Astros lock in Valverde for 1 year/$8 million

Would’ve liked to see a multi-year contract to lock the guy up even moreso though.

control and would be compared to players in a similar stage of arbitration. That’s probably not far off from what he would get in arbitration. Of course, that’s not a surprise, since Valverde’s agent isn’t going to agree to something far lower than what he thinks he would get in arbitration. In any event, it’s good that they got that out of the way, so Wade knows exactly what the number is and can get a better grip on the budget. We can hope that Wade feels like he has more room to make some kind of bargain signing once he knows what the big arbitration numbers are. I think that uncertainty could have been holding him back some.