{"id":414097,"date":"2026-01-18T02:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T02:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/414097\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T02:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T02:29:08","slug":"blue-jays-met-with-framber-valdez-in-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/414097\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays Met With Framber Valdez In November"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fresh off a run to the World Series, the Blue Jays have been very active on the free agent market. They signed top free agent starter Dylan Cease<\/a> to a seven-year deal and also brought in Kazuma Okamoto<\/a>, Tyler Rogers<\/a>, and Cody Ponce<\/a>. The past few days have not gone in their favor, though. Toronto was one of the top suitors for Kyle Tucker<\/a> and offered him $350MM over ten years before he signed<\/a> with the Dodgers. They also hoped to re-sign Bo Bichette<\/a>, but he opted for a short-term, high-AAV deal with the Mets yesterday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After coming up short on Tucker and Bichette, it\u2019s plausible the team could shift their focus back to adding more pitching. Lefty Framber Valdez<\/a> remains available, and Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet reports<\/a> that the Blue Jays met with him at the GM meetings back in November. Nicholson-Smith clarifies that the meeting was before Cease\u2019s signing, but there was mutual interest between the two sides at the time.<\/p>\n

Valdez has so far been publicly linked to the Orioles, Giants, Mets, and Red Sox. The Orioles\u2019 interest was reported even after they signed Pete Alonso<\/a> for $155MM over five years. The Giants are more interested in a short-term deal, while the Mets reportedly<\/a> prefer to add pitching via trade. The Red Sox also Met with Valdez in November, but they may no longer be a fit after signing Ranger Suarez<\/a> and trading for Sonny Gray<\/a> and Johan Oviedo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As for the Blue Jays, their current interest in Valdez is unclear, as is their ability to fit him into the payroll. RosterResource<\/a> has their 2026 payroll at $282MM and their CBT payroll at $310.5MM, which puts them over the maximum luxury tax line of $304MM. While their offer for Tucker would have carried a $35MM AAV plus a $31.5MM luxury tax bill, he may have been a special case as the clear top hitter on the market.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Valdez is older than all three of Tucker, Bichette, and Cease. He was predicted to land a five-year, $150MM deal on MLBTR\u2019s Top 50 Free Agents list<\/a>. As a second-year luxury tax payor, the Jays would owe $27MM in tax penalties on that $30MM AAV, making Valdez a $57MM total cost in 2026 if they were to sign him. He also rejected a qualifying offer from the Astros, so he would cost the Jays their second- and fifth-highest draft picks in 2026. With a projected rotation of Cease, Trey Yesavage<\/a>, Kevin Gausman<\/a>, Shane Bieber<\/a>, and Ponce, it\u2019s possible that Valdez is both too expensive and more of a want than a need for Toronto.<\/p>\n

Of course, none of that takes away from Valdez\u2019s track record. From 2022-25, he was worth 16.5 fWAR, which was fifth-best among qualified starters between Gausman and Cease. A lot of that success has come from Valdez\u2019s suppression of home runs and exceptional groundball rates. In those four seasons, his 0.68 HR\/9 is tied for fifth-best among qualified starters. His groundball rate of 60.0% is tops among starters with at least 500 innings. For Valdez, that number has never dipped below 54.2% in a full season.<\/p>\n

He has also built a reputation for durability. Valdez\u2019s 767 2\/3 innings since the start of 2022 are second-most in the majors behind only Giants ace Logan Webb<\/a>. This past year was more of the same. In 31 starts with the Astros, Valdez pitched 192 innings with a 3.66 ERA, a 58.6% groundball rate, and an above-average 14.8% K-BB rate.<\/p>\n

He did show some signs of wear as the season went on, posting a 5.20 ERA in 71 innings in the second half. The last two months were especially rough. In August, Valdez only struck out 12.8% of hitters. In September and October, he became uncharacteristically homer-prone, allowing six long balls in 27 2\/3 innings (1.95 HR\/9). On the positive side, his sinker remained a dominant pitch, with a run value of 15 according to Statcast as well as above-average vertical break. While a long-term deal would take Valdez into his mid-30s, he should at least maintain a strong floor thanks to his durability and extreme groundball tendencies.<\/p>\n

The market has been solid for pitchers looking for long-term deals. Cease was coming off an uneven walk year with the Padres and still got seven years from the Jays. Suarez just got five years and $130MM from Boston, matching our contract prediction in length and outdoing it by $15MM in value. Tatsuya Imai<\/a> is perhaps the only starter expected to get a long-term deal who settled for a shorter pact (three years, $54MM with the Astros). Age aside, Valdez has a lengthy track record and should do better than Imai, at least in terms of AAV.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Troy Taormina, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fresh off a run to the World Series, the Blue Jays have been very active on the free…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[87208,363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-414097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-framber-valdez","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}