Astros Starter Finishes in AL Cy Young Top 10 Voting
Houston Astros left-hander Framber Valdez found himself in ninth place in American League Cy Young voting on the same night that his former Astros teammate, Gerrit Cole, won the award.
Cole, who pitched for the Astros in 2018 and 2019, won his first Cy Young after five previous Top 5 finishes. He won the award unanimously.
Valdez finished with six points, getting one fourth-place vote and four fifth-place votes.
This is the third time that Valdez has registered in Cy Young voting. In the COVID-shortened 2020 season, he finished in 11th place after a 5-3 record with a 3.57 ERA.
In 2022 he finished fifth in voting after he went 17-8 with a 2.82 ERA. He also made his first All-Star Game and was 20th in AL Most Valuable Player voting.
In 2023 Valdez went 12-11 with a 3.45 ERA in 31 starts, with a career-high 200 strikeouts and 57 walks. He made the All-Star Game for the second straight season and he registered two shutouts.
One of those was his first career no-hitter, thrown in August at Minute Maid Park.
Valdez now has six MLB seasons under his belt and is 53-34 with a 3.40 ERA. He won a World Series ring with the Astros in 2022. By service time, however, Valdez has 4.163 years in the Majors and remains arbitration eligible.
Earlier this season MLB Trade Rumors projected that Valdez could net as much as $12.1 million through arbitration.
The Astros and Valdez will likely try to find a contract agreement before they have to go through an arbitration hearing. In 2023 he made $6.8 million.
