Framber Valdez gave the Tigers just enough at the finish line to keep the conversation alive, but not enough to wash away the doubts around his three-year, $115 million deal.
For most of the year, the contract looked rough. Detroit handed out money in a lot of places last offseason, bringing back Gleyber Torres after he accepted the qualifying offer, re-signing Kyle Finnegan, and adding Kenley Jansen, Justin Verlander, and Valdez. Verlander’s one-year, $13 million deal made sense almost on sight, since everyone wanted to see him retire in Detroit.
Valdez’s contract was the one that raised eyebrows. A 32-year-old starter on a deal worth $38 million per year was always going to draw scrutiny, especially with Scott Harris and the Tigers drawing criticism for spending heavily while leaving Tarik Skubal’s extension untouched. That choice only looked worse once Skubal was traded to the Dodgers.
The contrast is what made Valdez such an easy target. Detroit was willing to pay him almost what the best pitcher in baseball was asking for, then watched Skubal settle for $32 million for the 2026 season with projections of about $40 million per year on his next deal. Meanwhile, Valdez spent much of the season looking like a pricey mistake.
He finished 2026 with a 4.03 ERA, a 1.36 WHIP and a 10-12 record. It also marked his lowest win total since 2020, his highest WHIP since 2019, his fewest strikeouts in a season in which he pitched at least 170 innings by about 50, and his lowest K/BB since 2019. For a pitcher at 32, that had the feel of a decline setting in.
Then came September.
In the final month, Valdez allowed just five earned runs across 23 1/3 innings and turned in a 1.93 ERA over four starts. The wins didn’t fully follow - he picked up only two, with Detroit’s offense letting him down in his last two outings - but he did drag his ERA down from 4.36 at the start of the month to 4.03 by season’s end.
That was a nice run. It just wasn’t enough to rescue the deal.
Valdez still finished with only 19 strikeouts against 10 walks during that stretch, and his strikeouts per nine innings were lower than what you’d want from a pitcher getting paid like this. He had also given up at least three earned runs in each of his four starts before September, which only deepened the concerns.
So yes, the final month gave Detroit something better to look at. It was encouraging.
It was a step in the right direction. But one strong month doesn’t erase an uneven season, and it certainly doesn’t settle the questions around a contract this large.
For now, the Valdez deal remains one of the offseason’s most debated moves. The first month of the 2027 season is going to tell us plenty about whether Harris can finally make it look smarter.
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The timing makes the return feel more like a sendoff than a fresh start, with Flaherty set to head into free agency after finishing out the two-year deal he signed with Detroit. For the Tigers, it is a chance to close the year with one more evaluation point on a pitcher who spent part of the season sidelined and now has one final turn in the uniform before his next contract becomes the bigger question. [Read more 🡒]