The Los Angeles Angels should have used their estimated $40 million in cap space to sign two-time All-Star Framber Valdez.
The Los Angeles Angels had the opportunity to sign the best free agent pitcher available and shove it in their division rival’s faces but failed to do so.
Two-time All-Star lefty Framber Valdez finally signed with a team this offseason, but it wasn’t the Angels. Valdez and the Detroit Tigers have agreed to terms on a three-year, $115 million contract with an opt-out after the second season, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
Valdez’s $38.3 million average annual salary is the highest for a left-handed and Latin American pitcher ever. Pitchers and catchers report to spring training in less than a week, but the holdup was worth it for the 32-year-old.
The initial belief was that Valdez was seeking a deal for around five or six years with an average annual value of around $30 million but given that he hadn’t landed the long-term deal he was supposedly after, Valdez opted for a short-term, high-AAV deal.
Valdez has been one of Major League Baseball’s most consistent and effective pitchers since becoming a full-time starter in 2020. Valdez went 13-11 with a 3.66 ERA, 1.25 WHIP and 187 strikeouts over 31 starts (192 innings) in 2025.
He has been a workhorse for the Houston Astros, throwing over 200 innings in 2022 and at least 176 innings thrown in each of the past four seasons. The Astros certainly wouldn’t have wanted to see their ace sign with a divisional foe, but the Angels didn’t seem to be a suitor for his services despite having the money to bring him in.
Los Angeles has made several offseason moves for a change, but none of them have been considered notable besides the fact that most of the acquisitions are former All-Stars. Adding a pitcher like Valdez was exactly what the Angels should have been trying to do to fix their bottom-ranked pitching staff.
For the most part, the Angels have a decent defensive infield, which would complement Valdez, considering he has induced the highest percentage of ground balls in the league since 2020 at 62 percent (minimum 1,500 batted balls allowed).
“And that's only looking at when hitters do put the ball in play off Valdez,” MLB.com’s David Adler wrote. “Add the 951 strikeouts he's collected since 2020, a top-10 mark in the Majors, to the 1,666 ground balls he's induced (second-most behind only Webb's raw total), and you get a massive amount of unproductive plate appearances.”
Valdez is extremely hard to do damage against and would have been the perfect frontline starter for the Angels. He is durable, reliable and hasn’t allowed more than 19 home runs in a single season which was a weakness for Los Angeles’ pitching staff in 2025 (223 home runs allowed, second-most in MLB).
The Angels are approximately $40 million under the luxury tax, so Owner Arte Moreno could have afforded this signing, and that signing would prove he is trying to build a winning franchise. The organization has the longest active MLB playoff drought, missing the postseason for 11 consecutive years.