Jose Valverde Gets a Year Older

The Astros announced that they had taken steps to correct a "discrepancy" in the paperwork with closer Jose Valverde's age. Apparently, some sources had Valverde's birthday listed as March 24, 1979 while others listed it as March 24, 1978. Unsurprisingly, the earlier date is the right one, so Valverde is actually a year older than most people think.

This news comes at a very bad time for Valverde because he's going to be a free agent in November. A 31-year-old closer will always be more valuable than a 32-year old closer and suddenly, Valverde's been moved from one class to the other. I can't imagine he's terribly happy about the timing of this, even if he's presumably known how old he is the whole time.

In fact, the timing of this is interesting. GM Ed Wade says that it's not of any consequence to him, but given that Valverde is a very good closer that's a pending free agent, adding a year to his age is of consequence to the Astros. It might make Valverde less appealing to other teams that want to sign him and bring his value down or change the contract terms being offered him on the open market, which could be very good for the Astros.

I'm not at all suggesting that the Astros did this on purpose. I'll take Wade at his word that they simply corrected an error as soon as they found it. Still, this sort of thing probably will affect Valverde's free agency in some way, and it could potentially be in a way that benefits Houston.