Chandler Rome on The A-Team: Framber Valdez Still A Work In Progress

The Athletic's Astros beat writer Chandler Rome joins The A-Team for his weekly visit. He talks about Framber Valdez trying to bounce back from a rough finish to the 2023 season. Plus, he also talks new look lineup and Jeremy Pena plate adjustments.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
We have our good buddy Chandler Romeof the Athletic to join us each and
every week. Today we moved himto a Thursday because we could, and
that's what we do right now asChandler comes in to talk all things Astro's
spring training, major League Baseball,and a whole lot more so. At
the beginning of the show, ChandlerI went on full panic that fromber Valdez

(00:21):
is just he's not going to beable to snap back to his twenty twenty
two form. We had a callerthat called in and said that he's been
in the weight room too much.There's theories on this. When he is
the opening day starter. How manythings do we have to worry about against
the New York Yankees. I meanI would have worried about anyone. It's
gonna be the opening they started againstthe Yankees, and that's a really good
lineup. And again I don't thinkthat like, if he doesn't pitch well

(00:46):
an opening day, I don't thinkit should be a cause for alarm or
concern. And just like I don'tthink his first grape Fruit League start that
was not good, I don't thinkthat should have been a huge concern either.
You know, I think he's gothe's got some stuff to work on.
You know that we've talked about.You know, he throws. He
was throwing the sinker harder than hehad before, and that's going to affect

(01:07):
the movement. It kind of goeshand in hand with his mechanics and he
to find a better release point onit. It does sound like, you
know, he's trying to he's tryingto change some things and the athletic we
reported that he's going to experiment withcalling his own pitches this year when using
PitchCom. He did that in hisfirst grape Fruit League start. And you
know, I think a lot oftimes when we talk about fromber Valdez,

(01:29):
it's mental with him. And oneof the things he said as to why
he wants to call his own gamesis because he wants to throw pitches with
more conviction. He wants to bethe guy in charge. He wants to
have it. I think his exactquote to me was, I want to
have the game in my hands.He already has that no matter who's calling
the pitches, he's the one throwingthe baseball. But I guess this gives
him more comfort and confidence that he'smaking the decisions, and that if he's

(01:53):
gonna get beat, he's gonna getbeat on what he wants to throw.
So I mean of spring training statsare are pretty meaningless. I think the
only guys you look at the statsand greatful the games for the guys that
are, you know, fighting tomake the team, the guys that are
in position battles, and the actorsdon't have a ton of those guys.

(02:13):
So you know, I think forValdez, he's just got to get through
this spring healthy. He's got toget through He's gonna work on a couple
of things. He's gonna work withthe pitch com see if he likes the
way that feels. But I wouldn'toverreact to results, and you know,
I guess I would also counter withwhat else do they have? Like,
it's not like they can just casthim aside and go to someone else.

(02:36):
I mean, this isn't This isn'tone of those things where they have a
bunch of top of the rotation sortof guys just waiting. You know that
he's who they got and it's notlike he was an unmitigated disaster. Last
year he finished top ten Cyung votingthe second half of the year wasn't good.
But they can harness him. Ithink they can harness him and get
him back to that form. Butwith Fromber, it's all. With Fromber,

(02:57):
it's always gonna be kind of ayou never know what you're gonna get
go to the and I know thatcan be unsettling, not only for fans,
but for you know, people onthat dugout in the coaching staff.
Usually a comment like that about apitcher is not the guy that gets the
ball first, not the guy atthe front side of the rotation. You've
written a lot about him and obviouslybeen here throughout his time. Is there
anything from last year or the lasttwo or three years from a trend's statistical

(03:21):
standpoint, his hard hit rate,the exit v low ground ball percentage,
any of these numbers, even youknow, ops against, slugging against.
Did anything stand out specifically from eitheryou know, any time period the last
three years or just last year toyou that was an alarm bell or maybe
the opposite. Yeah, I meanI talked about him throwing the sinker a

(03:43):
little bit harder. You know,everyone kind of everyone pushes back on that
that. I ask with the astros, But Apparently it does go hand.
They say that something is often hisreleased point in his mechanics of how he
throws the sinker, and they sayit does that because he's trying to throw
harder. So, yes, thevelocity is somewhat of an issue, but
I don't think they're trying to fixthe velocity. They're trying to fix the

(04:04):
mechanics, and I think hand inhand with that. I think I may
have mentioned this last time. Youknow, his ground ball rate on his
sinker specifically, I think was atlike seventy seven in twenty twenty two,
which that's an astronomically high rate,and that's what he's good at. He's
good at getting ground balls. Lastyear it was something like fifty four percent.

(04:27):
Now, he still led all AmericanLeague starters last year in ground and
ground ball rate. This is nota situation where he's you know, he's
torpedoed or plummeted in the ground ballrate department, but he's not getting as
many of them. And what you'veseen in what you saw on his first
grape Fruit League outing is when hissinker stays up, it's going to get
hit hard, and it's going toget hit on a line, and they

(04:51):
need to prioritize the contact against himhas got to stay on the ground.
And you saw teams slash year starthaving a pretty concerted approach against him.
A lot of teams were going theother way. They were waiting on that
sinker to come. They were,you know, letting that sinker travel in,
and then they were just taking itthe other way, shooting it the

(05:11):
other way with line drives. Youhave a few more homers last year than
he has in the past. Butyou know, when he throws a breaking
ball a good bit too, andyou hang a breaking ball sometimes it gets
head out of the ballpark. SoI think what they need to fill they
need to find his sinker again.And I'm not here to suggest the sinker
was bad last year. It justwasn't as elite at getting ground balls as

(05:32):
it was when he was, youknow, really good in twenty twenty one
and twenty twenty two. So Ithink if they fixed that pitch, you
know, I think his we knowwhat his curve ball is. The cutter
that he added last year has becomea really useful pitch for him. He's
been able to throw the change upa little bit. If they can just
fix that sinker and get it backto its elite, elite level, then

(05:54):
I think he's going to be okay. But that that's kind of easier said
than done, especially with a pitchthat's there's lot of intricacies to it.
There's a lot of movement, there'sa lot of movement patterns. You know.
This isn't like a four seamer oryou just rear back and throw it
and if you got velocity and ifyou got enough you know, hop and
ride, it just goes by you. This is a different pitch entirely,
so it's gonna take a little bitof work. But I think that's the

(06:15):
biggest thing for me is you know, he's got to keep the ball on
the ground. Talking to Chandler Realmof the Athletic here on Sports Talk seven
ninety, we were discussing this earlier, if indeed the lineup, you know,
for opening day and for the foreseeablefuture winds up being al Tuo,
Ve Alvarez, Bregman, Tucker orBray you diez Uh McCormick, Payana,
and Jake Myers. We were talkingabout Jordan Alvarez being in the two hole

(06:40):
and about that lineup flipping over andhow much you know, if just even
a few of these guys have abit of a bounce back, then it's
not gonna be you know, himgetting up to the plate with you know,
two outs or whatever. How manyof those guys that I just listed
off, Like who do you whodo you look at as the guy who's
got the best chance at making thatbounce back? Like, for example,

(07:02):
I said to Wex, would youhow long until we start getting complaints that
Diez is behind a bray you inthe lineup? Is Jake Myers the guy
that's going to be expected to bethe automatic out that was Maldonado last year?
Like which of these guys that you'renot expecting to do very well towards
the bottom half of the lineup canmake that adjustment or that turnaround from twenty

(07:25):
twenty three. I guess I'd gowith Jeremy Paynya, just because, as
I've talked about on here, likeyou, everyone wants to say he had
a bad year last year, andthen look, he had a below the
league average OPS plus, But everykind of underlying metric you look at he
got better at, Like his battingaverage was up, his strikeout rate was

(07:46):
down, his walk rate was up, he was swinging at better pitches,
he was not swinging and missing asmuch. You saw signs of growth there.
You saw signs of better pitch recognition, of better plate discipline, of
more mature at bats, of havinga plan, and just being a lot
a more professional hitter. And obviouslythe power wasn't there. And they and

(08:07):
you know, we can we've obviouslydiscussed his swing changes and kind of what
he's going to do differently in hissetup and everything like that. But I
think because it's kind of already trendingtoward last year, you know that he
was getting better and titles sound likesh it just wasn't. And I think
if they can get him hitting theball in the line a little bit,

(08:28):
voice hitting, think about that.I think he keeps everything we just talked
about. Discipline, No, Ithink he I think he does and things
like that. And I think he'she can be a pick to click.
And I think certainly he's the guythat you look at that you know,
those other guys you mentioned jose OhBray you is still thirty eight years old.
He's he's still up there in age, and I'm not sure I'm not

(08:50):
sure. I think I don't thinkit can be worse than last year,
and I think certainly the second halfthe playoffs kind of gave you a glimpse
that he's still got something in there. But he's another year older, you
know, Jake Myers, I think, you know, he's gonna have a
lot to prove. But I lookat Jeremy Pinyon, I just think,
you know, all the strides hemade last year that no one talks about.