June 6, 2025 • 11 mins
Looking to conclude their 3 game series up in PNC park yesterday, the Astros cruise on by the Pirates taking 2 of the 3 games from the club following last nights final score 8-2. Inhabiting inclement weather in Pittsburgh followed with a rain delay for roughly 3 hours did not hinder the Astros' from gaining yet another series win with Framber Valdez on the bump. 7 innings pitched, 11 strikeouts, and only allowing 2 runs, Dan and Ari share a few huge takeaways from the Astros' primary Ace last night and what could it mean going forward if he continues to have performances like this.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Me and you during a break, we're talking about just
how good Fromber has been, and I looked up his
game log. Here, let me take you back May the seventh.
That was after he gave up four earned runs in
a loss to the White Sox up there in Chicago.
Not a great outing. As a matter of fact, it
bumped his VRA from a four point zhoo to a
four point thirty nine, giving up four runs in five innings.
(00:23):
Again not great struck or what was it to walk
to and struck out six in that outing? So not terrible,
but at least for what you hope to get out
of the ace of your staff, not not what you
want whatsoever. May the seventh, the finale against the Brewers
that afternoon they're in Milwaukee. Seven innings, one earned run,
(00:47):
and he strikes out seven. The following outing, eight innings,
and that was the one at home against the Kansas
City Royals. So two times this year he's gone eight
innings against the Royals, and he picked up a no
decision in that one, but he strikes out seven at
the Rangers. He had that one bad inning, takes a
no decision or actually no, he did take the win
in that one. I forgot about that because it was
(01:08):
the top of the eighth is when the Astros got
their damage there against the Rangers and were able to
win that game. So he gets the win. So his
last four times out, he has four straight wins and
he is five and zero during that stretch of six
starts where he has gone no less than six innings.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Don't be surprised if he's an All Star. He's back
dooring his way into it right now. He's just above
three at three h seven for the year. He's been
pitching really well, and he was rough to start the year,
but he's starting to round into for him at a
good time when the All Star voting is coming out.
I know they don't vote for pitchers, but he's a
guy that has been good for a number of years.
Since twenty twenty, he's been one of the best pitchers
in the American League. He's always somewhere in the Cy
(01:49):
Young voting, whether it's seventh, ninth, fifth, and he's going
to get into the All Star break, maybe with a
sub three ERA if he keeps pitching the way that
he does. And some of the better guys in the
American League right now, the lower eras the Tyler Meylee,
the Chris Bubach's. Those are not guys that have been
as good as they are for a long time. There
are guys that are hurt. Nathan Evaldi has been incredible
(02:11):
this year. He got pulled recently from a start, and
they might have to limit his innings up here soon.
There's some guys that are pitching above their weight, and
fromber was pitching below his weight and now he's pitching
at his weight. And I think once we get to
the All Star break, he's going to be a guy
that the numbers look really good and he's got a
good reputation. Don't be surprised if from ber Valdez is
(02:31):
an All Star.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
At his worst this season, he was at a four
point nine to one er. Ever since then he has
been able to significantly lower it, and last night with
his two earned run performance over seven innings, it is
all the way down to a three point oh seven.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
He's just been really good. He's doing what he's doing
because this is a platform year for from ber Valdez.
He is looking for a huge contract two hundred million dollars.
Don't be surprised if from Bervoz gets that brother.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I mean, that is the that is the floor for
the deal that he is going to seek, at least
if his representation is you know, reputable enough to be
able to know like, hey, like this is what my
guy is worth. Because I mean, you look at some
of these contracts that some of these pitchers get, and
I mean, if you thought there was a time in
the NFL where teams overpaid for quarterbacks like you paid
(03:22):
what for Kirk Cousins, Seriously, two different teams have done that.
Now major League Baseball, the biggest fear is not having
good pitching. And I mean he's a guy that when
he's at his best, has shown you he can be
in front of the rotation guy when he's not at
his best, middle of the rotation at best.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Well, he posts too. That's the other thing. He is
one of the most innings pitched guys in the league,
and everybody is looking for that now because this whole
league is about give me five innings. Throw everything you
have in the tank, throw as hard as you can
for five innings, get me through the lineup twice, and
then we're gonna pull you Fromber's one of the very
few guys in the league that is averaging six almost
(04:01):
seven innings a start, and you know he's gonna give
you one hundred and ninety two hundred innings a year,
not much of an injury history. Max Freed got eight years,
two hundred and eighteen million dollars. They're comparable. Fromber is
gonna go into free agency, just one year older than
Max Freed, with a cleaner bill of health than Max
Freed had throughout his career with the Braves, and the
(04:23):
numbers are very comparable. Freed doesn't necessarily go as long
as Fromber. He's been a little bit more effective ra wise.
The strikeouts are very similar eight to eighteen, and so
we know there's inflation with contracts. Yes, Fromber's a year older,
but we're a year later. I wouldn't be surprised if
that's around what he ends up getting, because those two
(04:45):
guys are extremely comparable.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
And it's funny too that you just mentioned about the
age because Frober's gonna turn thirty two in November, and
when you were mentioning Max Freed, I was like, well,
wait a minute, that can't be right. But it's probably
just because you know, was around him when he first
came up. But then he first came up in like
what twenty sixteen twenty, you know, somewhere around that time,
because I remember they had gotten them in that Craig
(05:08):
Kimberl trade from the Padres the Braves did, And I
mean he's been around for a good amount of time
and fromber I mean about twenty twenty, I think was
when we first got him up here at the major
league level. And I remember when he first came up
and you're thinking to yourself, Okay, maybe this guy can
round into being a back end of the rotation guy
(05:29):
because he got hit hard at the beginning of his
career and then he started to really rely on the sinker,
started to rely on the stuff to get some ground balls.
But this year, I mean, it's not just the ground
balls that started to come as of late because he
got hit hard early on in the season.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
It's the strikeouts.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
And last night where he's able to pick up eleven
strikeouts against the Padres. I mean, that's another thing that
will also get you a nice set of papers set
in front of you with a check that has a
signing bonus on it to be able to get you
to enlist your services with another team. Yeah, he's a
guy too that he can do it in different ways.
The curveball has been incredible for him this year. As
(06:08):
watching the first inning and he looked so sharp. And
when he's like that and it it looks like it's
going to be in the zone. Many of them ended
up in the zone and you still can't hit it
just because it's so tightly spun.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Guys are struggling. He's just ripping through. Obviously the lefties
like O'Neil Cruz had a hit later in the game,
but O'Neil Cruz can't hit lefties, and fromber made him
look really bad for most of those at bats, like
he's ripping Brian Reynolds, like these are legit good MLB hitters.
Two hundred plus million dollars, that's what we're looking at
and what that means I think for the Astros is
(06:41):
I don't think there's an extension coming from Fromberveldez. I
think that's extremely, extremely unlikely, and I don't think they'll
I think they'll be involved just kind of casually, like hey,
we'd love to bring him back. I don't think they're
actually going to be involved because that price tag is
we know too rich for their blood, as we've seen
the Kyle Tucker trade and how they've handled other deals
(07:03):
with some other players. But there's a team out there
that is going to give Fromberveldez a lot of years
and a lot of money, and they're going to be
very happy with what they get because there are just
not that many pitchers in Major League Baseball who are
left handed, who go deep into games, who can get
the strikeout, who are one of the best ground ball
pitchers in the league. And he has worked on and
fixed many of the issues that he had early in
his career when he got hit hard. A lot of
(07:24):
it was step back, take a breath. There's a couple
of pitches last night where he threw got called a
ball quite clearly a strike. There was one It's like,
where did this miss? He was frustrated visibly because that's
who he is, and that's fine. He just took a
step back, took a breath, got the dreads, you know, back,
just walk back to the mound. Strike curveball, strike out.
(07:46):
He's good. He knows how to handle those situations. He's
managed them well. Every once in a while, it'll happen,
because it happens to every pitcher. But this is over
the course of now one, two, three, four, five, six
seasons where by the end of the year you look
at his stats and strikes out about a guy in
inning era is three twelve something like that. He's given
(08:06):
you one hundred ninety innings and oh hey, he's sixth
and cy Young voting. He's done this for a long time.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Now, and you shudder to think about the scenario that
you laid out, which I mean, I think most Astros
fans know that it's a distinct possibility that this is
going to be the end of fromer Valdez and an
Astros Uni. But you know, it's the other side of
what we've talked about. You know, we've mostly talked about
on the negative side. Christian Javier is still out there
and probably won't be here this year, but next year
(08:33):
we'll come back. And he's a guy that you project
to be a front end of the rotation. Guy Luis Garcia,
same deal. You might get him back at the end
of the season, but he's probably going to be basically
a bullpen game type of guy. You're getting about three
or four innings at most out of him. If you're
able to stretch him out at all this season, and
then you know was Nesky and you factor in Renel Blancos.
(08:53):
So the ammunition is there for the Astros to say, yeah,
this is it, because it's not only them coming back.
I mean, we're gonna talk about Jeremy Pania at some
time during the show today. I mean, soon enough, you
gotta start locking some of these guys up. I mean,
I've said it all the time. It's like the children's
book The Giving Tree. Soon enough, you keep removing branches, leaves, fruit,
(09:15):
all of the things from the tree, it becomes a stump.
And that's what they're trying to avoid. But you also
you gotta be able to replenish the tree just a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
They have some guys in. I mean, Melton came up,
He's looked good. But you do need to extend the
guys to keep this going. Paynya is a big one
from ber Valdez. Makes sense as to why you would
let him walk. He's gonna be an older free agent.
He'll be thirty two in free agency and locking up
a picture who, by the way, has had a really
clean injury history up until now. Not the smartest thing
(09:45):
we know pictures get hurt. Look at Christian Javier. You
signed him to an extension. He got hurt. And I'm
not saying that's a bad thing. It's just the cost
of doing business with almost every picture. Corbyn Burns just
left the game with Arizona. He got a huge contract.
It's just pitching. Jacob de Gram got paid a hunter
eighty five million if he can't stay healthy, and obviously
he has been this year, which is good. But it's
just the cost of doing business with pitching, and you
(10:06):
essentially factor that in. If you're Max Freed, for instance,
Hey we're going to give you eight years in two
hundred and eighteen million, and we kind of know one
of those years you might be out the whole year.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Well, but we also know the astros we'll give guys
in their thirties long term deals. We've we've seen that happen,
so I don't know, maybe the reverse happens this time.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
They come in and go, you know what, from her,
we took a took a.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Look at your Yep, you're getting the money. Here you go.
But anyway, from er Valdez, awesome last night for the Strows.
What has not been so awesome for the Strows, So
we'll talk about it here as we continue long on
the Sean Salisbury Show again. Ari Alexander in for Sean
this morning. She and I see you're right there. Gets
(10:49):
you involved in the conversation Sebone three two one two
five seven ninety against someone three two one two five
seven ninety. We'll do all that coming up right here
on the Sewan Salisbury s out
Me and you during a break, we're talking about just
how good Fromber has been, and I looked up his
game log. Here, let me take you back May the seventh.
That was after he gave up four earned runs in
a loss to the White Sox up there in Chicago.
Not a great outing. As a matter of fact, it
bumped his VRA from a four point zhoo to a
four point thirty nine, giving up four runs in five innings.
(00:23):
Again not great struck or what was it to walk
to and struck out six in that outing? So not terrible,
but at least for what you hope to get out
of the ace of your staff, not not what you
want whatsoever. May the seventh, the finale against the Brewers
that afternoon they're in Milwaukee. Seven innings, one earned run,
(00:47):
and he strikes out seven. The following outing, eight innings,
and that was the one at home against the Kansas
City Royals. So two times this year he's gone eight
innings against the Royals, and he picked up a no
decision in that one, but he strikes out seven at
the Rangers. He had that one bad inning, takes a
no decision or actually no, he did take the win
in that one. I forgot about that because it was
(01:08):
the top of the eighth is when the Astros got
their damage there against the Rangers and were able to
win that game. So he gets the win. So his
last four times out, he has four straight wins and
he is five and zero during that stretch of six
starts where he has gone no less than six innings.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Don't be surprised if he's an All Star. He's back
dooring his way into it right now. He's just above
three at three h seven for the year. He's been
pitching really well, and he was rough to start the year,
but he's starting to round into for him at a
good time when the All Star voting is coming out.
I know they don't vote for pitchers, but he's a
guy that has been good for a number of years.
Since twenty twenty, he's been one of the best pitchers
in the American League. He's always somewhere in the Cy
(01:49):
Young voting, whether it's seventh, ninth, fifth, and he's going
to get into the All Star break, maybe with a
sub three ERA if he keeps pitching the way that
he does. And some of the better guys in the
American League right now, the lower eras the Tyler Meylee,
the Chris Bubach's. Those are not guys that have been
as good as they are for a long time. There
are guys that are hurt. Nathan Evaldi has been incredible
(02:11):
this year. He got pulled recently from a start, and
they might have to limit his innings up here soon.
There's some guys that are pitching above their weight, and
fromber was pitching below his weight and now he's pitching
at his weight. And I think once we get to
the All Star break, he's going to be a guy
that the numbers look really good and he's got a
good reputation. Don't be surprised if from ber Valdez is
(02:31):
an All Star.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
At his worst this season, he was at a four
point nine to one er. Ever since then he has
been able to significantly lower it, and last night with
his two earned run performance over seven innings, it is
all the way down to a three point oh seven.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
He's just been really good. He's doing what he's doing
because this is a platform year for from ber Valdez.
He is looking for a huge contract two hundred million dollars.
Don't be surprised if from Bervoz gets that brother.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I mean, that is the that is the floor for
the deal that he is going to seek, at least
if his representation is you know, reputable enough to be
able to know like, hey, like this is what my
guy is worth. Because I mean, you look at some
of these contracts that some of these pitchers get, and
I mean, if you thought there was a time in
the NFL where teams overpaid for quarterbacks like you paid
(03:22):
what for Kirk Cousins, Seriously, two different teams have done that.
Now major League Baseball, the biggest fear is not having
good pitching. And I mean he's a guy that when
he's at his best, has shown you he can be
in front of the rotation guy when he's not at
his best, middle of the rotation at best.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Well, he posts too. That's the other thing. He is
one of the most innings pitched guys in the league,
and everybody is looking for that now because this whole
league is about give me five innings. Throw everything you
have in the tank, throw as hard as you can
for five innings, get me through the lineup twice, and
then we're gonna pull you Fromber's one of the very
few guys in the league that is averaging six almost
(04:01):
seven innings a start, and you know he's gonna give
you one hundred and ninety two hundred innings a year,
not much of an injury history. Max Freed got eight years,
two hundred and eighteen million dollars. They're comparable. Fromber is
gonna go into free agency, just one year older than
Max Freed, with a cleaner bill of health than Max
Freed had throughout his career with the Braves, and the
(04:23):
numbers are very comparable. Freed doesn't necessarily go as long
as Fromber. He's been a little bit more effective ra wise.
The strikeouts are very similar eight to eighteen, and so
we know there's inflation with contracts. Yes, Fromber's a year older,
but we're a year later. I wouldn't be surprised if
that's around what he ends up getting, because those two
(04:45):
guys are extremely comparable.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
And it's funny too that you just mentioned about the
age because Frober's gonna turn thirty two in November, and
when you were mentioning Max Freed, I was like, well,
wait a minute, that can't be right. But it's probably
just because you know, was around him when he first
came up. But then he first came up in like
what twenty sixteen twenty, you know, somewhere around that time,
because I remember they had gotten them in that Craig
(05:08):
Kimberl trade from the Padres the Braves did, And I
mean he's been around for a good amount of time
and fromber I mean about twenty twenty, I think was
when we first got him up here at the major
league level. And I remember when he first came up
and you're thinking to yourself, Okay, maybe this guy can
round into being a back end of the rotation guy
(05:29):
because he got hit hard at the beginning of his
career and then he started to really rely on the sinker,
started to rely on the stuff to get some ground balls.
But this year, I mean, it's not just the ground
balls that started to come as of late because he
got hit hard early on in the season.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
It's the strikeouts.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
And last night where he's able to pick up eleven
strikeouts against the Padres. I mean, that's another thing that
will also get you a nice set of papers set
in front of you with a check that has a
signing bonus on it to be able to get you
to enlist your services with another team. Yeah, he's a
guy too that he can do it in different ways.
The curveball has been incredible for him this year. As
(06:08):
watching the first inning and he looked so sharp. And
when he's like that and it it looks like it's
going to be in the zone. Many of them ended
up in the zone and you still can't hit it
just because it's so tightly spun.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Guys are struggling. He's just ripping through. Obviously the lefties
like O'Neil Cruz had a hit later in the game,
but O'Neil Cruz can't hit lefties, and fromber made him
look really bad for most of those at bats, like
he's ripping Brian Reynolds, like these are legit good MLB hitters.
Two hundred plus million dollars, that's what we're looking at
and what that means I think for the Astros is
(06:41):
I don't think there's an extension coming from Fromberveldez. I
think that's extremely, extremely unlikely, and I don't think they'll
I think they'll be involved just kind of casually, like hey,
we'd love to bring him back. I don't think they're
actually going to be involved because that price tag is
we know too rich for their blood, as we've seen
the Kyle Tucker trade and how they've handled other deals
(07:03):
with some other players. But there's a team out there
that is going to give Fromberveldez a lot of years
and a lot of money, and they're going to be
very happy with what they get because there are just
not that many pitchers in Major League Baseball who are
left handed, who go deep into games, who can get
the strikeout, who are one of the best ground ball
pitchers in the league. And he has worked on and
fixed many of the issues that he had early in
his career when he got hit hard. A lot of
(07:24):
it was step back, take a breath. There's a couple
of pitches last night where he threw got called a
ball quite clearly a strike. There was one It's like,
where did this miss? He was frustrated visibly because that's
who he is, and that's fine. He just took a
step back, took a breath, got the dreads, you know, back,
just walk back to the mound. Strike curveball, strike out.
(07:46):
He's good. He knows how to handle those situations. He's
managed them well. Every once in a while, it'll happen,
because it happens to every pitcher. But this is over
the course of now one, two, three, four, five, six
seasons where by the end of the year you look
at his stats and strikes out about a guy in
inning era is three twelve something like that. He's given
(08:06):
you one hundred ninety innings and oh hey, he's sixth
and cy Young voting. He's done this for a long time.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Now, and you shudder to think about the scenario that
you laid out, which I mean, I think most Astros
fans know that it's a distinct possibility that this is
going to be the end of fromer Valdez and an
Astros Uni. But you know, it's the other side of
what we've talked about. You know, we've mostly talked about
on the negative side. Christian Javier is still out there
and probably won't be here this year, but next year
(08:33):
we'll come back. And he's a guy that you project
to be a front end of the rotation. Guy Luis Garcia,
same deal. You might get him back at the end
of the season, but he's probably going to be basically
a bullpen game type of guy. You're getting about three
or four innings at most out of him. If you're
able to stretch him out at all this season, and
then you know was Nesky and you factor in Renel Blancos.
(08:53):
So the ammunition is there for the Astros to say, yeah,
this is it, because it's not only them coming back.
I mean, we're gonna talk about Jeremy Pania at some
time during the show today. I mean, soon enough, you
gotta start locking some of these guys up. I mean,
I've said it all the time. It's like the children's
book The Giving Tree. Soon enough, you keep removing branches, leaves, fruit,
(09:15):
all of the things from the tree, it becomes a stump.
And that's what they're trying to avoid. But you also
you gotta be able to replenish the tree just a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
They have some guys in. I mean, Melton came up,
He's looked good. But you do need to extend the
guys to keep this going. Paynya is a big one
from ber Valdez. Makes sense as to why you would
let him walk. He's gonna be an older free agent.
He'll be thirty two in free agency and locking up
a picture who, by the way, has had a really
clean injury history up until now. Not the smartest thing
(09:45):
we know pictures get hurt. Look at Christian Javier. You
signed him to an extension. He got hurt. And I'm
not saying that's a bad thing. It's just the cost
of doing business with almost every picture. Corbyn Burns just
left the game with Arizona. He got a huge contract.
It's just pitching. Jacob de Gram got paid a hunter
eighty five million if he can't stay healthy, and obviously
he has been this year, which is good. But it's
just the cost of doing business with pitching, and you
(10:06):
essentially factor that in. If you're Max Freed, for instance,
Hey we're going to give you eight years in two
hundred and eighteen million, and we kind of know one
of those years you might be out the whole year.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Well, but we also know the astros we'll give guys
in their thirties long term deals. We've we've seen that happen,
so I don't know, maybe the reverse happens this time.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
They come in and go, you know what, from her,
we took a took a.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Look at your Yep, you're getting the money. Here you go.
But anyway, from er Valdez, awesome last night for the Strows.
What has not been so awesome for the Strows, So
we'll talk about it here as we continue long on
the Sean Salisbury Show again. Ari Alexander in for Sean
this morning. She and I see you're right there. Gets
(10:49):
you involved in the conversation Sebone three two one two
five seven ninety against someone three two one two five
seven ninety. We'll do all that coming up right here
on the Sewan Salisbury s out
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