{"id":449811,"date":"2026-02-05T04:14:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T04:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/449811\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T04:14:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T04:14:07","slug":"tigers-sign-framber-valdez-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/449811\/","title":{"rendered":"Tigers Sign Framber Valdez – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tigers are in agreement with\u00a0Framber Valdez<\/a> on a three-year, $115MM contract, reports ESPN\u2019s Jeff Passan<\/a>. The deal includes an opt-out after the second season, Passan adds. According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic<\/a>, there\u2019s some amount of deferred money. Jon Heyman of The New York Post<\/a> reports that Valdez receives a $20MM signing bonus.<\/p>\n

Valdez reunites with A.J. Hinch and gives the Tigers a lethal 1-2 pairing at the top of the rotation. He\u2019ll slot behind\u00a0Tarik Skubal<\/a> atop a starting staff that suddenly looks like one of the best in the American League. They\u2019ll be followed by Reese Olson<\/a>,\u00a0Jack Flaherty<\/a> and\u00a0Casey Mize<\/a> if everyone gets through camp healthy. That\u2019d push KBO signee\u00a0Drew Anderson<\/a> into a swing role, while second-year righty\u00a0Troy Melton<\/a> can either pitch out of the bullpen or wait in Triple-A for a rotation spot to open up.<\/p>\n

The Skubal-Valdez pairing may only be together for one season, as the two-time Cy Young winner is a year from what should be a record-setting free agent contract. Skubal and the club went to a hearing this morning that\u2019ll determine whether he makes $19MM or $32MM for his final year under club control. The arbitrators will not reveal their decision until tomorrow, and Chris McCosky of The Detroit News<\/a> confirms that neither the Tigers nor Skubal\u2019s camp are aware yet of which way they\u2019ll rule. The Valdez pickup is an independent decision.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the kind of win-now strike for which much of the Detroit fanbase has waited all offseason. The Tigers had a fairly conservative trade deadline, and their biggest moves before tonight had been retaining Flaherty on a $20MM player option and Gleyber Torres<\/a> via the $22.025MM qualifying offer. They also brought back setup man Kyle Finnegan<\/a> on a two-year deal and added Anderson and closer\u00a0Kenley Jansen<\/a> on one-year contracts. They\u2019d done a decent job building depth but without pushing the chips in for an impact player in what could be Skubal\u2019s final season in the Motor City.<\/p>\n

Valdez brings the ceiling that Detroit\u2019s other acquisitions had lacked. He\u2019s a two-time All-Star who has finished top 10 in Cy Young balloting in three of the past four seasons. Valdez worked his way from an unheralded amateur signee to the big leagues in 2018. He spent his first two seasons working in a swing role for an Astros club managed by Hinch at the time. Valdez moved into the rotation permanently during the shortened 2020 campaign and has been one of the best pitchers in MLB over the last six years.<\/p>\n

The southpaw has posted a sub-4.00 earned run average in each season since he became a full-time starter. He has been exceptionally durable as well, only twice landing on the injured list in his MLB career. He fractured his left ring finger when he was hit by a comebacker in Spring Training 2021. He was back from that injury by the end of May. His only other IL stint was a two-week absence for elbow inflammation early in \u201924. He returned without issue and wound up making 29 starts between the regular season and playoffs.<\/p>\n

Valdez is tied for 14th in starts and ranks fifth with 973 innings dating back to 2020. He has a cumulative 3.23 ERA in that time. That includes sub-3.00 showings in 2022 and \u201924. Valdez was among the most consistent top-of-the-rotation starters in MLB \u2014 at least until the second half of his walk year. He posted an earned run average between 2.82 and 3.45 in each season between 2021-24. He topped 175 innings in each of the latter three years.<\/p>\n

For the first half of last season, Valdez was on a similar pace. He took a 2.75 ERA over 121 frames into the All-Star Break. Valdez came out of the Break with two more quality starts and was sitting on a 2.62 ERA (a top 10 mark among qualifiers) as August arrived. He picked a tough time for arguably the worst couple months of his career to close his walk year. Valdez was blitzed for a 6.05 ERA with a dramatically reduced 17.7% strikeout rate over his final 10 starts. His sinker velocity dipped slightly, and opponents teed off on it in August and September. There\u2019s no indication that he was tipping pitches, and it seems like the issue was mostly poor execution.<\/p>\n

Valdez also found himself at the center of controversy during a start against the Yankees on September 2. Two pitches after giving up a grand slam to Trent Grisham<\/a>, he hit catcher\u00a0C\u00e9sar Salazar<\/a> in the chest with a 93 MPH sinker on a cross-up. Salazar was clearly expecting a breaking ball and didn\u2019t have time to react to the fastball. Valdez didn\u2019t check on the catcher in the moment. Salazar was not hurt and finished the game without issue.<\/p>\n

The pitcher denied that the cross-up was intentional. Salazar did his best to publicly downplay the incident, saying he pressed the wrong button on his PitchCom. Even if that\u2019s the case, the pitcher\u2019s seeming lack of concern on the mound made for poor optics. Valdez said postgame that he had apologized to Salazar.<\/p>\n

Did that have any impact on his market value? It\u2019s impossible to know from the outside, though one imagines some teams asked Valdez about the incident during the free agent process. It\u2019s worth noting that a Detroit team managed by his former skipper is the one that eventually signed him, so it seems they don\u2019t have any concerns about his makeup or clubhouse presence.<\/p>\n

The late-season dip in production and Valdez\u2019s age probably bigger factors in his extended free agent stay. He finished the year with a 3.66 ERA across 192 innings. His 23.3% strikeout rate and 8.5% walk percentage were in line with his career marks. It\u2019s a solid strikeout and walk profile, but his game has always been built more around ground-balls. He has a career 62% grounder rate and kept the ball on the ground at a 58.6% clip last season, the third-highest mark among pitchers with 100+ innings.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the whiff-heavy approach that someone like Dylan Cease<\/a> brought to the table this offseason, though Valdez\u2019s statistical profile isn\u2019t that dissimilar from that of\u00a0Max Fried<\/a>. They\u2019re both ground-ball specialists who sit in the mid-90s with a sinker that leads the profile. Fried commanded an eight-year, $218MM contract last winter. The biggest difference is that came in advance of his age-31 season, while Valdez turned 32 in November.<\/p>\n

Although a one-year age gap might not seem like much on the surface, teams have been reluctant to make long-term commitments to free agent pitchers at 32.\u00a0Zack Greinke<\/a>,\u00a0Jacob deGrom<\/a> and\u00a0Blake Snell<\/a> are the only pitchers that age or older to command five-plus years since 2011. They\u2019d all had at least one Cy Young on their r\u00e9sum\u00e9s by that point. Valdez\u2019s inconsistent finish essentially took a six-year contract off the table. MLBTR predicted a five-year, $150MM deal at the beginning of the offseason. That he remained unsigned into February made it increasingly apparent that a five-year contract wasn\u2019t going to be on the table.<\/p>\n

On the surface, Valdez seems to have done fairly well despite signing a week before the beginning of Spring Training. The deal\u2019s true value can\u2019t really be known until the extent of the deferrals are reported, however. The sticker price comes with a massive $38.33MM average annual value that\u2019d rank<\/a> 10th all time. The net present value will be reduced to at least some extent by the deferred money.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the contract breakdown, this easily goes down as Scott Harris\u2019 boldest free agent move in his four years running baseball operations. It\u2019s Detroit\u2019s first nine-figure investment since the ill-fated\u00a0Javier Baez<\/a> deal, which was signed under former GM Al Avila. The Harris front office hadn\u2019t gone beyond $35MM on a free agent. That was their two-year contract to re-sign Flaherty almost exactly a year ago. There are some parallels with Valdez in terms of waiting out the market to get a high-end starter late in the offseason, but this is obviously a much more significant investment.<\/p>\n

The Tigers ran a $188MM competitive balance tax payroll last season. They\u2019re going to top that this year, though the extent isn\u2019t clear. RosterResource<\/a> currently estimates their CBT number around $237MM while penciling in the midpoint of the arbitration filing figures as a placeholder for Skubal. The arbitrators don\u2019t have that luxury, meaning that CBT estimate will change by $6.5MM in one direction or another tomorrow. It\u2019s also using the base $38.33MM annual value for Valdez, which overshoots the actual number to an unknown extent until the deferral breakdown comes out.<\/p>\n

Detroit also forfeits draft capital to because Valdez rejected a qualifying offer from the Astros. They\u2019re a revenue sharing recipient so it\u2019s the lowest penalty, their third-highest pick in the 2026 draft. That\u2019s currently slated to be their Competitive Balance Round B selection, which is 69th overall. The Tigers could look to trade that pick \u2014 Competitive Balance selections are the only ones that can be traded \u2014 rather than losing it as the compensatory pick. They\u2019d then forfeit their third-round selection (#98 overall), but another team might be more willing to give up something of value for the higher draft choice and accompanying slot value that makes it worthwhile for Detroit to lose the third-rounder.<\/p>\n

Houston never had any interest in meeting Valdez\u2019s asking price. As luxury tax payors, they receive a compensation pick after the fourth round. That\u2019ll land around 133rd overall. Houston traded for\u00a0Mike Burrows<\/a> and signed\u00a0Tatsuya Imai<\/a> and\u00a0Ryan Weiss<\/a> to backfill the rotation depth, even if they\u2019re unlikely to replace the ceiling that Valdez brought to the table.<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays, Orioles and Pirates were recently linked to Valdez. He was probably a unique target for a Toronto club that already runs six deep in the rotation. Baltimore could pivot to a mid-tier starter like\u00a0Zac Gallen<\/a> (the last unsigned player who declined a QO),\u00a0Chris Bassitt<\/a> or\u00a0Lucas Giolito<\/a>. A mid-rotation arm is also possible for Pittsburgh. At the very least, the Bucs figure to add a fifth starter for a few million dollars.<\/p>\n

More to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tigers are in agreement with\u00a0Framber Valdez on a three-year, $115MM contract, reports ESPN\u2019s Jeff Passan. The deal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[87208,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-449811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-framber-valdez","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449811","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=449811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}