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The Tigers and Justin Verlander have agreed to a five-year, $80 million extension, a source told the Associated Press. Though not officially announced, the deal is expected to be completed before the end of the week. The deal both avoids arbitration and keeps Verlander in Detroit three years into his free agency. While the extension was being negotiated, it was expected that Verlander would use Felix Hernandez's five-year, $78 million contract as a template for what he wanted from Detroit. In the end, the Tigers went beyond the deal Seattle gave to Hernandez by $2 million to lock their ace up long-term.
That's really the most surprising aspect of the signing; Hernandez is younger than Verlander (24 compared to Verlander's 27) with a slight edge in every career stat except for won-loss record and a dominant 2009 season by Hernandez that was better than any Verlander's put up to this point in his career. If anything, it seemed likely that Verlander's deal would come in just under the $78 million that the Mariners gave Hernandez.
A couple million dollars isn't a lot to quibble with in either direction for such a large deal (Hernandez is Verlander's second most comparable pitcher, according to Baseball-Reference), though, and the important part for the Tigers is that they have Verlander locked up. His 2009 numbers might not have matched Hernandez's or Zack Greinke's, but he did go 19-9 with 269 strikeouts, most in the American League, and just 63 walks in 240 innings. That kind of performance is certainly worthy of a sizable extension.
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