Framber Valdez is making Astros pitching woes look completely avoidable

It's become abundantly clear that the Houston Astros' starting rotation gambles haven't paid off. It's clear now that they should have brought in a veteran starting pitcher over the offseason. But not just any veteran starter would do. What they should have done is bring back one they know very well, Framber Valdez.

Valdez has gone on to Detroit and, aside from an April 8 blowup against the Minnesota Twins, he has been great this season. Even with that subpar outing factored in, the veteran southpaw has made seven starts and logged 40 1/3 innings with a 3.35 ERA. That would look real nice in Houston's rotation right about now.

Retaining Valdez wouldn't have been easy, given the circumstances. But things didn't always need to be that way. Much of what went down between Valdez and the club was the Astros dropping the ball, and it's hard to imagine that they aren't wishing for a do-over right about now.

The Astros could have retained Framber Valdez, and now they're learning how much they truly miss him

Dana Brown is going to take much of the heat for the failures of the Astros' pitching staff, but in reality, it isn't all on him. Jim Crane's insistence on staying under the luxury tax made it nearly impossible for Brown to fit a deal for Valdez under the tax line.

But, of course, that was a self-imposed restriction. They could have exceeded the tax if they wanted, and with a few different choices, they could have had Valdez and only gone over the line by a little bit.

The 32-year-old's contract with the Tigers is an opt-out-laden, short-term, high-AAV agreement. Essentially, his AAV is $38.33 million. But Valdez signed late into the winter because he was looking for a long-term deal that never materialized. Had the Astros offered that, they would have been able to get him for a lower AAV and thus a lower tax bill. If they utilized deferred money, they'd be in even better shape at the present moment in time.

Had they done that, they also wouldn't have had to commit at least $18 million to Tatsuya Imai, an investment that looks worse and worse with each passing update as he struggled to get Double-A hitters out during his first rehab start.

There's also the matter of the team never offering Valdez an extension. By last year, it was already too late, given his status as an established top-of-the-rotation pitcher. However, if they had been proactive years ago, they'd have had him locked up.

Instead, the starters they have extended, Lance McCullers Jr. and Cristian Javier, have proven to be bad investments. Hindsight is 20/20, and injuries certainly played a role, but the organization is paying $29.8 million this season to those two pitchers, which are funds that could be allocated in much better ways.

Of course, Valdez alone wouldn't be enough to save the Astros. However, his presence would help them weather the Hunter Brown injury storm much more effectively, and when Brown's back, he could have combined with Brown and Spencer Arrighetti to form an impressive top-three starters. From there, they could try to make do.

Unfortunately, Houston thought small this offseason. Crane's desire to save money outweighed his competitive drive, and Dana Brown was forced into high-risk, potentially high-reward gambles like Imai to solidify the rotation. But all along, they knew that Valdez was the right call because they had seen it before. They knew what he could do, but they let him go anyway.

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