{"id":671513,"date":"2026-04-09T08:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T08:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/671513\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T08:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T08:28:10","slug":"pirates-outright-enmanuel-valdez-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/671513\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Outright Enmanuel Valdez – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pirates sent utility infielder Enmanuel Valdez<\/a> outright to Triple-A Indianapolis, per the MLB.com transaction log<\/a>. He evidently cleared waivers after being designated for assignment when the Bucs called up Konnor Griffin<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh acquired Valdez from Boston over the 2024-25 offseason in a DFA trade that sent minor league pitcher Joe Vogatsky<\/a> to the Sox. He spent a month as Pittsburgh\u2019s primary first baseman while\u00a0Spencer Horwitz<\/a> was working back from wrist surgery. Valdez hit .209\/.294\/.363 across 31 games before sustaining a season-ending dislocation of his left shoulder, which required surgery.<\/p>\n

Valdez is healthy but no longer had much of a path to playing time on the Pittsburgh infield. Horwitz has established himself as the primary first baseman. They acquired\u00a0Brandon Lowe<\/a> to play second and have Griffin up at shortstop. Third base is still a question mark, especially with\u00a0Jared Triolo<\/a> shelved by a knee injury, but Valdez had dropped below\u00a0Nick Yorke<\/a> and\u00a0Nick Gonzales<\/a> on the infield depth chart.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old Valdez owns a .230\/.288\/.392 batting line in a little less than 500 MLB plate appearances. He didn\u2019t hit during Spring Training and is out to an 0-10 start with five punchouts through four Triple-A games. He doesn\u2019t have the service time or previous career outright to elect free agency. Valdez will remain at Indianapolis, where he\u2019d begun the season on optional assignment, and try to shake off the rust offensively. He\u2019d qualify for minor league free agency at the end of the season if the Bucs don\u2019t add him back to the 40-man roster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pirates sent utility infielder Enmanuel Valdez outright to Triple-A Indianapolis, per the MLB.com transaction log. He evidently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,1148],"class_list":{"0":"post-671513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-enmanuel-valdez"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116373809771673494","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}