Framber Valdez To Sign With Detroit Tigers

The Detroit Tigers were mostly quiet for the first few months of the offseason. They invested in bringing back Gleyber Torres and Kyle Finnegan, while the only significant free agent they added was Kenley Jansen.

After they won playoff series in back-to-back years, the time felt right for a bigger move, but the chances of it happening were growing slimmer and slimmer. Until late Wednesday night, when that all changed.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that the Tigers and veteran lefty Framber Valdez have agreed to a three-year, $115 million deal. That’s the largest AAV for a left-handed pitcher in baseball history.

It’s a move that gives the Tigers a much-needed second lefty and front-line starter and brings in the rotation depth that they were lacking. The type of move that winning organizations make. Impact. A statement.

Why Valdez Fits in Detroit

The Tigers’ rotation has been a strength, when healthy, over the past two seasons. Tarik Skubal is coming off back-to-back Cy Young seasons, Jack Flaherty has re-established his career, and Casey Mize has started to show his potential. Reese Olson and Jackson Jobe are budding young arms.

Although the rotation was strong on paper, there were two elephants in this room. First, many of those names have struggled to stay healthy. In fact, each of the past two seasons, the Tigers have been plagued with injuries to the point of trading for Charlie Morton and Chris Paddack, even going as far as making bullpen games routine.

Second, Skubal, Mize, and Flaherty are all set to hit free agency after this season. With so much of the rotation potentially departing, and still so many unknowns with the arms under team control, adding a veteran on a multi-year deal made complete sense.

The Tigers needed another high-end arm. Flaherty and Mize flash that ability at times, but when the playoffs come around, I think we’d all be lying if we said we had trust in either starting a big game. Valdez comes with proven playoff experience and World Series production.

Valdez became a full-time starter five seasons ago and has pitched to a 3.66 ERA or lower in each of those seasons. Over the past four years, he’s pitched over 175 innings each season, breaching 190 innings on three occasions. Skubal has pitched over 175 innings twice in his career, Flaherty once in 2019, and Mize has yet to reach that milestone.

We are talking about a pitcher that has finished in the top 10 of Cy Young voting three times. Yes, he’s 32 years old, but I think his profile will age well. He does not rely on high velocity but rather movement, with a sinker that helped him pitch to an elite 58.6% groundball rate in 2025. He’s not going to burn out and has proven, so far, that he can stay healthy.

Detroit needed another workhorse to pair with Skubal, and they got just that. A truly high-end arm that doesn’t come with justifications for why this season or that season went wrong. You won’t have to dance around numbers to explain Valdez’s production. Flat out, he’s been dominating the league since the jump.

Now, as Tigers fans look into the future past the 2026 season, they don’t worry nearly as much as they did 24 hours ago. Regardless of what happens to the three arms on expiring contracts, Detroit will have Valdez, Olson, Jobe, and Troy Melton as a starting point in 2027. Not too bad.

A Much-Needed Win for Ownership and Scott Harris

After the Tigers made their miraculous run to the playoffs in 2024, fans were pounding the table for big additions. President of baseball operations Scott Harris instead settled for modest, short-term deals and continued to watch the team develop. A strategy I understood, even if it was not what I, or many fans, wanted.

Then the Tigers returned to the playoffs and nearly made it to the ALCS. Rightfully so, fans were ready for a bigger move. The team had shown what they were and where their weaknesses lay.

But, maybe even more importantly, the team needed to make a statement. Ownership was accused of being cheap, Harris of being too timid, and the reputation of the organization was shifting to what fans hate the most: unserious.

So, the Tigers went out and broke a record for the highest AAV for a lefty pitcher in major league history. If that doesn’t get them back in fans’ good graces, I don’t know what will.

Could they have done more? Of course, that is always an answer, no matter what team we are talking about. But, the Tigers managed to add one of the best arms on the market while not trading away anything in order to improve. All of their improvements this winter have been via money, not shedding prospects or major league players.

I think all fans, some more vocally than others, questioned if Harris would take a risk. Short-term deals, bland veterans, and minor league signings made up the majority of his track record. Shoveling out more than $38 million a year for Valdez falls firmly into the risky category.

I know most people will try to say the Skubal contract (or lack thereof) is what will determine how they feel about ownership, but I think that is a bit unfair. He’s going to break all kinds of records and get the type of term that truly is risky, no matter the talent. An outlier in typical contract and team-building discussions.

What ownership has shown is that they understand it will take money to reach new heights. They could have gotten cute, traded away prospects, signed a mid-tier veteran starter, and talked about how good the team was the past two seasons.

Instead, they made the type of move that forces even the toughest critics to be silent. At least for now. While ownership has not fully flipped the script and will need to be held to this standard going forward, we are seeing them move in the right direction.

Credit when credit is due.

Final Thoughts

Take a moment and think about the past 10 years of Tigers baseball. They lost 96 or more games four times in the past 10 seasons and lost 114 games in 2019. Now, they are coming off back-to-back years with a playoff series win, have four top 50 prospects (two in the top 10), and just made the type of signing that gets everyone excited.

Do they still have questions about their roster? Sure. Parker Meadows still needs to prove he’s a legitimate option, the left side of the infield is suspect, and the bullpen could use another arm. But, I do think the 2026 Tigers are better than last year’s – a team that was one run away from playing for a chance to go to the World Series.

I’m sure fans have not felt this good about the Tigers in February in a long, long time.