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<\/a><\/p>\nValdez\u2019s strikeout rates need to hold up<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s a question mark with Valdez, it\u2019s whether he can continue to strike out an above average amount of hitters. His strikeout rates have dipped a little bit each year since his peak in 2023. His command and the consistency of his sinker say that walks and homers aren\u2019t going to be an issue and he should be able to sustain his performance into his mid-30\u2019s in both respects. The question is whether the whiffs will hold up or whether hitters will start putting the ball in play a little more in the years ahead. He doesn\u2019t feature the nasty slider or splitter, nor the high 90\u2019s gas that typically leads to huge whiff rates.<\/p>\n
Bolstering the strikeout argument is the steadiness of his whiff rates over the past four years. He\u2019s posted whiff rates of 11.3, 11.6, 11.4, and 11.5 percent over those seasons. So there\u2019s no sign of a falloff. More importantly, his whiffs come from the curveball and the changeup. So the moderate decline in fastball velocity since his peak isn\u2019t really involved there too much. The curveball drew a whopping 43.7 percent whiff rate in 2025, while the changeup was at 28.7 percent, which is solid. He will mix in the odd slider as well, but while that pitch has at times been effective, he\u2019s really relegated it to a rarely thrown fourth pitch over the last two seasons.<\/p>\n
Valdez leads with his sinker, which he typically used 45 percent of the time. He averaged 93.7 mph with it in 2025, which is still pretty good gas for a lefty starter, but pedestrian compared to the league\u2019s starters overall. His second most used offering is his curveball, which he threw 33 percent of the time in 2025. The 79-80 mph breaker has good depth and can add tilt to it and vary the break against hitters of either hand, but it\u2019s his main secondary weapon against lefties. He\u2019ll mix in the more average changeup against right-handed hitters.<\/p>\n
His peak sinker velocity was 95.7 mph in 2023. The past two seasons that\u2019s dipped to 94.5 mph in 2024 and 93.7 mph in 2025. That\u2019s not an ideal trend, but again, it hasn\u2019t impacted his underlying performance. He gives up plenty of hard contact against it, but hardly any of it is in the air and it\u2019s not the pitch he racks up his whiffs against in the first place. The sinker only accounts for 12-14 percent of his whiffs in recent years, so as long as he\u2019s keeping the ball on the ground with it and surpressing home runs, the whole package looks very sustainable.<\/p>\n
The movement profiles on the sinker, curveball, and changeup have all remained steady over the past few years as well. So short of an injury or some real disaster in terms of his stuff, the results should continue to be very good.<\/p>\n
Advantages and disadvantages in moving to Detroit<\/p>\n
While I don\u2019t think the change in ballparks is going to have much of an effect based on the spray charts up above, pitching in a little cold weather in the spring is probably to his advantage. Hitters hate a nasty sinkerballer in cold weather and Valdez is outstanding in terms of setting hitters up and jamming them with sinkers that numb hands and get beaten into the ground. The rare one that gets lifted may be smothered a bit by the cold weather early in the year. So, I wouldn\u2019t expect Valdez to be better in Comerica Park, but it is a factor that could help him early on as long as he\u2019s as comfortable throwing in colder weather as hitters are uncomfortable hitting in it.<\/p>\n
While we\u2019re big fans of the Tigers\u2019 coaching staff, Houston is typically well coached on the pitching side. It\u2019s doubtful that Chris Fetter and Robin Lund are going to squeeze much extra out of Valdez that the Astros didn\u2019t get to. However, he will get a major upgrade in catchers going from Victor Caratini and a cast of depth catchers to Dillon Dingler and Jake Rogers. Valdez thrives by pounding the bottom edges of the zone for strikes and weak contact, and Dingler in particular got a lot better at getting low strikes over the past two years. The catching upgrade in Detroit is going to be good for Framber Valdez.<\/p>\n
The big fly in the ointment is that the Tigers infield isn\u2019t as good as defensively. DRS says the difference isn\u2019t that great, but per Outs Above Average via Statcast, the Astros infield collected 38 more OAA than the Tigers did last year. There really are no signs of a defensive upgrade coming for the Tigers either. Gleyber Torres played through a hernia for two months, so perhaps his defensive numbers will rebound somewhat, but they also played Zach McKinstry a lot at third base. If Colt Keith plays a lot more third base and McKinstry is at shortstop, things could look worse rather than better. The imminent arrival of Kevin McGonigle isn\u2019t going to change that equation unless he\u2019s playing second base. Either way, Valdez is probably going to give up a few more hits over the course of the season than he did with the Astros infield behind him.<\/p>\n
All around, there are advantages in pitching for the Tigers for Valdez, but most of them may be negated by worse infield play. The Tigers are really just looking for the same results for two or three years, however, and on that front things look pretty positive. He should have no trouble giving the Tigers 3.0-4.0 fWAR seasons unless a real physical breakdown occurs. Valdez keeps himself in shape and is pretty ferociously competitive and hard-working by reputation, with some chip on his shoulder, but it\u2019s all the luck of the draw where pitcher injuries are concerned.<\/p>\n
Putting Valdez into the Tigers rotation alongside Tarik Skubal gives them a case to have the best 1-2 punch and perhaps the best starting rotation in all of baseball. It improves their bullpen and their pitching depth for 2025 by pushing guys like Troy Melton, Drew Anderson, and Keider Montero to the pen until they\u2019re needed to fill in a rotation spot. Valdez also offers the Tigers a good starting pitcher to keep leading the way beyond 2026 once Tarik Skubal presumably departs in free agency.<\/p>\n
The 2026 Detroit Tigers now look like more of a force to be reckoned with in the American League and hopefully deep into October. They aren\u2019t a powerhouse yet but they project like a good team and perhaps the class of the AL If they get some help from their top prospects by season\u2019s end, and have a successful trade deadline, they may even be a problem for the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers. For now, it\u2019s just great to see more serious commitment from ownership and the front office to try to win right now, while developing post-Skubal contingencies at the same time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Wednesday, the Detroit Tigers made the biggest addition of the Scott Harris era. After a pretty quiet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2389],"tags":[42,5,39441,139,54,3211,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-556152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-astros","8":"tag-astros","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-detroit-tigers-analysis","11":"tag-houston","12":"tag-houston-astros","13":"tag-houstonastros","14":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116018700572215444","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}