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Alex Valverde, 25, is a product of the Tamp Bay Rays, by way of the 22nd round in the 2017 draft. Valverde, like many, did not pitch in the COVID season but spent his 2021 season at his highest level yet.
Prior to this season, Valverde was exclusively a reliever. However, in late July, Valverde transitioned from reliever to starter. In his 10 late season starts, Valverde only once made it to 15 outs but even more importantly held the opponent to one or fewer earned runs in seven of those 10 starts.
A quick look at the stats won’t jump out at any reader, with his 4.88 ERA and 1.36 WHIP. However a deeper look unearths his 28.7 K% and a formidable .244 BAA. As we can see, this was the result of Valverde having a unique delivery where he hides the ball exceptionally well, and at least visually, his sliders produce a high rate of spin.
Would love to see some of the metrics on these sliders from Alex Valverde, picked today by the #Mets in the MiLB Rule 5 Draft, which induced some silly swings.
He had above-avg whiff #'s while being younger than lg. average.
Interesting stuff coming out of a unique arm slot. pic.twitter.com/9vYur0j0Cy
— Jacob Resnick (@Jacob_Resnick) December 8, 2021
So why was a still young 25-year old right-hander with a sharp slider and fastball combination available? Especially when coming from the analytics heavy Rays organization? Simple answer is it could just be a numbers game, you can’t keep everyone. Valverde was left out there possibly due to his career-worst .341 BABIP. Overall, while Valverde does miss a lot of bats, when the bats do connect they do some damage.
Even so, Valverde is a dynamic depth addition to a pitching hungry Mets farm that recently added both Jose Butto and Adam Oller to the 40-man. Speaking of Oller, he transformed from minor league Rule 5 draft pick to minor league pitcher of the year. This season, Oller was added to the Mets 40 man roster to protect him from the Rule 5 draft. With a good season, we may be having the same conversation about Valverde next year.
Valverde won’t likely make it to the majors this season, but may very well reach the minor’s highest level either as as a starter or reliever. Valverde’s ability to do either and succeed either way should excite Mets fans as to what this pick could become.
