Justin Verlander finishing his career with the New York Mets has a nice ring to it, but owner Steve Cohen needs to avoid dishing out a monster contract that will not age well and will only hurt this team a couple of years down the road.

After another stellar year with the Houston Astros, culminating in a World Series, Verlander opted to become a free agent and hit the open market and is drawing real interest from the Mets, as per our very own Michael Mayer. However, there’s a twist. From the mouth of Astros owner Jim Crane, Verlander is seeking a deal similar to the $130 million contract Max Scherzer signed with the Mets last winter.

There’s no secret the Mets entered this offseason with pitching one of their biggest needs. With Jacob deGrom, Chris Bassitt and Taijuan Walker all hitting free agency, the rotation needs rebuilding and an elite arm is required should deGrom opt to take his sizeable talents elsewhere. As such, Verlander would be an ideal candidate to pair with Scherzer at the top of the rotation and form a formidable two-headed pitching monster.

However, there is a limit to everything and while Cohen has the resources to outspend every other team in baseball, giving in to Verlander’s demands and allowing him to reset the market for starting pitchers would be a huge mistake. No matter how good the player is. And Verlander is very, very good and would soften the blow somewhat if deGrom decides he doesn’t want to remain a Met.

With that being said, though, the Mets are already paying Scherzer $43.3 million in 2023 and 2024 and there is every chance that the last year of that contract could be hard to swallow for the team. After all, the three-time Cy Young Award winner suffered with injuries throughout 2022 and he displayed chinks in his armor in the Wild Card series loss to the San Diego Padres after allowing four home runs and seven earned runs in an ugly loss.

Scherzer’s durability is only likely to worsen over the next couple of years too, and there is no guarantee that a 38-year-old will remain healthy and avoid completely breaking down. Verlander has recently had his elbow reconstructed and is going to enter the 2023 season as a 40-year-old, so giving massive amounts of money to two starters that are in the latter years of their career and who have both shown signs of serious wear and tear seems too high a risk.

The flip side to that argument is that deGrom will also be looking for a similar deal to Scherzer and he has also been unable to remain healthy in the past two years, but he is a longtime Met and his importance to this franchise cannot be overstated. He is also a lot younger at 34 so the risk is less and the front office would probably be more willing to commit a sizeable deal to their forever ace.

There is no underselling how elite a pitcher Verlander is, though. Despite not pitching in 2021 and missing almost two seasons following Tommy John Surgery, the righty put together an incredible season in 2022 that resulted in a third Cy Young Award. Verlander went 18-4 with a stellar 1.75 ERA, to go along with 185 strikeouts, a 0.829 WHIP and 5.9 WAR in 175.0 innings pitched. He also allowed just 29 walks and gave up one earned run or fewer in 20 of his 28 starts.

Verlander also recorded his first World Series win as the Astros beat the Philadelphia Phillies in six games to secure their second championship since 2017, while he was almost invincible in his start against the New York Yankees in the ALCS. The righty struckout 11 and allowed just one walk and one earned run on three hits in six innings pitched against the Yankees.

You get more of an idea as to how impressive Verlander was in 2022 when you delve beneath some of the basic stats. He finished seventh in strikeout rate (27.8%) among pitchers with 100+ frames, and he also finished seventh in walk percentage (4.4%). Furthermore, while he leaned on his 4-seam fastball 50.4% of the time last year, the nine-time All-Star had a lot of his success with his changeup, which elicited a 38.5% whiff rate and a 23.3% put away rate.

To put it simply; Verlander pitched to a historic level in 2022 and that’s why he won his third Cy Young Award on Thursday. Unanimously by the way. The 39-year-old joins a list of 10 historically great pitchers to have captured at least three Cy Young Awards, and he’s the fourth-oldest Cy Young winner and the second-oldest pitcher to lead the majors in ERA. Verlander, who led the AL in wins (18) and the majors in WHIP (0.83), also led the majors in ERA and his 1.75 ERA was the best by a pitcher who made a minimum of 25 starts in his age-39-or-older season since earned runs became official in 1913. It was also the lowest ERA by an AL pitcher in a full season – at any age – since Pedro Martinez had a 1.74 ERA in 2000.

Boasting a career 3.24 ERA with 3,198 strikeouts in 482 games in the majors, Verlander’s resume is undisputed and he proved in 2022 that he still has plenty left in the tank. However, given just how good he was last year, regression of some kind should be expected going forward and we have to remember that the righty will be 40 in 2023 so giving him a three-year contract would take him through to the age of 42 where he’ll be making roughly $45 million a year. No matter how much of an optimist you are, that is a deal that just isn’t going to age well.

Father Time catches up with even the greatest and Verlander will eventually slow down, And, in all likelihood, that day is rapidly approaching. Therefore, it wouldn’t be good business sense for Cohen and the Mets to commit multiple years and major dollars to an aging pitcher that has recently just returned from Tommy John Surgery. Especially when they already have an ace on the wrong side of 38 on the roster in Scherzer.

Instead, if this team finds itself needing to replace deGrom with a similar elite arm, bringing Verlander in on a short-term deal with a high AAV would be totally worth the risk because it is likely that the ace will still have filthy stuff in 2023. Think of it as bringing Verlander in as a hired gun. Give him a year, maybe two, give him his money but ensure there is an opportunity to get out of any deal before the inevitable drop-off arrives. Replacing deGrom with Verlander – if that becomes the reality – is fine, but it isn’t worth it if a multi-year deal worth over $40 million per year is the asking price.