Jose Valdez took the last 40-man roster spot, so let’s learn something about him.

As I lamented last night, the Giants should have already called up Steven Duggar to address their outfield issues. Given that those issues will persist another couple of weeks and one measly pitcher is not going to fix the pitching staff now or in the near future, the fact that the Giants opted to use Johnny Cueto’s vacated roster spot on 27-year old reliever Jose Valdez has been... a source of consternation here in the Murphy household.

But, the Giants’ front office has won three more world championships than I have, so I must defer to them. Let’s see why Jose Valdez makes the most sense for the team right now.

He’s a pitcher.

True. He’s thrown 50.1 innings since 2015 for Detroit, Los Angaheim, and San Diego. He’s struck out 43 and walked 25 across those major league innings. In 12 AAA games for the Giants this season, he’s struck out 26 in 17 innings.

He’s 27.

Not exactly a prospect, and unlikely to excite. He’s definitely a stopgap measure of a pitcher.

He has 4 pitches.

If Brooks Baseball is accurate, his fastball is in the 93-94 mph range, he has a 92-93 mph sinker, a 75 mph curve, and an 84 mph splitter. Proof that he’s intended as a stopgap/middle innings reliever is that he’s potentially still using all 4 pitches. A late-game reliever will typically be a 2-pitch pitcher at most. We know the Giants love sinkers and splitters.

He needs to update his Twitter.

Bruv.

He should not pitch very often.

He’s had very limited success as a professional baseball player and so if we’re seeing much of him over the next week, it’s safe to assume it’s because everything has gone horribly wrong for the Giants.

In conclusion and finally, I think it would be great if Jose Valdez came out of nowhere to, like, claim the closer role, but that’s such an extremely unlikely possibility that instead I’m going to remain perturbed that he got the 40-man spot and not Steven Duggar.