The playoffs have nothing to do with this award though and if you're against using the division's quality in an argument, it's not fair to also try and claim the Tigers wouldn't have made the playoffs without him.

I hatehatehate using wins when discussing pitchers, but, for the sake of this conversation, the Tigers went 26-9 in games Verlander started. You could have downgraded that record to a mediocre 19-16 and Detroit still would have made the playoffs... that's how much they won the Central by.