While it might be a longshot, the San Francisco Giants might find themselves in the market for a certain starting pitcher. Framber Valdez is available, finishing up his time with the Houston Astros last season.

Valdez has a wicked curveball that has coaxed plenty of hitters to ground out or even ground into double plays. The lefthander knows his way around the pitching mound. His numbers last season were good, but not great.

He's been a reliable starter during his Astros career. While Valdez has been productive during his time with the Astros, he's been known to be a bit of a headache at times.

No other time was that in the public eye when he crossed up Astros catcher Cesar Sanchez after giving up a grand slam. Valdez, apparently upset, threw a pitch that hit Sanchez's catcher's vest. What centered the meltdown was that Valdez shook off Sanchez before giving up the grand-slam home run.

Valdez also has not endeared himself to Astros teammates with his moody behavior.

In looking at the possibility of him joining the Giants, Grant Brisbee of The Athletic offered a couple of looks at the pluses and minuses of Valdez as a potential new teammate.

Brisbee points out that Giants starter Logan Webb provides San Francisco with a key leader in the team's starting rotation.

He wrote that "if there’s one pitcher in all of baseball who is even in the same subgenre as Webb (sinker-forward innings eater), it’s Valdez.

"There are differences between the pitchers that go beyond handedness, with Webb being more of a kitchen-sink kind of pitcher and Valdez reliably using mostly sinkers, curves and changeups," Brisbee wrote.

"But you don’t need to be sold on Valdez’s style of pitching," Brisbee continued. "You’ve seen it work. You’ve seen the groundballs go between defenders, too, but it’s an effective strategy overall. More, please."

As for the negatives, Brisbee pointed toward the Sanchez incident.

"But one of the things that kept coming up after the incident was that it just felt like a Framber Valdez thing to do," Brisbee wrote. "Longtime Houston Astros fans weren’t exactly shocked over the situation. It would be Framber being Framber, in other words."

Ultimately, Brisbee believes that San Francisco could possibly sign Valdez to a seven-year, $196 million, which is a projected contract offer in the eyes of The Athletic.

Valdez does have postseason experience, something that Giants manager Tony Vitello would not mind having on his team. Of course, the Giants have to get to the postseason first and that's not going to be easy in a very competitive National League West Division.

Still, Valdez is out there. Let's see if the Giants can bring the lefthander on board to pitch in the 2026 MLB season for them.