{"id":517247,"date":"2026-07-23T15:58:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T19:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/?p=517247"},"modified":"2026-07-23T15:58:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T19:58:30","slug":"dominican-rookie-esmerlyn-valdez-emerges-as-breakout-star-for-pirates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/sports\/dominican-rookie-esmerlyn-valdez-emerges-as-breakout-star-for-pirates\/","title":{"rendered":"Dominican rookie Esmerlyn Valdez emerges as breakout star for Pirates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Few hitters in Major League Baseball have been as productive as Dominican outfielder <strong>Esmerlyn Valdez<\/strong> since making his debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before the start of the 2026 season, Valdez was largely unknown outside the Pirates\u2019 organization. After signing with Pittsburgh in 2021, he spent six seasons in the minor leagues, batting <strong>.261<\/strong> with an <strong>.856 OPS<\/strong>, <strong>75 home runs<\/strong>, and <strong>262 RBIs<\/strong> in <strong>412 games<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite those numbers, Valdez received little attention as a prospect and remained under the radar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Everything changed when the Pirates promoted him to the majors on <strong>May 22<\/strong> to replace an injured player. Since then, the Dominican rookie has become one of the team\u2019s most productive hitters, quickly establishing himself as one of the biggest surprises of the 2026 MLB season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Few hitters in Major League Baseball have been as productive as Dominican outfielder Esmerlyn Valdez since making his debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Before the start of the 2026 season, Valdez was largely unknown outside the Pirates\u2019 organization. After signing with Pittsburgh in 2021, he spent six seasons in the minor leagues, batting .261 with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":517248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[35481,41576,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-517247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","category-mlb","category-sports"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-2ayH","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/IMG_3223.jpeg","dum_api":{"author_name":"Redacci\u00f3n De \u00daltimo Minuto","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cropped-logo-de-ultimo-minuto-96x96.png","categories_name":["Baseball","MLB","Sports"],"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/IMG_3223.jpeg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}