TORONTO – Esmerlyn Valdez paused for a second and smiled wide, eventually nodding his head with an enormous amount of pride. The question was about the Pirates’ academy in the Dominican Republic and the impact it had on the young outfielder.
Valdez’s answer was obvious before he began to speak.
“It played a big role in my life,” Valdez said Friday at Rogers Centre, with Major League coach Stephen Morales translating. “Not just for me as a player but also the values I’ve developed. You become a man at that academy.
“I know a lot of people gave a lot of effort to put me in the position that I am right now.”
Valdez also isn’t alone. The Pirates recalling him from Triple-A Indianapolis on Friday meant the two homegrown, Latin American players are on the active roster, the other being Wilber Dotel. Amazingly, those moves happened within three days.
It’s certainly a dream realized for Valdez and Dotel, who said they discussed this moment over meals while playing together in the Minor Leagues, daydreaming about one day jointly impacting the Pirates.
But it’s also an important moment for the academy, a massive, 52-acre plot of land located in the El Toro municipality of the Dominican Republic.
Doors to the facility opened in 2009. There was a renewed push in 2019 that netted a bunch of facility upgrades, as well as ample attention paid to a multi-pronged approach that Valdez and Dotel experienced firsthand.
Find and develop talented baseball players, sure.
But also impact the community and use the facility to grow the game.
“We take it as a responsibility that, if we’re going to sign these players, we hope that some of them end up being great big leaguers,” Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said. “But we’re really responsible for their maturation during a really critical part of their lives.”
Asked how the Pirates’ Dominican Republic academy impacted them, neither Valdez nor Dotel cited baseball as the first thing, though it obviously helped them get to the big leagues.
They went with education, general maturity and learning how to work.
The Pirates signed Dotel for $65,000 at age 18 on Oct. 13, 2020. He was thrust into the same environment as everyone at the academy: completing a full high school curriculum, working out in an MLB-level weight room, practicing on fields mirroring Pirate City and leveraging the latest baseball technology.
There’s much given to prospects who walk this path, but there’s also plenty expected, which Valdez appreciated just as much.
Just one example: The CENAPEC program he completed through education coordinator Mayu Fielding challenged the 22-year-old in the same way he might experience seeing a nasty breaking ball.
“They really want us to be better educational-wise,” said Valdez, who signed with the Pirates for $130,000 in 2021.
That much was reaffirmed when the 2019 renovations included heavy work on the education side, as well as a weight room totaling more than 6,000 square feet, a state-of-the-art training center with hot and cold tubs and so much more.
The Pirates employ more than a dozen teachers and have an advanced curriculum developed over time, the organization remaining one of the few in Major League Baseball to require newly signed players to complete their formal education.
For Valdez and Dotel, the lessons involved much more than baseball.
“It taught me how to work,” Dotel said. “It helped me create a mindset that puts me in a good spot, learning how to be professional. The way they run the academy down there, it really put into perspective the idea of putting in the work to get better.”
Which Dotel has certainly done.
His fastball now regularly touches triple-digits. Last season, Dotel pitched to a 4.15 ERA in 27 starts and struck out 131 in 125 2/3 innings. So far in the big leagues, he has a 2.35 ERA in four appearances totaling 7 2/3 innings – and could be ticketed for a larger role soon.
Valdez, meanwhile, has been on an even faster track, since making a swing adjustment last season.
Early in 2025, Valdez was an unranked prospect at High-A Greensboro. Now, he’s ranked No. 9 by MLB Pipeline and comes with a bevy of recent production. Valdez was hitting .253 with a team-high 10 home runs with Triple-A Indianapolis. He had five in his last five games, along with an .887 OPS and 33 walks against just 41 strikeouts.
This past fall, Valdez was the Arizona Fall League’s best offensive player, producing a .368 average and eight home runs in 19 games.
“To sign them and develop from [the Dominican Summer League] all the way up, you’re talking about two great kids who work extremely hard,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said. “To get the reports from our development staff on the human beings, how hard they work, the commitment they have to getting better every single day … just really pumped for them to be able to make their debut and also for our development staff that works extremely hard to help these guys every single day get better and achieve their dream.”
The hope is obviously that Valdez and Dotel the start of a renewed push.
Edward Florentino has ascended to No. 37 on MLB Pipeline’s top-100 list. Yordany De Los Santos was another prominent international signing ($2.25 million in January 2022) who’s also at High-A and showing positive signs. Antwone Kelly signed the same year as Valdez for similar money ($100,000) and joined the 40-man roster this winter, too. We’ll very likely see Kelly, a native of Aruba, this season.
That’s hardly a comprehensive list, which is why the Dominican Academy has been such a focal point, from infrastructure like installing new agility fields or simple, lifestyle things like teaching players to cook for themselves.
It’s all a machine that, if done right, eventually pays off at the Major League level the way the Pirates are hoping to see with Valdez, Dotel and more.
“Dotel and Valdy are great examples of how strong collaboration across our international scouting, international development and [coaching and player development] groups, together with very hard work from the players themselves can add up to helping us in the Major Leagues,” Cherington said.
“Both players spent significant time at our DR academy and also touched every stop of the Minor League on the way to Pittsburgh. We’re proud of their progress and look forward to them helping us win games in Pittsburgh.”
Jason Mackey: Jason.Mackey@pirates.com and @JMackey_PGH.