There are careers that end on someone else’s schedule and there are careers where the pitcher decides, and Justin Verlander, who announced yesterday that the 2026 season will be his last after 22 years in Major League Baseball, is the second kind, which is a distinction that requires two Tommy John surgeries and three Cy Young Awards to earn.
Verlander posted his retirement announcement on social media Wednesday, per Fox News, writing: “Baseball has given me more than I could have imagined. It taught me discipline, resilience, and the value of continuing to adapt and evolve.” He is 43 years old. He is injured this season with the Detroit Tigers, the franchise where he started in 2005 and to which he returned to finish his career, and has not pitched since his first start in March. The retirement announcement came the same day MLB named him to his 10th All-Star Game as a “Legend Pick,” which is the designation for retired or retiring players selected for their career contributions, making it the only All-Star selection that arrives as both an honor and a farewell.
His career statistics are the kind that require a full paragraph to list and still leave things out. Three Cy Young Awards, including one in 2022 when he was 39 and posted a 1.75 ERA, which is the career-best season a pitcher recorded at 39 years old, after coming back from his second Tommy John surgery. The first Tommy John surgery came after he pitched one inning in the abbreviated 2020 pandemic season, blew out his elbow, and missed the entire 2021 season at 38. He came back. He won a Cy Young at 39. He is the 2011 American League MVP, the only season in the modern era in which a pitcher won both the MVP and the Cy Young. He has 3,554 strikeouts, eighth on the all-time list, needing 21 more to pass Don Sutton for seventh. He will not get them this year. He will be eighth forever, which is still eighth on the all-time strikeout list, which is not a position that invites complaint.
He also has two World Series rings, three no-hitters, and 11 seasons between his first and most recent Cy Young Awards, second only to Roger Clemens’s 18 seasons between his first and seventh. He pitched long enough for the pitch clock to be invented and adapted to it, which is the baseball equivalent of learning a new language in your 40s and then teaching classes.
He said in the announcement: “To every teammate, coach, player, clubhouse attendant, and fan who has been part of this journey — thank you. It’s been a privilege to share the field with you.” The Baseball Hall of Fame will vote on him in five years. The deliberation will be brief.
When the pitcher who came back from two Tommy John surgeries, won a Cy Young at 39, and pitched 22 seasons retires on his own terms at 43, what exactly was the sport waiting to take from him?
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