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