San Francisco Giants Future Hall of Famer Looks Like Vintage Self During Spring

The San Francisco Giants are getting some vintage performances from a future Hall of Famer this spring training.

Feb 13, 2025; Scottsdale, AZ, USA; San Francisco Giants pitcher Justin Verlander (35) watches players work out in the bullpen during spring training camp. | Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images

The San Francisco Giants signed a veteran pitcher this offseason in hopes that he can return to his old form and provide some stability. His start to spring training has been promising.

After losing Blake Snell to the Los Angeles Dodgers this offseason, Justin Verlander ended up being the only addition to the Giants starting rotation.

Though adding a future Hall of Famer is always one of the more fun things that a team can do in an offseason, it was hard not to be trepidatious about Verlander.

He had a 5.48 ERA through 17 starts with the Houston Astros last year.

There is not a long history of 42-year-old pitchers coming off of injury-riddled campaigns with rocky results on the mound to have bounce back seasons.

The best case scenario for him seemed to be a player-coach role that could provide solid innings. That seems like it was shooting too low, though.

While it is still only spring training, Verlander has had about as good of a start as possible through his first three outings.

Heading into Tuesday's game against the Athletics, he had 3.00 ERA over six innings of work. He gave up a run in each of the first two games, one of which was a home run.

His promising performance continued into the game against the A's.

Inarguably the most impressive thing that Verlander did on the day was striking out A's right fielder Lawrence Butler on three straight swings, closing out on a 96 MPH heater.

While concerns are growing about the fact that Kyle Harrison continues to lose velocity on his fastball, the fact that Verlander can still hit 96 while being 19 years older feels absurd.

The only real hiccup that the veteran had on the day was a ball left up that Zack Gelof sent past the opposite field wall.

He pitched five innings in full on the day and that was the only run given up.

Now, through three starts, he has a 2.45 ERA over 11 innings with a 1.00 WHIP. Batters are hitting .225 against him. That is down from the .274 average they had last season.

There is no discounting the issues he had in 2024, but as recently as 2023 he was still a well-above average pitcher. In 2022, of course, he won his third Cy Young award (all in the AL).

His strong start to spring doesn't mean he will deliver another Cy Young campaign, but it could mean that he is back to being at least solid.