Welcome back to the 2025-26 edition of Smash or Pass, in which we examine potential free agent and trade targets to determine whether the Red Sox should pursue them and what it would take to land them. Next up, a controversial, Number Two starting pitcher who is known for acting out.
Who is he and where does he come from?
Framber Valdez is a 32-year-old left-handed pitcher who signed as an international free agent out of the Dominican Republic. He’s spent his career with the Houston Astros, though he declined their qualifying offer to enter
free agency.
Is he any good?
Sports Illustrated calls him “an ace-caliber starter.” Each season from 2022 through 2024, Valdez finished in the top-10 in the American League Cy Young race. He pitched a no-hitter in 2023, and he’s made two All Star teams. He won the Houston Astros Pitcher of the Year award twice. He won two games for the Astros during the 2022 World Series, helping them to ultimately best the Phillies.
Although his 2025 season won’t be remembered for any of those reasons, he was his usual healthy and reliable self: pitching 192 innings, and typically going deep into games. He finished the season on a low note though, by the numbers and in the court of public opinion.
First, the numbers: in his last 10 starts, he went 2-7 with a 6.05 ERA. A Houston Astros fansite claims that the relationship between Valdez and the Astros had begun to fray over the last couple of months of the season. More on this in a moment, and let it be remembered that the Astros were out of their minds trying not to let the Mariners triumph, at last, in the AL West. (My girlfriend’s baseball-loving nephew lives in Houston and I’m not sure he would characterize it that way, but that’s how I remember it.)
For now, suffice to say that there was a lot of pressure on Valdez during this period which may explain the dip at the end of the year—but he’s typically been a very good pitcher.
TL;DR, just give me his 2025 stats
In 31 starts and 192 innings pitched: 13-11, 3.66 ERA, 187 SO, and a good, not great, 1.24 WHIP.
Why would he be a good fit for the Red Sox?
Troubles at the end of the 2025 season aside, he’s a good pitcher, and we need good pitching. We need that Number Two guy who can pitch alongside Garrett Crochet all season and then in a playoff run. Valdez could be that kind of pitcher.
With the groundballs he generates, it’s a good thing that the Sox as an organization have decided to lean more into defense moving forward. The infield will need to be up to that challenge but in theory, it all fits.
Why wouldn’t he be a good fit on the Red Sox?
In a word: character. In another word: money.
First, his character. Infamously, he was accused of deliberately throwing a fastball at his own catcher, which hit him in the chest, out of frustration after giving up a grand slam to Trent Grisham in September. Both players said it was a misunderstanding, but others, like our own Will Middlebrooks, basically called it an act of treason. The following pro-Yankees commentary is nauseating, but Dallas Braden breaks down the grand slam and its aftermath, moment-by-moment.
Whether or not the “cross-up incident,” as it’s become known, was deliberate, the Astros fansite Climbing Tal’s Hill repeatedly took Valdez to task. It claimed that Valdez has a habit of airing gripes in public and that the mood between Valdez and the front office, teammates, and fans may have already soured before this late-season moment. The site also reported that Valdez has publicly complained before about his teammates and coaches. It details a particular in-game defensive realignment by Houston coaches, which unfortunately didn’t work as intended; it resulted in a run scoring (by a slow runner too) from first base. Unfortunate, but it happens that way sometimes. Valdez wasn’t pleased and told the media so.
Valdez attended the November GM meetings to meet with clubs, presumably to try to address perceptions of him around the league. More recently, he and his agent created and circulated a video that directly discussed his character.
Thad Levine, former GM of the Twins and current baseball consultant (he was consulted on this very matter, so he’s on the payroll) says Valdez’s video presentation was very different from the usual collage of performance clips. Instead:
“It’s the classic story of a guy growing up in a household with no electricity and no running water and really having to fight for everything throughout his life. It really puts the person in perspective.” — Thad Levine on Framber Valdez
I love perspective but we’ve recently been down this road. The Sox witnessed their own temper tantrums this past season and management wasn’t having any of it. Raffy Devers out. With so many young, impressionable players around—plenty of them pitchers—they’d rather have a leader than a player who has a tendency to lash out publicly when he gets frustrated.
For fans, it’s less fun too. Would we rather have Chicken and Beer or Happy Idiots? That’s not a fair comparison—Apples and oranges, you say? Sure, I don’t disagree—but it’s fun to watch our team having fun isn’t it? And we deserve some fun.
What would it take to get him?
Let’s be honest with ourselves; it feels like the Sox have concluded their shopping for pitchers and are going to focus on hitting now (never mind that the biggest bats have already found homes). So talking about signing more pitchers at this point might be a purely hypothetical, mental exercise. But who knows! I’m not advocating to wait until spring training but it’s a thing that happens now.
How about Framber Valdez as a Number Two, for a contract in the neighborhood of six years and $168M? The rationale is that Valdez will end up with the Mets (boy they need something to go their way, huh?) or Orioles because of previous ties to folks in those front offices.
Will a team be able to sign him for less because of questions about his character? Probably not; pitching is valuable and his offenses are pretty minor in the scheme of things.
He declined the qualifying offer from the Astros, so the team who signs him would also lose a draft pick. That alone feels like it might take the Sox out of the mix.
Show me a cool highlight
It gives me no pleasure to feature a highlight against Cal Raleigh, but this is one nasty pitch by Valdez as he strikes Raleigh out.
Smash or Pass?
I say pass but it’s a practical matter, and I say it with some ambivalence. It’s easy to say because I think the Red Sox front office has already moved on from significant pitching acquisitions. Do I believe in a world where Valdez is appropriately contrite, turns over a new leaf, and becomes a team leader alongside Alex Bregman? I would love to. Let’s just say I wouldn’t mind that at all. But I’m not counting on it.
Do I still think that we’ll be asking for more pitching later in the season, either due to injuries, to things not working out as planned, or simply because the front office didn’t roster the team correctly? You bet.
