LAKELAND, Fla. -- The first Vintage Verlander moment of this new chapter wasn’t a strikeout in front of a packed crowd at Joker Marchant Stadium, or a big fastball or buckling breaking ball. It was a bullpen session on the back fields.
This is where Justin Verlander put in the work that made him one of baseball’s best pitchers, setting up a 20-plus-year career that seems destined to culminate in the Hall of Fame. The tools and facilities have changed, but the work ethic remains the same.
One pitch after another, catcher Dillon Dingler positioned his mitt to set the target. Sometimes, Verlander would provide feedback to move it, noting how his pitches move when they’re working. Sometimes, he’d rear back and hit the target. Other times, he’d let the pitches do the work.
“A lot of times with a pitcher of his caliber, a guy who's been around the league, a really good pitcher that you're catching for the first time, you want to know exactly what they want,” Dingler said afterwards. “You want to know what kind of positioning, what kind of target. Even at the end, we were talking a little bit of sequencing, what he likes to do, what he doesn't like to do. Just building that relationship is key.“
Said Verlander: “I think a lot of it is just aesthetic for me as a pitcher, when I look up what looks best to me so that I can execute to the highest level possible. That's what we both want, and at the same time I want him to be comfortable. Obviously he's a Gold Glover, so what he does back there is also pretty special and you don't want to take that away. So it's just trying to find a comfort zone.”
Dingler often provided feedback on how he saw the pitches moving. Every so often, Verlander would turn back and check an iPad to see the metrics.
“I think you can be inundated with data now,” Verlander said. “There's so much thrown at you that it can be an impediment to just feeling good. I think some of the data I saw today I didn't really like, but again, it's my first time out there kind of getting after it. It also takes a while for your body to sync up. These are things that I didn't used to have.”
At one stretch, most of the Tigers pitching staff was watching from behind the bullpen mounds along with several staffers. Manager A.J. Hinch squatted down beside Dingler to see how Verlander’s pitches were moving from a catcher’s angle. By the time Verlander was done, nearly everyone was gone except for Dingler, pitching coach Chris Fetter and a few staffers.
Verlander estimated he threw around 70 pitches in the nearly half-hour session, not including warmup pitches. It was the kind of session he’d regularly throw in his younger years as a Tiger, minus the immediate feedback from metrics.
Verlander’s next throwing session will be a live session against hitters. He won’t be in the rotation when Grapefruit League play opens this weekend, but will slot in soon enough as the Spring Training schedule rolls along.
“Compared with what I've done, this is heavier work,” Verlander said. “It's kind of like a springboard where you check a box volume-wise and then recover and then do it again five days later and build on the momentum that you have. Ideally you keep moving in that direction.”
As he made his way around the complex, he was reminded of the work he did here in the past.
“It's something I definitely don't take for granted,” Verlander said. “Walking around, a lot of memories come in. I walked off the field today and I'm walking in this door and see a picture of Al Kaline celebrating with a bottle of champagne. I was there for that. It's a lot of little things that are really nostalgic.”