3 Pirates players who shouldn’t be on the 40-man roster by spring training

Enmanuel Valdez

The Pirates acquired Enmanuel Valdez this offseason in a trade that mostly went unnoticed. The infielder hasn't done much with the bat in his major league career, slashing .235/.286/.400 with a .296 wOBA and 84 wRC+ through 372 plate appearances with the Boston Red Sox the past two seasons. Valdez has struck out in 24.2% of his plate appearances, but has drawn a walk at a mediocre 6.7% rate.

Valdez has shown he has some potential with the bat. Last season, he put up an 89.4 MPH average exit velocity and 9.2% barrel rate. Both are above the league average of 88.8 MPH and 7.9%, respectively. He has put up an xSLG% of at least .420 in the last two years. Valdez also does not swing and miss frequently, with a whiff rate of 22.1% in 2024. 

But Valdez has to hit to provide any sort of value. He has spent most of his career at second base, where he has -11 defensive runs saved and -12 outs above average in only 824 innings at the keystone. Valdez doesn't have a strong arm and was in the sixth percentile of arm strength last year at 74.6 MPH. Only Ozzie Albies averaged out with worse arm strength at second base. He is not a very range-y player, either, and was in the 26th percentile of sprint speed.

Valdez is easily one of the worst defenders in the sport. There have only been 18 players in the last two seasons with double-digit negative DRS and OAA. Valdez, Kyle Schwarber, Jorge Soler, and Amed Rosario are the only ones with less than 1,000 innings in the field. Schwarber and Soler both see most of their playing time at DH and make up for the lack of fielding by providing high-end power production. Rosario, meanwhile, has been on four different teams and a part of five transactions over the last two seasons.

Valdez definitely has more potential with the bat and a better chance of providing offensive value than both Williams and Gray, but he's next to unplayable in the field. If Valdez had the sort of upside with the stick that Schwarber or Soler do, then it wouldn't be an issue. But unless his fielding improves significantly, he's still going to be a sub-replacement level player, even if he hits at a league-average level.