3 Pirates offensive prospects putting up ridiculous video game numbers in May

Esmerlyn Valdez

Esmerlyn Valdez flashed a ton of potential at Bradenton last season. He put up a .815 OPS with a 130 wRC+ while smacking 22 home runs in 435 plate appearances. His 11.5% barrel rate was the fourth-best among all A-Ball hitters with at least 250 trips to the plate. Meanwhile, Valdez’s .235 ISO was the third-best among all A-Ball batters with 300+ PAs. While he drew plenty of walks with a 13.6% BB%, his strikeout rate sat at just over 30% at 30.6%.

But so far this year, Valdez has looked even better after getting promoted to Greensboro. He is slashing .290/.378/.598 with a .437 wOBA and 163 wRC+. He is hitting for even more power, with an ISO sitting just under .300 at .299. His walk rate has diminished slightly from last season, sitting at 10.5% (which is slightly worse than the South Atlantic League league average), but his K% has dropped significantly to 24.9%, which is slightly better than the league average.

Valdez has been on fire in May, batting .262/.340/.571 with a .408 wOBA and 144 wRC+. His ISO is now above .300 at .310, and his K% has decreased even further to 20.2%. He could do even better, considering his batting average on balls in play is only .259. The only downside is that his walk rate has now fallen below 10% at 9.6%, but that’s a minor blemish on what has been an astounding month of May for the slugger. While Valdez may not be striking out as little as Johnson, he is hitting for a lot more power.

To put into perspective how hard that is to accomplish, there have only been 32 times an MLB player has put up an ISO of at least .300 in 400+ plate appearances. Of those 32 times, 18 have struck out at least a quarter of the time. Only eight have a strikeout percentage below 21% while still maintaining an ISO above .300. That includes Mike Trout (twice), MVP caliber seasons from Bryce Harper, Cody Bellinger, Christian Yelich, and Yordan Álvarez, and one Hall of Famer in David Ortiz.