Justin Verlander is returning home while questions swirl about just how many more seasons he has left in the tank.
The future Hall of Famer signed a one-year, $13 million deal Tigers, the team that selected him second overall in the 2004 MLB Draft and for whom he played 13 seasons, according to The Post’s Jon Heyman.
The pact includes $11 million in deferred money beginning in 2030, per Heyman.
Verlander, who turns 43 later this month, is the second notable pitching addition made by the AL Central squad in the last week, with lefty Framber Valdez recently signing a three-year, $115 million deal.
It’s not a leap of faith to think this could be the swan song for Verlander perhaps it’s only fitting that he will finish his career for the team that he’s most associated with in his legendary career.
Verlander starred for the Tigers from 2005-17 before being traded to the Astros.
He won his first Cy Young with the Tigers in 2011 and also grabbed MVP honors that year, the last strict AL pitcher (Shohehi Ohtani is a two-way player) to do so.
Verlander went 183-114 with a 3.49 ERA spanning 380 starts in Detroit, tallying 2.373 strikeouts.
He left the Tigers to join the Astros during the 2017 season and finally won the World Series ring that eluded him in Detroit.
Verlander won titles with the team in 2017 and 2022, while also winning Cy Young Awards during the 2019 and 2022 seasons.
He left Houston after the 2022 season and that began the traveling journeyman portion of his career.
Verlander signed a two-year, $86.7 million with the Mets only to be traded midseason back to Houston, and he pitched for them through the 2024 season.
He spent this past year with the Giants, going 4-11 with a 3.85 ERA across 29 starts.
Verlander boosts a strong Tigers rotation featuring back-to-back AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, Valdez, Jack Flaherty and Casey Mize.
The overarching question if is this will be his final season, in a symbolic place, but Verlander, with 266 wins to his name, has said he would live to chase down 300.
“I think if I can go out and make 29, 30-plus starts and give our team a chance to win for a few more years, then it’s possible,” Verlander said last season, per MLB.com. “I’m not going to say it’s not. It’s definitely harder, though. If you make 29 starts, you’d like to win 10, 15 games.
“It wasn’t in the cards this year. But maybe this year wasn’t meant to be for wins. Maybe this year was meant to be kind of for health and kind of re-finding myself and getting used to taking the ball every five, six days and just kind of going out there and being able to log some innings. Maybe that will carry me where I need to go.”
