{"id":432217,"date":"2026-01-27T06:18:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T06:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/432217\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T06:18:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T06:18:06","slug":"which-team-will-sign-framber-valdez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/432217\/","title":{"rendered":"Which Team Will Sign Framber Valdez?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Framber Valdez<\/a> stands atop the pitching class and is arguably the offseason\u2019s last marquee free agent. He and\u00a0Zac Gallen<\/a> are the two remaining players who declined qualifying offers. Those two pitchers and Eugenio Su\u00e1rez<\/a> are the three unsigned players who ranked among MLBTR\u2019s Top 20 free agents entering the winter.<\/p>\n

Su\u00e1rez was always going to be capped to two or three years by his age. Gallen is coming off a down season and is a candidate for a pillow contract with an opt-out. On the other hand, Valdez came into the winter as arguably the best available pitcher. His age and middling second half performance \u2014 plus the bizarre cross up incident with catcher\u00a0C\u00e9sar Salazar<\/a> that could lead to some questions from teams \u2014 meant he hit the market on a bit of a down note himself. Valdez is nevertheless coming off a 3.66 ERA showing with an above-average 23.3% strikeout rate and massive 58.6% grounder percentage across 192 innings. It\u2019s his fourth straight full season and sixth year in a row with a sub-4.00 earned run average.<\/p>\n

Valdez\u2019s age (32) made a six-year deal a stretch. A five-year contract seemed more plausible, with a strong four-year pact appearing to be the floor. There hasn\u2019t been much about Valdez\u2019s market or whether his camp would target a shorter deal with opt-outs as Spring Training approaches. Valdez clearly hasn\u2019t found a deal to his liking, yet he\u2019s probably the last top-of-the-rotation starter who\u2019ll change teams this offseason.<\/p>\n

A Tarik Skubal<\/a> trade has always felt like a long shot.\u00a0Freddy Peralta<\/a>,\u00a0MacKenzie Gore<\/a>, Edward Cabrera<\/a> and Shane Baz<\/a> are off the trade market. Dylan Cease<\/a> landed with the Blue Jays on a seven-year deal within the first couple weeks of the offseason. The market didn\u2019t value NPB righty\u00a0Tatsuya Imai<\/a> as a top-of-the-rotation arm. Valdez has higher upside than any of the other remaining starters in free agency (e.g. Gallen, Lucas Giolito<\/a>,\u00a0Chris Bassitt<\/a>,\u00a0Justin Verlander<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Valdez has most frequently been linked to the Orioles. They entered the offseason needing a top-end starter, and president of baseball operations Mike Elias has ties to the southpaw from his days in the Houston front office. The O\u2019s acquired Baz in a trade to address the rotation and signed\u00a0Pete Alonso<\/a> to a five-year, $155MM free agent deal. There\u2019s reportedly still room in the budget, but another $30MM+ annual salary for Valdez would cap a much bigger offseason than usual for the Orioles.<\/p>\n

The Mets, Blue Jays and Red Sox are all known to have met with Valdez around the Winter Meetings. They\u2019ve each added a different marquee pitcher (Peralta, Cease and\u00a0Ranger Su\u00e1rez<\/a>, respectively). The Astros have never seemed inclined to bring Valdez back. The Giants also met with the two-time All-Star, but they\u2019ve consistently downplayed their desire to sign anyone long term.<\/p>\n

Where does that leave Valdez? Will Baltimore or San Francisco get aggressive, or does the long wait open up the opportunity for a mystery team?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Framber Valdez stands atop the pitching class and is arguably the offseason\u2019s last marquee free agent. He and\u00a0Zac…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[87208,363,99],"class_list":["post-432217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-framber-valdez","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432217","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=432217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}