{"id":199458,"date":"2026-05-22T02:05:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T02:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/199458\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T02:05:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T02:05:20","slug":"pirates-to-promote-slugging-prospect-esmerlyn-valdez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/199458\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates to Promote Slugging Prospect Esmerlyn Valdez"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Esmerlyn\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The Pittsburgh Pirates are promoting outfield prospect Esmerlyn Valdez to the big leagues, a source confirmed to Pittsburgh Baseball Now. He is expected to join the team in Toronto on Friday. <\/p>\n

Valdez, who stands 6-foot-2 and weighs 234 pounds, has spent the season with Triple-A Indianapolis. In 46 games, he\u2019s slashed .253\/.381\/.506 with 10 doubles, 10 home runs and 29 RBI. The 22-year-old has hit five home runs in his last five games, including one in each of his last three games played.<\/p>\n

The Pirates added Valdez to the 40-man roster this offseason to protect him from being selected in the Rule 5 Draft. In six minor-league seasons, Valdez, who is ranked as the Pirates No. 9 prospect by MLB Pipeline<\/a>, owns a .261\/.368\/.483 batting line with 77 doubles, five triples, 72 home runs and 253 RBI in 402 games.<\/p>\n

The Pirates signed Valdez for $130,000 as an international free agent from the Dominican Republic during the 2020-21 signing period. <\/p>\n

When Valdez makes his MLB debut, he will be the fifth Pirate to do so this year, joining Konnor Griffin, Wilber Dotel, Brandan Bidois and Jhostynxon Garc\u00eda. <\/p>\n

To make room for Valdez on the active roster, the Pirates are optioning Billy Cook to Indianapolis. Cook has played sparingly with the Pirates this season, appearing in a total of 32 games. In 21 trips to the plate, he\u2019s gone 4 for 21 (.190) with five runs and three steals. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned in this article: Billy Cook<\/a> Esmerlyn Valdez<\/a> Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> <\/p>\n

More about:Pirates Transactions<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Pirates are promoting outfield prospect Esmerlyn Valdez to the big leagues, a source confirmed to Pittsburgh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[71505,14708,73,75,74,10997],"class_list":["post-199458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-billy-cook","tag-esmerlyn-valdez","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-pirates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}