19 reasons Justin Verlander is better than your favorite player

The Astros ace is aiming for another ring.

For fans of eight teams (and, for a quick minute early on, ten) the postseason is the best part of the baseball calendar. The players you’ve grown attached to throughout the regular season get to shine, and maybe even some late August call ups get to be the heroes of a tight series and be forever beloved by the fan base.

It’s a chance for electric personalities, talented players, and unlikely stars truly emerge. So for every playoff team, we’re picking one of the most exciting players to watch and explaining why we love them so much. Here’s why we love Justin Verlander.

1. He’s almost 36 years old and in the last three seasons, Verlander has gone 47-26 with a 3.03 ERA over 635.2 innings pitched, allowing only 85 home runs and 165 walks during that span. He also has a 135 ERA+ during that time. Let’s just get this out of the way first: we love Verlander because he’s somehow defying time (and if your response to that is “that somehow might be something pretty obvious!” then we have no further comment at this time but ... we’ve thought that too.)

2. He has a sense of humor

3. Verlander said of wife Kate Upton’s role in helping him turn his career around and keep his head up during a trying time in Detroit, “Who knows, if I’m even here if it wasn’t for her?” Would your favorite player bare as much soul in public?

4. Just the best husband.

5. He doesn’t take shit from fans.

6. His moving strategy is no better than the rest of our’s.

7. He owns “Eleanor” from Gone in 60 Seconds.

8. He’s not too famous to freak out at a Beyoncé concert with his better half.

9. He can pull off sharp a colored suit. Maybe not as well as Kate, but....

10. His reaction to being asked to enter a game in relief for the first time in his career last playoffs was perfect.

11. He tried to be as outspoken as he could about Roberto Osuna without pissing off ownership.

12. He’s still willing to learn new things.

13. He’s the only person we’re okay with doing this to Shohei Ohtani.

14. He’s pretty much always looked like the chill neighborhood dad who does’t talk too much and that’s okay.

15. His fastball looks like it’s computer generated.

16. He brings his dog on private plane trips.

17. He is unironically a sponsor for Flonase because he genuinely has really bad allergies. Out here living his truth with the most dad ad campaign and endorsements ever.

18. Not one but both of Verlander’s teams feature orange as a primary color of their uniforms. As far as we know, he’s never complained about having to somehow pull off wearing orange for his entire career.

19. Even he couldn’t stay stone faced when the Tigers welcome him back to Comerica Park with a tribute video.