I am dispensing with the usual statistical breakdowns in this piece and going with a purely emotional/intangible argument. This is unusual territory for me, but I think I have some experience in my previous coaching career to offer some expertise here. There are lots of good reasons not to sign Framber Valdez to a hefty contract. Max Fried signed an 8/209 contract with the New York Yankees this past offseason. Given Framber’s age, durability, and level of production, he would be in line for a similar
contract. I’d set the bar somewhere around 7/210.
The analytical side of my brain says that signing pitchers to a lengthy contract like that is almost always a sucker bet. I could rattle off the names of pitchers that had arm injuries that derailed their careers, but I would scarcely talk about anything else. Framber may beat those odds. For his sake I hope he does. I always hope he does it somewhere else.
My reasoning is actually primarily emotional and psychological. DeMeco Ryans has a term he uses to describe the kind of players he wants for the Houston Texans. He calls it SWARM. In essence, it is a specific mentality of player that gives everything they have and plays within the system. For the Astros, I will call it bleeding orange. If you look at the three longest tendered Astros, I would say they all bleed orange in their own way.
Jose Altuve both took less money to stay in Houston and was willing to move positions to accommodate other players. Yes, they moved him because he wasn’t a good defensive second baseman. Yes, we could debate whether the move has worked as far as he is concerned. He almost certainly is less valuable sabermetrically in left field and DH than he was at second. The point is then reinforced. If it made the Astros better overall then it was a good move for the team and he bleeds orange based on his willingness to do it.
People like me will question whether the remaining part of this contract will be beneficial to the team in pure wins and losses. I’d say it is a benefit to them financially at the box office and in terms of cache, but it is hard to balance that with the pure baseball portion. What we do know is that Altuve will bust his ass every inning of every game. Yes, he swings wildly at balls off the plate sometimes. Yes, sometimes he is a step too slow when defending at second and left sometimes. Yes, he sometimes has mental lapses on the basepaths. Even given all of that, no one can question his desire to win and desire to help the team any way he can.
Then, you have Carlos Correa. Yes, he took a three year sabbatical but he is the longest standing Astros when you eliminate the time LMJ (who is coming up next) has been on the shelf. When the Twins needed to deal him he had only one team on his list. When he was dealt he agreed to play third base no questions asked. More importantly, when the baseball world had the organization proverbially surrounded in 2020, he came out throwing proverbial haymakers.
There are dents in the armor. He sometimes struggles to stay on the field. He may not be the player he was in 2021 or 2015. He might end up being one of those guys where you just thought he should have been more than what he was. It is time to appreciate what he is. He is a team leader that seems dialed in during every at bat and every inning at third base. He might make a few mistakes as he learns the position. No one can ever doubt that he is trying.
Finally, you have Lance McCullers Jr. The signature moments of his career came in 2017 and 2021 in the playoffs. He closed out Game 7 of the ALCS even though he is a starting pitcher by trade. He threw what seemed like 50 consecutive breaking balls. It didn’t matter. It was what it took to win. In 2021, he grabbed the ball a day early because Dusty Baker wanted him to. It might have cost him a part of the next season and possibly played into the lost 2023 and 2024 seasons. The team needed him to advance to the World Series and he took the ball and did his best.
Watching him this season is an increased appreciation for a player simply gutting it out. There are some nights where he simply has not had it. He can’t seem to locate or the other team seems to be on a particular pitch. In each and every instance he guts it out until the last pitch. What all three of these guys have in common is that you never question their will to win or whether they are dialed in when they need to be. They are giving it everything they have and it is that much more obvious when each is not in their prime than when they were in their prime.
Based on what we have seen on the field and in postgame comments, that is simply not Framber. No one doubts Framber’s abilities. When he is on there is no better pitcher in baseball. His curve is nearly unhittable even when they know it is coming. The difference is the difference between him and other great Astros pitchers that have worn the uniform. There will be nights when you don’t have your best stuff. There will be nights when the umpire is squeezing you. There will be nights when mistakes are made behind you. No one expects you to be Cy Young quality every time out, but we should expect you to grind and compete to minimize the damage.
What we can expect is that you will back your teammates after the game. Yes, it sucks to get one hit. Yes, it sucks when your defenders make a couple of boneheaded plays behind you. What you don’t see is them torching Framber when he doesn’t have his best on a given day. That’s what bleeding orange is all about. You win as a team and you lose as a team. Everyone has a bad day and nobody knows it more than the guy that had the bad day. When it is a group of guys, they all know it too.
This is a flawed baseball team. Even if they re-sign Framber it will still be a flawed baseball team. Letting him go might give them a little flexibility to address some of those flaws. It might mean breaking up the core with a key trade or two. It might mean they sign a lesser veteran starter that will simply grab the ball every fifth day and compete. We obviously have plenty of time to talk about those potential moves. In the meantime, I want 26 guys that bleed orange, support each other, and do whatever they can to win. Even if they come up short, that is a team I can root for.
