Justin Verlander has 22 wins. He has three starts left in the regular season, if nothing changes. So, at the very least, we can say, "Yes, Verlander can win 25 games." We can probably add, I'm not going to be the one to bet against Verlander.
On the other hand, as good as Verlander is, we have to acknowledge there's a bit of chance involved. Verlander could have an average day and a ball or two or three bounces past his infielders (or flies by his outfielders) at the wrong time. Two of his past three starts, Verlander allowed four runs. He could also have a good day and allow a run or two but find himself on the losing side because his batters just can't get anything going.
So yes, he's Justin Verlander. I don't want to bet against him. But anything can happen. It's baseball.
Jack Moore at Fangraphs last week looked at the percentage chances of Verlander winning 25 games in a couple of different ways. This week he updated his findings.
Moore used Marcel projections -- more info here -- for Verlander.
Using this method, we get a winning percentage of .570, slightly up from our .564 from earlier. Using this number, we arrive at an 18% chance of winning 25 games.
Given the fact that this year’s Tigers squad is a bit better than the teams he’s played for lately, we can probably elevate that number a bit. What we really want here is a range of probabilities, and given this data, I would feel pretty comfortable assigning a probability of 15%-25% for Verlander’s probabilities of winning 25 games.
I'm not sure that's the best analysis in the world, to be honest. Essentially, if you give Verlander a 50/50 chance to win every game for no reason other than "well, he might win, he mightnot" you get a 12.5% likelihood of winning three games in a row. Of course if you use the percentage of starts that earn him a win, you come up with around 36% chances of winning three in a row. So, statistically, it's not like Moore is off by a mile either. He essentially comes up with something in the middle.
Some people would like to use remaining schedule. It appears Verlanders remaining three games will be at Chicago, at Oakland and hosting Baltimore. He has ERAs of 3.47, 3.38 and 4.50, respectively, against those opponents. The ERAs at Chicago and Oakland's ballparks this season are 3.38 and 4.50, while he has been a stellar 2.11 at Comerica Park. Or using winning percentage against these teams this year, we get ... about a 36% chance of winning the next three games. Hmm. Might be on to something after all. Please note the flaw in this form of analysis is small sample size. However, if we expand the glance to look at the past few seasons the flaw would be changing rosters on those teams. So this isn't a real great either.
Ideally I guess you would create some sort of simulation and run it a million times. In the end, I suspect the simulations would come up with a lower probability than you might expect.
So using some combination of all the above information and possibly pulling it out of my backside, I'm just going to lay the odds at about 33% that Verlander wins out. I'm still not sure I'd want to bet against it happening, but statistically speaking the odds are against it.