Verlander will be 27 in 2010. He’s got a 65-43 career record, having won 19 games last year, a year after losing 17 (post-season hangovers?, but not the Cabrera kind). He’s started no fewer than 30 games in his first four full years in the Bigs, pitching in 200+ innings the last three years, including 240 IP last year. He lead the AL in strike outs with 269 and finished a respectable 3rd in Cy Young voting.

My checklist:

• Young? CHECK
• Durable? CHECK
• Ability to miss bats? CHECK
• Bulldog mentality? CHECK
• Staff ace? CHECK
• Accountable? CHECK

And he’s still in the arbitration zone, according to Cot’s Contracts. Someone’s due for a HUGE raise and contract. How come we’re not hearing his name that much in the rumor mills? What am I missing?

This is a guy the Yanks or Sox would kill each other to get. And they’d be justified in doing so.

Now this was all PRIOR to the Granderson deal and other transactions, mind you. He got that huge raise/contract today. My follow-up to that original posting came immediately after the Granderson deal was done. Not willing to let dead dogs lie:

Following yesterday’s trade of Granderson and Edwin Jackson, I again wonder if the Tigers would be bold enough to dangle their best player, SP Justin Verlander. Not by himself, but something like the Marlins did with Josh Beckett way back when… making the acquiring team absorb one of their awful contracts.

Could the Tigers deal Verlander and one or two of their bad contracts [Dontrelle Willis (1/$12m remaining) or Carlos Guillen (2/$26m) or Nate Robertson (1/$10m)] for MLB ready talent and still survive the fan revolt? It’d be nearly impossible for the Yanks to do a deal like that without blowing up their “budget”, which must be written in an Etch-A-Sketch. Though it’s probably exactly the type of deal the Sox would love, given their affection for King Felix.

Verlander appears to be arbitration eligible for two more years, after which, will command a major contract if things continue at his current trajectory.

Is Dave Dombrowski under THAT much fiscal pressure? Can he handle the fan revolt that would ensue for dealing fan favorites Granderson AND Verlander. And if Verlander followed Grandy to the Yanks? Nuclear winter in Detroit Tigerville. Like with many of these sorts of things, there’s too much we don’t know. This much we do know.

But if the fiscal pressures are real and signficant (and get worse), I think this is something Detroit has to consider, however reluctantly.

Of course, it’s all moot now, but it was fun to consider for a while.

Hot Stove fever, baby!