Framber > Shohei. Heck, Framber Might Be > Than Just About Anybody Right Now
Framber Valdez walked only 1 Angel last night. He has improved his walk rate again this season, part of the steady improvements he has constantly made since his debut.
Entering yesterday, Framber Valdez was 15th among major league pitchers with 1.9 bWAR. In 14th place was Shohei Ohtani, decimal points ahead of Valdez.
Let’s just say that Shohei no longer leads Framber in bWAR.1
Valdez was credited with the victory last night, going seven innings, striking out seven batters, allowing only five hits and one walk.
That last number there deserves more attention. Of the 26 Angels batters that Valdez faced last night, he walked only one.
With his 3.8% walk rate last night, Valdez lowered his season walk rate to 5.1%. That is the 12th best walk rate among qualified Major League starters this season.
That low walk rate is remarkable because Valdez’s biggest issue when he was trying to establish himself as a major league starter was his walk rate. The graph below shows Valdez’s walk rate by season (excluding the pandemic shortened 2020 season), and one can see the almost steady decline in Framber’s walk rate by season.
Take 2021 for example. That season, Valdez walked 10.1% of the batters he faced. That ranked 89th best out of the 96 Major League pitchers who threw 120 innings or more that season. In two seasons, he has essentially cut his walk rate in half, and increased his rank in BB% from the 25th percentile in 2021 to the 87th percentile this season.
And notably, he has done this without sacrificing any of his stuff. Valdez has always featured high spin and big movement on his pitches. When he was a young pitcher, I thought that the walks were just the cost of having such big movement. That turns out not to be correct.
That big movement has led to big strikeouts. And in recent games, more of it. As the graph below shows, Valdez has been steadily increasing his strikeout rate (K%) over the last year at a similar rate to his reduction in walk rate (BB%).
In the first half of the 2022 season, Valdez had a K/BB ratio of 2.37. He improved that to 3.83 in the second half by cutting down on walks and increasing his strikeouts. It was a preview for Framber’s outstanding playoff performance, in which Valdez struck out 33 and walked only 8 in 25 innings. That’s a 4.12 K/BB ratio.2
This season, Valdez has improved upon that remarkable postseason K/BB ratio. This year it is 5.25. That is for every one walk that Valdez has issued, he has struck out 5.25 batters. That is 9th best in all of baseball.
Steady Improvements
Since he debuted in the majors in 2018, Framber Valdez has made steady improvements in his game, most notably by improving his command of his pitches. He had trouble finding the strike zone as a young pitcher and struggled as he established himself. His improved command over time have reduced the number of baserunners he has allowed.
With the big spin and downward movement on his pitches, Valdez has always limited hard contact from opposing hitters and induced the his share of ground balls of any pitcher in the majors. These are big assets for a pitcher, and his ability to get a ground ball double play seemingly at will has helped his keep opposing hitters off the board. But with his improved command over the last two seasons, opponents are getting fewer hitters on base and have fewer opportunities to score. And of course, fewer opportunities means fewer runs for opponents. After seven shutout innings last night, Valdez’s ERA dropped to 2.12, the best of his career.
But that’s not all that surprising. So much of what we have seen from Valdez this season—highlighted by his low walk rate—has been the best of his career. Viva La Grasa!
For the record, Framber raised his bWAR to 2.4 after last night. Thanks to Yordan Alvarez and Corey Julks, Ohtani’s bWAR as a pitcher now stands at 1.6.
No shade to Jeremy Pena, but Framber Valdez would have been my choice for World Series MVP.