The Houston Astros got the band back together and are ready to retake the AL West
The Astros’ trade deadline was highlighted by reacquiring Justin Verlander and getting two key pieces of the lineup back from injury
NEW YORK — On Nov. 3, 2022, 39-year-old future Hall of Fame pitcher Justin Verlander secured his first World Series win. That it took until then was a nagging quirk in his otherwise storied career. In the final start of his third Cy Young Award-winning season, Verlander labored through five high-traffic innings against a Philadelphia Phillies team that had charmed the country as it rode an infectious hot streak from barely making the postseason to being all knotted up at two games apiece against the big, bad Houston Astros in the World Series.
But Verlander pitched well enough to put the Astros up in the series, and two days later, he and Houston won their second championship in six seasons together.
It seemed to mark the likely end of his time in Houston. Verlander declined the player option in his contract, making him a free agent, and the Astros are known for a principled approach that prevents most splurges. Amid the celebrations that would double as a sendoff, Verlander’s mother thanked manager Dusty Baker for leaving him in Game 5 long enough to check off that conspicuously lacking career achievement.
Nine months to the day after that World Series start, Verlander walked into the visiting team clubhouse at Yankee Stadium, where the Astros were opening a weekend series in the Bronx. On Monday, Verlander and the rest of the 2022 World Series champions will go to the White House to be honored. The Astros had a tough time scheduling the trip, which is how it ended up being this late — between a series in New York and one in Baltimore.
If it had been any earlier, Verlander couldn’t have attended. Between winning the World Series with the Astros in November and starting for them Saturday night, he signed with the New York Mets on a record-setting contract.
But when the Mets’ stunning failure this season, despite a staggering payroll, forced the team to tear down at the deadline, Verlander was able to reunite with an Astros team that is starting to look a whole lot like the one that won the World Series less than a year ago.
“It’s exciting seeing all the guys again,” Verlander told reporters Thursday. “It feels a little weird because it hasn’t been that long, so it feels like you don’t miss a beat, and you’re right back in the locker room. But on the other hand, there’s this whole segment that happened. So here I am, still staying in my apartment in New York. It’s a really odd feeling.”
Since Verlander was last on the team, José Abreu replaced Yuli Gurriel at first base. Mauricio Dubón is playing more with Aledmys Díaz gone. Yainer Díaz is backing up the regular backstop, Martín Maldonado. The rookie Hunter Brown, who had a cup of coffee last year, is now a regular in the rotation.
But for the most part, the Astros went into 2023 with Verlander’s departure as perhaps the only high-profile change.
Well, that and the top baseball executive. One day after Verlander opted out, World Series-winning general manager James Click departed the Astros rather than accept a contract offer that was never intended to be appealing enough for him to accept. He was replaced later in the offseason by Dana Brown, who until this week had only ever overseen an Astros team that didn’t employ Verlander.
Brown’s friend and former boss, Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos, told him when he took the job that he had two priorities in his first year: the draft and the trade deadline.
“You got to nail those two things,” Brown said Anthopoulos told him. As the deadline approached, Brown thought that meant securing reinforcement for the back end of a bullpen that has been heavily taxed already this season.
That changed as soon as it became clear to other teams that the Mets might sell.
“We started to think of ways that we could get him back at that point,” Brown said of Verlander.
