The Twins spent part of the offseason chasing Framber Valdez, and at the time it looked like the kind of swing that could change the conversation in Minnesota. Bobby Nightingale of the Minnesota Star Tribune reported that the club made a late push and put a multi-year offer on the table for the left-handed All-Star, who wound up signing a three-year, $115-million deal with the Detroit Tigers on Feb.
- Tom Pohlad later confirmed the pursuit and said the Twins were willing to stretch well past their usual spending comfort zone if Zoll believed the move made sense for the organization.
That miss was read by many as another sign that Pohlad’s words were bigger than his checkbook. But with the season unfolding the way it has, Minnesota may have come out ahead by staying out of the deal.
Valdez has been rough in Detroit. In 26 starts, the 32-year-old left-hander owns a 4.35 ERA and a 1.41 WHIP, with 1.5 fWAR that falls well short of what the Tigers had in mind when they committed that kind of money. His expected ERA is 4.50, which lines up with the results more than it challenges them.
The bigger issue is that the swing-and-miss has disappeared. Valdez is striking out only 17.4% of opposing hitters, the lowest mark of his career and a steep drop from last season. His whiff rate has fallen to a career-low 19.8%, down 6.8 percentage points from a year ago.
That matters because Valdez has always lived on a narrow edge: weak contact, enough strikeouts to escape jams, and a profile that needed all three pieces working together. This year, the stuff has backed up, with his velocity down across his pitch mix. Detroit has been one of baseball’s most disappointing teams, and Valdez’s decline is part of the picture.
What makes the drop even harder to explain is that there isn’t an injury story attached to it. He has stayed in the rotation and hasn’t missed time because of physical issues. The only games he sat out came during the six-game suspension he served after intentionally throwing at Boston’s Trevor Story in May.
Valdez will turn 33 after the season, and that only adds to the concern. A pitcher at that age, with these warning signs, is a far riskier bet than he would have been a year or two earlier.
Detroit can probably absorb a bad contract of this size. The Tigers usually have enough payroll room to live with a mistake.
Minnesota does not.
The Twins have already seen how ugly an expensive misfire can become. Carlos Correa’s deal eventually turned into a situation where the club agreed to pay him $10 million per season for three years not to play for them. Doing something similar with Valdez, at roughly $38 million per season, would have been a far tougher pill to swallow.
There’s also the matter of roster fit. Minnesota does not appear to be desperate for another starter.
Pablo López, Joe Ryan and Taj Bradley are lined up as a locked-in trio for next season, and the club also has Mick Abel, Zebby Matthews, Connor Prielipp and Kendrys Rojas. Dean Kremer, newly added, gives them another experienced arm with one year of arbitration left.
Had the Twins landed Valdez, one of those younger pitchers almost certainly would have been squeezed out of the mix. As it stands, they can keep sorting through their options and see which arms actually deserve a rotation spot.
None of that changes the broader criticism of the offseason. Pohlad talked about being ready to make a splash, and Minnesota still didn’t deliver the kind of major spending move that would signal a real shift in direction.
But Valdez may be the exception. Between the makeup concerns and the performance red flags, the Twins may have been better off letting Detroit take on the risk.
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