Justin Verlander’s long list of accolades puts him among the best pitchers to ever put on a big league uniform and makes him a lock for Cooperstown.
Three Cy Youngs. Two World Series titles. An American League MVP. The stats speak for themselves. He’ll wrap up his stellar 21-year career with one more start on Saturday when he takes the mound against the Pirates in Detroit.
These are facts. They are not up for debate. But that’s not why we are here.
We’re here to debate who the “best” pitcher is from this generation, between Verlander, Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke.
Four aces. Three panelists. Good luck.
Moderator: Before we dive into the nitty-gritty of it all, let’s keep it simple: Who’s your No. 1? Go!
Mark Feinsand, senior national reporter:
This is an impossible question. Verlander, Scherzer and Kershaw are not only three of the best pitchers of their generation, but of all-time. If I had to choose, I would probably go with Kershaw. His ERA and ERA+ are far superior to the others, and while all three won three Cy Youngs and made between 8-11 All-Star teams, Kershaw won five ERA titles. You can cherry-pick whatever stats you want to make an argument for any one of these three. There’s really no wrong answer here.
Anthony Castrovince, senior national reporter:
This is BRUTAL. I think I have to go with Kershaw. He falls well short of Verlander and Scherzer in innings pitched, but the rate stats are simply insane. He’s tied with Pedro Martinez for the best ERA+ (154) in history for a starter with at least 2,000 innings. So even when you adjust for him playing his home games in a pitcher's park, he stands out historically in this crew. Even with fewer innings, he reached 3,000 K’s, persevered through diminished stuff and has the legacy of spending his entire career with an iconic team. But please don't make me answer this again!
Jason Beck, Tigers beat reporter:
I'm probably a little biased because I covered two of these guys for the formative seasons of their careers, and the informal rivalry between Verlander and Scherzer when they were teammates was a go-to theme for two or three seasons. At this point, I’d probably give Verlander the slight edge. His 2011-12 stretch was up there with the best of all time, and the no-hitters are an incredible feat. Scherzer had more 5+ bWAR seasons (9) than Verlander (8), but Verlander had the two best seasons of them.
One of the separators for me is how long Verlander and Scherzer managed to remain effective deep into their careers. Their 2022 seasons were outstanding, with Verlander at age 39 and Scherzer at age 37. The bulk of Scherzer’s greatness came in his 30s.
Greinke’s 2009 season was insane, and probably would get a lot more historical love if it happened on a better team.
Feinsand: I don’t want to discount Greinke’s career in this conversation, but as far as the full body of work, I have him below the other three. His 2009 and 2015 seasons may be two of the best individual years among the group, but his career numbers don’t necessarily match up.
Moderator: How much should strikeout and win totals factor into this debate? Verlander has 266 wins and 3,554 strikeouts, Scherzer has 224 wins and 3,550 strikeouts, Kershaw has 223 wins and 3,052 strikeouts and Greinke has 225 wins and 2,979 strikeouts.
And if you are looking at innings pitched, Verlander has 3,571 1/3, Scherzer has 3,040 2/3, Kershaw pitched 2,855 1/3 innings and Greinke racked up 3,389 1/3. You guys can go to war over WAR and more on your own time!
Feinsand: Win totals are tricky, especially in this era. I don’t discount them entirely, but Kershaw played in the non-DH era in the NL for most of his career, so he may have gone deeper in some games had he not been pinch-hit for. I do consider strikeout numbers, and while Verlander and Scherzer both topped the 3,500 mark to Kershaw’s 3,000, Kershaw did still strike out more than a batter an inning over 2,855 innings.
Castrovince: I almost feel like we've overcorrected on wins. Is it a flawed stat? Absolutely. Actually, there are elements to it that are, to use a very technical term, super stupid, in terms of how relievers can vulture them. But they matter to players, and the further we get from the eras where starters were actually expected to go deep into games as opposed to maxing out from Pitch 1, the more you can appreciate the guys who had the workloads and career lengths to compile them in the hundreds. We might never see it again, unfortunately. As for strikeouts, those have probably been discounted in this era with the swing-and-miss across the sport, but that doesn't really apply to these guys, in my opinion. Strikeouts are the primary reason many don't view Greinke in quite the same light as the other three, but in some ways that adds to his allure as a guy who was so crafty and intelligent.
Beck: Strikeout totals definitely are a factor, and I’m going to be fascinated to see if Scherzer keeps on pitching to make sure he passes Verlander on the career strikeout list (well, maybe not JUST for that reason, but probably a little).
Moderator: Next question. Of the four choices, who has the best chance to be a unanimous HOF vote? Rank them, most likely to least likely.
Castrovince: We've only had one unanimous Hall of Famer, and I would have to think one element of Mariano Rivera achieving that feat was him remaining with one team for the entirety of his career. I'm not saying that should be a prevailing factor, but I'm just speculating that it was one. So for that reason, I'll go Kershaw. But the reality is that some hardliner who thinks first ballot should only be reserved for Babe Ruth and Willie Mays will pick apart something in the cases of each of these guys and leave him off, if history holds.
Beck: I'd say Kershaw has the best chance to be unanimous. His track record, his greatness, his regard as a top-notch guy, it would take some creativity to find an excuse not to vote for him when he gets on the ballot. I don’t think Verlander should get dinged for being on the Astros during the sign-stealing scandal since he’s a pitcher, but you might find a voter or two who decide nobody associated with that team deserves to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
I'd probably rank them Kershaw, Scherzer, Verlander, then Greinke.
Feinsand: Given that Mariano Rivera is the only unanimous vote in the history of the Hall of Fame, I would guess that none of them will be unanimous. If Greg Maddux wasn’t unanimous, why would we think any starter ever will be? As far as ranking them, I’ll go with Kershaw since he has historic run-prevention numbers. Hard to imagine a pitcher with a career ERA above 3.00 being unanimous – though I will certainly vote for all three on the first ballot. I’m a likely yes on Greinke, too, though to be honest, I haven’t dug in on him as much yet since I don’t put him in the category with Scherzer, Verlander and Kershaw.
Castrovince: Someone will leave Scherzer off because his eyes are different colors. And it probably still wouldn't be the weirdest reason someone has left a clear Hall of Famer unchecked.
Moderator: Let’s go old school on this one. How do you rank this generation's aces against Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens, the aces of the last generation?
Castrovince: OK, not feeling too well… I'm going to leave the chat now, and not just because I don't have the guts to answer this one…
Moderator: Sorry, Castro. That’s not an option. No retreat, no surrender.
Beck: The number of young pitchers who have talked about watching and emulating Verlander growing up (not just Michigan kids like Hunter Brown, but all over) makes me think Verlander is right up there in terms of the influence he has had. Scherzer’s mindset arguably has had a big influence on how pitchers approach the game now. Watching Tarik Skubal adapt his all-out-every-pitch mentality a bit to make sure he had some of his best pitches for the later innings is classic Scherzer.
Feinsand: I think the importance of the starting pitcher during Maddux, Johnson, Pedro and Clemens’ careers made them more valuable, but had any of these guys been pitching in the 1990s and early 2000s, I think we would have ranked them right alongside any/all of them. These are all generational pitchers who would have thrived in just about any era. Even Maddux, who was not a hard thrower, would have figured out a way to be successful today.
Castrovince: OK fine, I’m back. I think what you have to account for is the offensive environment, which leads me to put the previous generation ahead of these guys if I absolutely have to rank them. Now, of course, the offensive environment was significantly inflated by PEDs, and, well, now we go down a whole different road of conversation that could easily flip everything on its head. But to me, there is no more dominant run than Pedro from 1999-2003. I'll put that against anything historically, be it the Year of the Pitcher or anything else. It's simply absurd pitcher production at a time when teams were scoring eleventy billion runs per season.
Feinsand: Eleventy billion? I may have to go look that stat up. Feels a little low.
Castrovince: At the end of the day, these four carried the torch from those four, and that's a thing of beauty.
Beck: The way Maddux pitched, the precision, the ability to dominate games without necessarily racking up strikeouts, I don’t know if anyone will match that status. I don’t know if anyone honestly can pitch with that type of command anymore in such a strikeout-dominated era.
Castrovince: That's a great point. Maddux's style is not incentivized today.
Feinsand: Just as teams facing Maddux, Johnson, Clemens and Pedro knew they were in for a tough day every time they faced them, they feel the same way about this current group.
Bottom line, I’ll take any one of these guys as the ace of my team for 10 years. They’re all among the greatest pitchers in the game’s history.
Castrovince: The question now is whether Scherzer gives it one more go in 2027 or goes into the Hall alongside Verlander. I'd almost prefer each of those guys has his individual day. Maybe they'd prefer it, too. And after Scherzer reads this, he's going to keep going just to try to seal the No. 1 spot on the lists of MLB.com's finest.
Moderator: Thanks, guys. And thank you all for reading. Now, who is YOUR pick?