For a second straight season, Justin Verlander might be reuniting with a former team of his at the trade deadline.
Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported Thursday that the Houston Astros righty Verlander would be a “prime candidate for trade” if the team decides to sell at the July deadline. Heyman further adds that Verlander, who has a full no-trade clause in his contract, might be “amenable” to a trade to the Detroit Tigers.
Now 41 years old, the three-time Cy Young winner Verlander famously began his career with the Tigers, spending 13 seasons there from 2005-17. He won one of his Cy Youngs in Detroit as well as his lone AL MVP award in 2011. Verlander also made six total All-Star teams as a Tiger and helped lead the team to AL pennant victories in 2006 and 2012.
This year with the Astros, Verlander is 2-1 with a 3.38 ERA as he works his way back into form following a spring shoulder injury that cost him the first few weeks of the season. Houston as a team is not faring well though, sitting fourth in the AL West at an uncharacteristic 18-25.
With Verlander making a hair over $43 million this year in the final season of his contract, the argument will certainly be there for the Astros to trade him if they continue to sputter.
As for the Tigers, they are in the AL Wild Card hunt at 21-22, have a bottom-ten payroll figure this season, are still managed by AJ Hinch (Verlander’s one-time manager on the Astros), and have kept some of Verlander’s old teammates around too. Those may all be strong selling points for Verlander to green-light a move back to his ex-club
The New York Yankees love what they have seen from Juan Soto thus far, and are not hiding their desire to keep him in the fold long-term. Encouragingly for them, Soto also seems interested in that potential outcome.
Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner admitted in an interview with Jack Curry of YES Network that the team was eager to keep Soto and would be eager to discuss a contract extension, even if it had to be done during the season.
“I think we’d like to see him here for the rest of his career. I don’t think there’s any doubt of that,” Steinbrenner said. “His agent, Scott (Boras), doesn’t tend to do deals in the middle of a season. Neither do I. I think it can be a distraction. As I said in spring training, this is a unique situation and a very unique player. I wouldn’t be shocked if there was a conversation or two had possibly during the course of the season. I think it’s worth doing at some point.”
Soto was asked about that sentiment on Thursday and said the “door has always been open” to some kind of agreement.
“They know the phone number and everything. They know where to call. For me right here, I’m focusing on playing baseball. My thing is try to help the team win,” Soto said, via Dave Campbell of The Associated Press.
The biggest issue here is one Steinbrenner alluded to: Scott Boras tends to take his clients to free agency, which Soto is eligible for at the end of the 2024 season. On the other hand, if Soto is adamant about playing for the Yankees, he could presumably tell Boras as much and instruct him to get a deal done.
Considering the type of contract Soto is said to want, he would probably be well-served by trying to spark a bidding war on the open market. That makes any in-season extension an uphill climb for the Yankees.
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