“If you would have asked me three years ago,” catcher Martín Maldonado said recently, “I never thought he would have been here this long.”
Prompted by his All-Star status to sport a new hairstyle for Tuesday’s game at Dodger Stadium, Framber Valdez refers to his long braids as “show flow.”LOS ANGELES — The call for help came sometime in 2020. A career hung in the balance because of a wayward mind, the type Andy Nuñez is taught to mold. He heard five years earlier about a Dominican kid on the Astros’ summer league team with an innate ability to spin the baseball. Natural talent is a blessing, but Framber Valdez needed focus.
Maldonado would not have been alone in his presumption. The Astros’ pitching development pipeline continued to churn, and Valdez did not seem to have a clear role. Other prospects progressed while his poor first impression persisted. He threw 70 2/3 innings in 2019, finished with a 5.86 ERA and ventured home to the Dominican Republic without any assurances for the next season.Valdez has a strong support system around him.
“Once I got with Andy, someone close to me in the Dominican Republic, someone who could come to my house every day in the Dominican if I needed it, that’s when those things really started to click for me,” Valdez said. Trust is the crux of Valdez and Nuñez’s relationship. Nuñez needed to foster belief in advice that Valdez did not initially want to accept. Nuñez said his first few months mentoring Valdez were “difficult.” The allure of major league life — and sudden wealth from a $565,000 salary — went to Valdez’s head.
“Let me tell you something, Framber, this is the industry. It’s called baseball,” Nuñez said he told Valdez. “If you disappear, the industry will keep going ahead. Valdez wielded a three-pitch mix that made him feel invincible. He had one of the organization’s most menacing curveballs, even though he could not command it. His two-seam fastball had so much natural movement and spin that hitters could not square up or elevate.
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