Do You Believe In Justin Verlander?

My name is David "MVP" Eckstein, and I'm a Verlandaholic. Before I really paid attention to sabermetrics, I used to draft Verlander high. I've been clean for about a year now, but I'm tempted to relapse. Help me.

In 2006, I touted him as being second to only Lirano among new pitchers. His consistently high 90s fastball and mid 70s curveball were a recipe for nasty domination. The result of his stuff was some quality strikeouts, average control and slight groundball tendencies. Since his debut, however, Verlander's walk rate has increased, his worm burning tendencies have declined and his fastball slowly, but steadily lost 2.5 MPH in velocity. Entering this season, Verlander's FIP has only been below 4.00 once -- in 2007, his breakout year, when it was 3.99 -- in his entire career. Despite playing in front of a laughably poor defense, Verlander consistently outperformed his FIP from 2006-2007. Realizing this, I avoided him in 2008 -- and was rewarded for my abstinence. Verlander posted a 4.84 ERA over 201+ IP, his K rate slipped a full K lower than it was in 2007 and a career low in WHIP (1.4).

But all was not as terrible as one would think. In 2008, Verlander's peripherals -- GB/FB rate aside -- all increased over his 2006 levels. Verlander's K rate was a full strikeout per nine higher than his 2006 level and his home run per nine rate has falled from 1.02 per nine to .89 per nine to .81 per nine. Even though Verlander was giving up less groundballs, he was increasing his infield fly ball rate by a large margin (it almost doubled). The result of Verlander's 2008 campaign was his second best career FIP -- 4.18, a full 2/3 of a run lower than his ERA.

This season, Verlander's fastball velocity is back to its 2005/2006 level (95.3 MPH) and his strikeout rate is back up (above) his 2007 level. While I wouldn't expect Verlander to continue to strike out 10+ guys per nine, he's shown that he has the stuff to sustainably strikeout somewhere between 8 and 9 per nine over the course of a 200+ inning season. Verlander's GB/FB is also down, but his pitch selection remains largely unchanged from the past two seasons, so even with some downturn, it's unlikely that it was sustainably have halved over the course of one season. Furthermore, most of the groundballs Verlander used to give up have been converted into infield fly balls (up 5% over last season). His HR/9 is a bit higher than last season -- but still below league average -- but that may be the result of his first outing, in which he gave up a gopher ball that knocked him out of the game before the end of the 4th inning.

Verlander's Walk Rate currently sits at 2.9 walks per nine, slightly below his career average, but right in line with his 2006-2007 numbers. Verlander has only once (last season) walked more than 3 per nine in his career. To expect a persistent 33% regression in one's control is rare (well, tell that to Rick Ankiel, Rich Hill, Daniel Cabrera...). From 2005 to 2007, Verlander's control (K/BB) increased from 1.4 to 2.07 to 2.73. And though his control regressed a bit in 2008 (to 1.87), it currently sits at a robust 3.78. I wouldn't expect a 3+ K/BB to persists, but a mid 2's -- somwhere between his 2006 and 2007 levels -- is very reasonable.

Justin Verlander currently stands as the most unfortunate pitcher in baseball. His FIP-ERA splits are the worst in the league (his FIP is 3.22, his ERA is 6.75) thanks to a .408 BABIP (Verlander's career BABIP is .303) and 50.3 LOB% (league average is 72%). He's also only 25 years old, so making gains in his control and ability at this point in his career is quite reasonable. PECTOA issued Verlander a 27% breakout rate and 60% improve rate this season, matched against 11% attrition and 11% collapse rate.

Taking note of all of this, I think I'm ready to drink the Verlander juice and buy low. Are you?