{"id":105146,"date":"2026-02-04T18:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T18:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/105146\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T18:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T18:36:10","slug":"report-pirates-aggressive-suitor-for-top-staring-pitcher-framber-valdez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/105146\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Pirates Aggressive Suitor for Top Staring Pitcher Framber Valdez"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img width=\"525\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Valdez.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium tpd-force-16x9-aspect-ratio wp-post-image\" alt=\"Framber Valdez, Pittsburgh Pirates\" decoding=\"sync\" loading=\"eager\"   fetchpriority=\"high\"\/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>The Pittsburgh Pirates have been aggressive in the free agent market offseason in hopes of building a contender for 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Much of the focus has been on improving the lineup. The Pirates signed Ryan O\u2019Hearn, who became the first free agent position player signed to a multi-year deal since Russell Martin over a decade ago. They also made serious pushes to sign Kyle Schwarber and Eugenio Su\u00e1rez before each player landed eleswhere.<\/p>\n<p>But the Pirates\u2019 latest top free agent pursuit isn\u2019t a bat. Instead, it\u2019s an established left-handed starting pitcher.<\/p>\n<p>The Pirates have emerged as an \u201caggressive suitor\u201d for two-time All-Star and 2022 World Series champion Framber Valdez, according to The Athletic\u2019s Ken Rosenthal.<\/p>\n<p>Valdez, 32, has spent his entire eight-year career with the Houston Astros. The left-hander is 81-52 in his career with a 3.36 ERA across 188 appearances\/166 starts. Valdez was an All-Star in back-to-back seasons from 2022-23, has received Cy Young votes four times (2020, 2022-24) and MVP votes twice (2022, 2024).<\/p>\n<p>This past season with the Astros, Valdez went 13-11 with a 3.66 ERA in 31 starts and threw a pair of complete games. He totaled 192 innings, allowed 171 hits, walked 68 and struck out 187. <\/p>\n<p>Valdez has proven to be extremely durable. Since the start of the 2022 season, his 767.2 innings are second to only Logan Webb of the San Francisco Giants and his 121 starts are second among left-handers behind only Patrick Corbin.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s an obvious connection between Valdez and Pittsburgh. New Pirates pitching coach Bill Murphy was hired this offseason after spending the past five seasons on Houston\u2019s big-league staff.<\/p>\n<p>Rosenthal suggests Valdez will sign a shorter-term deal with opt-outs with his new team. The Pirates are looking to add to their starting rotation after trading right-handers Johan Oviedo and Mike Burrows earlier this offseason. <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned in this article: <a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghbaseballnow.com\/tag\/framber-valdez\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Framber Valdez<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghbaseballnow.com\/tag\/pittsburgh-pirates\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"categories single-categories\">More about:<a href=\"https:\/\/pittsburghbaseballnow.com\/pittsburgh-pirates\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pirates<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Pirates have been aggressive in the free agent market offseason in hopes of building a contender&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[50825,73,75,74,10997],"class_list":["post-105146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-framber-valdez","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-pirates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}