watching both players go through their media sessions, I think we see both of these players, Adames and Verlander, they’re much more than just baseball players,” Minasian said. “They bring a lot to our clubhouse. And like Buster said, just walking in that clubhouse and just trying to have a standard of who we are and what we want to be.”
Posey briefly overlapped with Randy Johnson on the Giants in 2009, as Johnson was finishing off his amazing career and Posey was just starting his. And Posey didn’t deny that the Verlander signing is as much for fellow starters Logan Webb, Robbie Ray, Kyle Harrison, and Hayden Birdsong — not to mention for catcher Patrick Bailey — as it is for the innings Verlander may give them this season.
“It means something to walk into a clubhouse and you’ve got a guy that’s truly a big-league vet,” Posey said. “It makes you want to be better — just their presence. And that may seem a little bit flippant, but it’s true. You walk in each morning, you look over and there’s Justin Verlander or Randy Johnson sitting at their locker, and you tell yourself, ‘Man, I’d better bring it today.’ You don’t want to let these guys down. You want to prove that you belong in the big leagues and have a chance to play alongside them.”
For his part, Verlander said he learned a lot from his health struggles last season — and the resulting lower velocity, 5-6 record, and 5.48 ERA. This off-season, in response to the shoulder issue that sidelined him last spring, he started his workouts a lot earlier and says he’s already throwing 92 mph. And he said he feels his mid-season neck injury was something that had been brewing for a few seasons and now it’s been addressed.
“It was one of the first questions Buster asked me,” Verlander said. “You know, ‘What are you doing? Do you still have the passion?’ And it’s a great question. I think I gave him a really long answer, longer than he intended on me giving him. But I think you can tell that the passion’s still there.”
The Giants will feel good seeing Verlander on the mound in their uniform for however many starts he can give them — 10, 15, 25, who knows? They might win a few more games directly due to this signing. They might contend for the playoffs. Heck, they might even get in there. And maybe the sight of watching Verlander (and Chapman, Adames, and everybody else) in October will convince some future superstar that he has to join this team. That’s the theory, anyway.
It didn’t happen in time to land Roki Sasaki. It might not be in time for the next superstar in the next cycle. But the Giants can’t stop trying. They just have to stop failing at it. Eventually.