DETROIT — Way back in spring training, 14 Detroit Tigers players and staffers gathered behind a bullpen mound to watch a legend go to work.This was Justin Verlander’s first bullpen session after his return to the Tigers. He had toured the facility, gawked at a picture of his younger self and even turned emotional at an old photograph of the late Al Kaline. Out on the field, in his element, everybody wanted to see the right-hander. And it did not take long for the fixation on detail that has fueled Verlander’s tremendous career to shine through.“Did that cut?” Verlander yelled toward catcher Dillon Dingler after one early pitch.After nearly every throw, Verlander turned around to seek thoughts from pitching coach Chris Fetter or to ask for data from an analyst holding an iPad.The session lasted nearly 30 minutes. And when someone called that fact to Verlander’s attention as he walked off the field, perhaps the most iconic pitcher in Detroit Tigers history turned back and laughed.“Fair enough,” Verlander said. “You mean no one does that anymore?”Wednesday, Verlander announced his intention to retire at the end of the 2026 season. And that image — an aging workhorse, a symbol of a changed game — again came to mind. Verlander has 266 career wins and 3,554 career strikeouts. Both are the most of any active pitcher. The innings totals throughout his career are legendary. Even his bullpens can be laborious.What Verlander's retirement announcement says about him as a playerCody StavenhagenOver the past few years, Verlander has talked at length about how the game has changed. He is far from a bitter dinosaur. He is a pitcher who used the Houston Astros’ data machine to reinvigorate his career and capture two more Cy Young Awards. But there is part of Verlander that has always lamented the fact pitchers do not go as deep into games as they once did. He has expressed gratitude for Jim Leyland, the manager who first pushed him to finish outings and grind through long seasons.“I think the body of work is something that I’m really proud of,” Verlander said Wednesday. “How often I took the mound, how deep I went in games, how many innings I accrued. Just time. I always thought just being on the mound and just pitching was one of the greatest assets that a starting pitcher could give their team.”The fact Verlander came up in a version of the game that no longer exists is not lost on his younger peers. Two of the pitchers who most admire him — teammate Tarik Skubal and Houston Astros right-hander Hunter Brown — talked about that very idea Wednesday.As a Detroit Tigers ace with two Cy Young Awards to his name, Skubal has been inextricably linked to Verlander ever since he began his ascension to elite status. On more than one occasion over the years, Skubal has pulled out his phone, scrolled down Verlander’s baseball-reference page and marveled at the year-to-year consistency and sheer longevity.Verlander has thrown 26 complete games in his career. Skubal has thrown one.What would it take to rival Verlander’s career totals?“I’d have to pitch until I’m 55,” Skubal said.Brown grew up in the Detroit area. He idolized Verlander as a child, then got to know him as a teammate with the Houston Astros.The sport in its modern state values efficiency above all else. Pitchers are advised and practically required to throw at max effort on every pitch. It is a style that has helped hurlers throw with nastier stuff and more potent velocity than ever. It is also a philosophy that has coincided with an epidemic of arm injuries.And as front offices and managers lean on one-inning, high-effort relievers, that means smaller workloads for starters. Make no mistake: The game is still producing ferocious hurlers. Jacob Misiorowski is doing things no one has ever seen before. Paul Skenes took the league by storm in his first two seasons. Cam Schlittler and Cristopher Sánchez can bend games to their will.But none of them are used quite like Verlander was for the bulk of his career.Will the pendulum ever swing back?“It’s hard to say,” Brown said. “You don’t know what the future holds. I think the way the game is trending, it’s getting less and less likely just based on how much data is out there. If you watched him pitch in the 2010s, it was something that, he’d come out (and) throw 91 and, by the end of the game, he’s throwing 99. That was pitching. Now, if you can throw 99, you should every pitch. The game has changed in that sense.”Hunter Brown has become one of the league’s best pitchers. He knows that no matter how good he is, his career stats will never look anything like Verlander’s. (Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)In Detroit, Skubal often perches beside Verlander during games. He sat in the back of a cramped room Wednesday, the only player there for Verlander’s news conference.“There’s a ton of knowledge to take away from how he speaks, what he says and how he goes about his business,” Skubal said.Dominant as he is, Skubal’s career trajectory hardly resembles Verlander’s. Where Skubal was a ninth-round pick who needed time to blossom, Verlander was a first-round selection who burst onto the scene and pitched in the World Series in his first full MLB season.“When you put it in perspective with what he was able to accomplish so early in his career, too, it’s really impressive,” Skubal said. “He obviously sustained it for 21 seasons.”And where Verlander did not have his first stint on the injured list until 2015, Skubal had Tommy John surgery in college, needed flexor tendon surgery in 2022 and missed time with a loose body in his elbow earlier this season.Despite his injury history, Skubal says he would still love to achieve an innings total as lofty as the ones Verlander put up earlier in his career. Skubal was frustrated when he surrendered one run but lasted only five innings in his most recent outing.“You need to be pitching into the seventh, sixth every single time out,” Skubal said. “That’s the standard.”For reference, Verlander’s career high is 251 innings in his 2011 MVP season. Skubal has never thrown more than 195.1.“I think innings are still so valuable, and I think organizations don’t value it as much,” Skubal said. “They probably want quality over quantity. But I think the old-school in me is, I want quantity. … I’ve been able to throw a lot of innings the last couple seasons and now I’m only making 31 starts. Back when they were doing it, it was 36, 37. I still think I can do that. The game has changed, but I think starters always take pride in throwing innings.”Even position players recognize Verlander’s stature and significance beyond the obvious accolades. Clayton Kershaw retired last season. Max Scherzer is hanging on by a thread with the Blue Jays. The old guard of aces is almost extinct.“It’s him and Scherzer, since Kershaw’s done,” said Cleveland Guardians first baseman Kyle Manzardo, who grew up a Tigers fan because his father’s family is from Michigan. “It’s like the end of an era. I don’t know if guys are pitching for 20 years anymore.”Verlander has logged 3,571 1/3 innings in his career. Wednesday in the Guardians clubhouse, 27-year-old starter Tanner Bibee might as well have cackled at the gap between them.“I’m at like 600 right now,” he said. “I can’t imagine.”Verlander is also the last American League pitcher-only to win an MVP Award, another reminder of how even the game’s most devastating arms are not heralded the way they once were.“I don’t think we’ll see that ever again,” Bibee said. “It’s strictly a position player award now, kind of like how MVP in football is for quarterbacks. You could have a bad year by every single position player and a historic season by a pitcher, someone like Skubal in ’24. He was the MVP of the AL, but (people don’t vote that way anymore).”Wednesday in Detroit, Verlander said one of his proudest achievements came in 2014. He had a 4.54 ERA that season. He was worth only 0.9 bWAR. In the midst of perhaps the worst year of his career, he kept pitching and finished with 206 innings.“Clawing, scratching, climbing to 200 innings, and I got there,” Verlander said. “That was something that I felt really good about. The remainder of the work, obviously I hated. But it’s like, ‘OK, at least I covered some innings for the guys.’”That’s the kind of season we might not see again. Since 2017, only two pitchers have thrown at least 223 innings in a season. One is Sandy Alcantara, who reached 228 ⅔ in 2022.The other is Verlander, who threw an even 223 in 2019.More than the trophies and the rings, more than the Hall of Fame status, that’s the type of legacy Verlander is leaving behind.Barring dramatic rule changes or some unforeseen change in the dynamics of the game, there might never be another starter like him.“There’s a lot of great pitchers in the game right now that could have some great seasons,” Brown said. “I gave him the nickname Optimus Prime and told him he’s the last Prime left.”— Chandler Rome and Zack Meisel contributed to this report.