Ben Verlander is in a tough position. He’s the less-talented, more-handsome little brother of a future Hall of Fame pitcher, and he’s trying to make his way as a baseball analyst. With a last name no one has ever heard except on him and his brother, it’s impossible for anyone to ever think of him as “Justin Verlander’s brother Ben.”
So there will always be rumblings of nepotism or “no one would care what he thinks if his name was Ben Smith,” and sometimes Ben thinks has to resort to Hot Takes to overcomes that.
In a recent conversation on his Flippin’ Bats podcast, he and his co-host, Alex Curry, were talking about the possibility of enigmatic shortstop Carlos Correa signing with the Dodgers.