Framber Valdez's embarrassing antics just prove Astros fans were right all along

Just 24 hours after losing Tarik Skubal for months due to an elbow injury, the Detroit Tigers desperately needed Framber Valdez — the man they handed $115 million to this winter — to step up and stabilize their starting rotation. What they got instead was a sobering reminder of just why Valdez fell into their laps in free agency.

It's bad enough that the lefty laid an egg against the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday night, giving up a whopping 10 runs (seven earned) on nine hits and three walks including three homers in three-plus innings of work. But Valdez responded to the last of those long balls by very obviously throwing at the next batter he faced:

That's not a miss; that ball hit Trevor Story square in the back, and it didn't seem like Valdez was particularly surprised either. You won't see a more open-and-shut case of a pitcher throwing at a hitter. No matter where you come down on the ethics of beanballs, what Valdez did was inexcusably dangerous, and the fact that Valdez did it because his pride was wounded makes it pathetic to boot.

Then again, maybe we shouldn't be so surprised. After all, Valdez has already told us that this is who he is as a player: someone who doesn't know how to deal with adversity, and someone who will take his problems out on those around him when things don't go the way he wants.

Tigers should've heeded Framber Valdez red flags in free agency

Not that any of this is news to the Houston Astros or their fans. Even before Valdez's contract was up, it seemed like Houston had little to no interest in keeping their homegrown ace around beyond 2025 — despite a very real need in their rotation. Then again, you probably wouldn't want to invest in a guy who would intentionally cross up his catcher out of frustration over giving up a homer, as Valdez did to César Salazar last season.

Valdez tried to walk the Salazar incident back after the fact, but it was clear as day what happened, and insisting that it wasn't who he was hardly felt convincing. At that point, Astros fans were already done with him, and the rest of the league largely agreed: Despite a profile that otherwise pointed to a hefty payday, Valdez languished into early February, ultimately failing to find a long-term deal in a market that was otherwise desperate for reliable starting pitching.

In hindsight, that lack of interest feels telling. It was easy enough to chalk up the Astros letting Valdez walk to an already clogged payroll and owner Jim Crane's aversion to barreling into the luxury tax. But in an offseason where Dylan Cease got seven years and $210 million, the fact that a pitcher as reliably solid as Valdez was left out to dry could only be explained by character concerns. Clearly, interested teams did their homework, and what they found was a guy who not even his own teammates could trust.

At the time, Detroit felt like that was a gamble worth making; they needed to do something to maximize their final guaranteed year with Skubal, and on paper at least, landing a pitcher of Valdez's caliber without sacrificing future financial flexibility was a home run. But of course, baseball isn't played on paper.

What the Tigers actually needed was stability behind their ace, someone who could take the ball every fifth day and lift his team to victory. Valdez is still a perfectly solid pitcher, but there's more to being that guy than what's on your Statcast page. And now Detroit's learning that lesson the hard way, with Skubal gone and no adult behind him to pick up the slack.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow