Well lets see,,, NO your supposed to have one washer on each side..!
there is some scoring and scratching normally on the valve usually but parts could have gotten in there easily and made it much worse.
Looks like the big end got really hot. And that the cage around the bearings might be that plastic like material you found.
The bearings could be made of something soft that would be coated and tempered to make them harder.
I mean I've seen bearings fail so bad that they get squished out between the rod and washer. But that color is weird.