Left-hander Framber Valdez has agreed to a three-year, $115 million contract with the Tigers, a source told MLB.com's Mark Feinsand. The club has not confirmed the deal, which includes an opt-out after the second season.
At $38.3 million per year, it's the highest AAV ever for a left-handed pitcher -- surpassing Blake Snell's $36.4 million AAV -- as well as the highest for a Latin American pitcher.
Valdez has found a formula for consistent success in the Majors, combining solid strikeout numbers with a heavy dose of ground balls to post a 3.23 ERA over 973 innings since the beginning of 2020.
The 2025 campaign marked the third time in four years that Valdez reached the 30-start plateau and saw him finish with a 3.66 ERA and 187 strikeouts over 192 innings. After the season, the Astros tendered a qualifying offer to Valdez, which he declined. The QO, which would have paid him $22.025 million for 2026, attached him to Draft compensation; Houston will receive a Draft pick after the fourth round.
Only four hurlers have shouldered a heavier workload than the southpaw over the past six years, and his 128 ERA+ in that span ranks eighth among those with at least 100 starts.
It’s a particularly impressive résumé for a pitcher whose 5-foot-11 frame hardly fits the mold of a frontline starter -- and whose path to the Majors was anything but conventional.
The Astros signed Valdez out of the Dominican Republic at 21 years old, much older than the age when most Latin American prospects typically ink their first professional contract.
His first tryout for the team was an afterthought, hastily arranged by a pair of Astros scouts at the end of a full day of watching prospects across the southeastern region of the Dominican Republic in the winter of 2015. They watched Valdez throw a handful of pitches on a field in the town of Guayacanes, the mound lit by their car’s headlights. But that was all it took to know they were interested. A formal tryout followed at the team’s complex in Santo Domingo a few days later, and the Astros ended up signing Valdez for $10,000.
More than anything else, it was Valdez’s nasty curveball that piqued the team’s interest. Years later, the hook remains his signature pitch. Over 61% of his career strikeouts have come with the curveball, which serves as an impressive complement to his sinker.
Valdez progressed relatively quickly through Houston’s farm system after signing, but he was never a high-profile prospect and faced doubts about whether he’d stick as a starter in the Majors. His performance after reaching MLB was uneven: He recorded a 4.60 ERA over 34 games (13 starts) across 2018-19.
Valdez, though, broke out during the shortened 2020 campaign, capably assuming the mantle as Houston’s ace after the team lost Gerrit Cole to the Yankees in free agency and saw Justin Verlander go down with an elbow injury that eventually led to Tommy John surgery.
Valdez went on to have his best season in 2022, recording a 2.82 ERA with 194 K’s over an AL-leading 201 1/3 innings during the regular season, a performance that resulted in a fifth-place finish in the AL Cy Young race. He added a 1.44 ERA over four playoff starts, helping the Astros win the World Series.