Could Blue Jays Reunite Justin Verlander with Max Scherzer at Trade Deadline?
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As the trade deadline draws incredibly close it appears that the San Francisco Giants are selling and that means Justin Verlander could be looking for a new home.
The Giants are making Verlander available, per MLB.com's Jon Morosi. Verlander has a no-trade clause and would have to agree to be traded.
There are many teams looking to build depth to their pitching rotation and that includes the Toronto Blue Jays and a future hall-of-famer like Verlander could make an immediate impact.
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Even though Verlander is 1-8 on the year, the veteran definitely has some arm left. In his last two starts he has finished 10 innings and only allowed one earned run. In his last game he threw seven strikeouts.
Verlander has won two World Series rings to match the pair that current Blue Jay Max Scherzer has. Toronto could add even more experience to their pitching staff which could improve incredibly useful for postseason play.
Scherzer is in his first season with the Blue Jays and if Verlander were to approve a trade to Toronto it wouldn't be the first, or second, time that the two pitchers would be on the same roster.
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Verlander was a member of the Detroit Tigers when Scherzer joined the pitching staff back in 2010. The pair stayed together until the end of the 2014 season when Scherzer chose free agency over Detroit and signed with the Washington Nationals.
The next time the two righties found themselves in the same city was in 2023. Verlander had just left the Houston Astros to join the New York Mets where his former teammate already was. However, both were traded that same season and the reunion was short lived.
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The reunion could lead to something special and ultimately build on their weakest area which is their pitching staff. They sit in the bottom half of baseball in too many categories including ERA and batting average allowed.
The Jays are coming off of an 18-win month and they sit at the top of the AL East. After a mediocre start to the season they now find themselves as one of the best clubs in the American League.
If the organization is looking to make a push in October it might not hurt to have a player like Verlander on the roster.
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Maddy Dickens resides in Loveland, Colorado. She grew up with two older brothers, where their lives revolved around sports. She earned a master's degree in business management from Tarleton State University while simultaneously playing basketball and competing in rodeo at the collegiate level. She successfully parlayed a reserve national championship into a professional rodeo career and now stays involved in upper-level athletics by writing for On SI on several different MLB teams' pages, along with some NCAA sites.