Is Framber an Ace?

Like many things in life, it depends

For a few seasons my son and I have gone back and forth on whether Framber Valdez deserves the title of “Ace”.

Over time I’ve come to realize we agree on a lot of the details, but he and I have different definitions of the term “Ace”.

His is along the lines of what comes up on an internet search for the definition of “Ace in Baseball”:

In baseball, an ace is a starting pitcher who is considered the best on a team's roster. Aces are usually the first pitcher in the starting rotation and are often selected to start on Opening Day and important playoff games.

I tend to take a more nuanced view and say things like, “You never know what you’re gonna get. He may be great or he may suck. That’s not an Ace to me.”

I’m old.

The Criteria is…what exactly?

It’s a weird thing. You could argue the 41-win White Sox had an “Ace” in Garrett Crochet, while the World Champion Dodgers didn’t.

In searching for a way to compare pitchers and come to some sort of resolution about who was more right (or more wrong) I landed upon Game Score.

It’s not a perfect measure and may not even be very good, but it is better than wins, which as Crochet found out depends to a large extent on your team’s offense over which you have no control.

The Start Charts

This led me to chart every Game Score for some American League pitchers with the most wins in 2024: Framber, Seth Lugo, Tarik Skubal and Carlos Rodon.

If you think the chart below is unreadable with 4 pitchers on it, imagine what the one I started with 8 looked like.

But it is useful for the big picture.

Rodon was all over the place, Framber had some stinkers and Lugo struggled near the end.

What doesn’t stand out as much is the blood red of Tarik Skubal’s Game Scores and there’s good reason for that, as we’ll see shortly.

But first, let’s get a cleaner picture by looking at each individually.

The peaks and valleys in Framber’s starts are clear. High variance as I surmised, with big swings, especially early in the season.

A 79 followed by a 17. An 82 followed by a 26.

Lugo had a solid first half, but nose-dived in the latter part of the second half.

Skubal had very few outliers. Most are between mid-70s and high 50s.

What a wild ride with Rodon. A high of 77 with a low of 10, which was the lowest for the entire group.

Before I started this exercise if you asked me to rank these pitchers I would have said Skubal, Valdez, Lugo and Rodon and that’s pretty much how I see it afterward.

You Said “No Math”

Valdez has the second-highest average score, but it’s not close to Skubal’s top average.

Valdez also has the second-highest max, and second-highest min (though it’s not close).

The bad news is he also has the second-highest Standard Deviation.

Framber and Lugo are close in every category, at least for 2024.

What stands out to me is the Standard Deviation. Skubal is far and away the more consistent and reliable starter.

The Verdict

Junior is right by the internet definition of “Ace”.

Framber is the Astros ace.

That doesn’t change the fact that there’s a lot of volatility in his starts, as there is for Lugo and Rodon.

I could make the argument Framber is closer to being Seth Lugo than he is to Tarik Skubal.

One had wild fluctuations in the first half of the season, the other in the second half.

Their average, max, min and standard deviation are almost exact matches.

What this exercise has taught me is most pitchers, even very good ones that win 15 or 16 games, have good starts and bad starts.

The ones like Skubal, who go out and pitch well almost every start are few and far between.

That’s how I define an Ace.