2025 Fantasy Baseball: Framber Valdez Profile, Preview, Predictions
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Framber Valdez is in a contract year, motivating him to be on his game in 2025. A left elbow issue crept into his equation last year, so will he be a trick-or-treat this fantasy season?
2024 PitchingNinja Award for Evil Late Movement on a Two Seamer. 👿🏆
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) November 24, 2024
Winner: Framber Valdez pic.twitter.com/AL1PcQ0O1U
SP – Framber Valdez, HOU (ADP – 63.0)
Over the past five seasons, Valdez emerged as one of the better pitchers in baseball. He went 60-33 with a 3.12 ERA, 1.150 WHIP, and 764 strikeouts over 781.0 innings. His best success over this span came in 2022 and 2024, highlighted by his ERA (2.82 and 2.91) and 32 combined wins.
Two starts into last season (three runs, 17 baserunners, and 10 strikeouts over 12.1 innings), Valdez landed on the injured list for three weeks with a left elbow issue. He had three disaster starts (18 runs, 30 baserunners, and five home runs over 14.1 innings with seven strikeouts) over his next eight games. His arm moved to elite status over his 17 outings (2.24 ERA, 1.040 WHIP, and 118 strikeouts over 108.2 innings).
He continues to be a high-volume groundball pitcher (60.6%), leading to only 20.0% of his balls in play being fly balls. His average sinker (94.3 – 46.5% usage) was down slightly. Valdez relied more on his curveball (.122 BAA) and changeup (.231 BAA) than last season. His walk rate (2.8) regressed, with some pullback in his strikeout rate (8.6).
Fantasy Outlook: Heading into a contract year, Valdez is on top of his game with a lingering dark passenger (left elbow issue). He checks more boxes than two years ago when his command was in a weaker position. Last season, his FPGscore (3.91) ranked 10th for starting pitchers despite missing 12.5% of the year. I don’t see anything in his profile that suggests improvement in 2025, but more of the same can help fantasy teams. Dilemma arm for me…as I want to be off the bus before it crashes.
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With 20+ years of experience in the high-stakes fantasy market, I aim to research and compete at the highest level in baseball and football each season. I've contributed as a writer/analyst for Sports Draft Daily, ScoutPro, Scout Fantasy, Fulltime Fantasy, FFToolbox, and Sports Illustrated Fantasy. I'm honored to be in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship Hall of Fame. My drafting philosophy is risk-averse yet open to betting on potential game-changers. I approach player selection with a neutral perspective, acknowledging that fantasy sports are inherently unpredictable due to injuries, performance dips, and managerial decisions. My work focuses on these main areas: - Season-long fantasy baseball and football - BestBall Baseball and Football Events - Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS): DraftKings, FanDuel, and Underdog - Long Shot Player Prop Parlays for NFL I participate in various leagues and contests, including NFBC, NFFC, RTSports, FFPC, DraftKings, Underdog Fantasy, FanDuel, and FFWC, with the goal of leveraging my extensive experience and research for success in each game format. A fantasy follower can expect in-depth profiles of NFL and MLB players, along with season-long and weekly projections for each fantasy football season. In addition, I have many strategy articles to help develop fantasy players' learning curves.
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