NL West contender among the teams evaluating a Justin Verlander trade

Justin Verlander is unlikely to get traded this summer, but it hasn’t stopped New York Mets rumors from mentioning him as a possible chip. 

According to MLB Network’s Jon Morosi, the San Francisco Giants are one of the teams who have Verlander on their wish list. As if there weren’t already enough ex-Mets thriving on the Giants, adding Verlander to the mix would complete whatever comes after a trifecta with Wilmer Flores, J.D. Davis, and Michael Conforto already on their roster.

NY Mets rumors: Why the Giants are actually a good trade destination for Justin Verlander

We know the Giants wanted to spend money badly this offseason. Aaron Judge chose to remain loyal (and rich) with the New York Yankees. Carlos Correa’s ankle scared them off as it did for the Mets. Verlander’s approximately two-and-a-half years remaining on his deal with another season of $43.3 million guaranteed for next year would be a huge “buy” for a Giants club that has found itself a little ahead of schedule.

Coming into the year, the Giants felt more like the Chicago Cubs than the Los Angeles Dodgers. While catching the might be too tall of an order despite being only three games back, the Giants are feeling more like a playoff team than they were even as recently as when they played the Mets.

Mets rumors focused on Verlander and Max Scherzer seemed like they could crawl under the stove to quietly die and rot away. The no-trade clause in his contract may ultimately become one of the bigger deciding factors. Of course, for the Mets to even think about parting with Verlander, they’d also have to get back something of substance.

Coming off his brilliant 8 inning performance, Verlander is now 4-5 with a 3.47 ERA on the year through 14 starts. It’s not what we had expected, but if we give him mulligans for the injury, change of scenery, and the adjustment to the pitch clock, we can come up with some legitimate reasoning as to why he struggled early on.

Verlander makes sense for the Giants because they aren’t just about this year. Seen as one of the more realistic destinations for Shohei Ohtani in the offseason, the move could be one of the first to hint at the superstar free-agent-to-be that they’re ready to compete a little bit harder. It’s now a matter of the other dominoes falling. The first has to be Verlander having the will to leave New York already.

Stack the deck against any sort of Verlander trade happening. Prepare for plenty more Mets rumors about the possibility.

Who knows? Maybe the Mets get blown away by an offer. There’s always the Dodgers to throw their hat into the ring, too.