Valdez's Salary

[Peter Welch]

Framber Valdez's salary jumps to $42.8 million next year.  Woof!

Peter

[Roger King]

It felt like a great move at the time, thinking of him paired with Skubal… But without Tarik and possibly not Mize either, it doesn’t seem so great if Valdez is supposed to be the ace going forward.  

Thankfully, Melton is just quietly going about his business, dominating games. He looks like a potential ace if there is one in a post-Skubal rotation.

Roger King
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On Fri, Jul 3, 2026 at 12:26 PM Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Framber Valdez's salary jumps to $42.8 million next year.  Woof!

Peter

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[Peter Welch]

There were warning signs with Valdez last year.  Opponents' hard-hit rate and average exit velocity went up against him.

We saw the bad version of Valdez last year vs. the Tigers when they lit him up in a game in August.  He had some other meltdowns last year with the Astros.  He can also be a bit of a headcase.

There are theories that Valdez is struggling this year with ABS and umpires not calling the low strike as much.  Valdez relies on the low strike.  He's having to work up in the zone a bit more this year.  This is indicated by his groundball percentage dropping (from 58% to 51%) and his flyball percentage (23%) being by far the highest of his career.  His strikeout rate has also dropped form 8.0 K/9 to 7.0 K/9 because he's not getting as much swing and miss on balls low in the zone.  I do think the Tigers' poor defense has affected him as well.

Valdez might just not be a be a good fit with how the Tigers' defense is currently constructed, but it's also possible Valdez is just getting older and is declining.

Valdez is certainly not an ace-level pitcher but he's being paid ace money.  He's not terrible (he actually kept us in the game last night despite not having good stuff early and getting knocked around a bit), but he's not going to be able to replace Skubal as the #1 starter, which is one reason he was signed.  Fortunately, with the positive development of Melton and Montero and Mize having an excellent season it has made up somewhat for Valdez not being the pitcher they hoped he would be.  (We really need to re-sign Mize to keep our rotation strong next year).

Unfortunately, we won't be able to trade Valdez because his salary doubles next year.

Peter

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From: Roger King <pnag...@pnagency.com>
Sent: Friday, July 3, 2026 12:38 PM
To: Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com>
Cc: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Valdez's Salary