Pair of Altoona Curve Players Sweep Eastern League Weekly Awards 9/1/25

S. Samek

Another top 30 ranked Pittsburgh Pirates prospect has won a weekly award. Pitcher Wilber Dotel was named the Eastern League pitcher of the week this week.

Dotel went 2-0 with a 0.00 ERA in 10 2/3 innings pitched. He struck out nine and allowed just two hits during a pair of starts this week. He is currently the Eastern League leader in starts with 25 and third in the league with 124 strikeouts. He is the 28th ranked prospect on the Pirates top 30 list. It’s his first pitcher of the week award, though he did win the Florida State League Pitcher of the month for July 2023.

He is the second Curve pitcher to win the award this year after Hunter Barco won back in April. However, he wasn’t the only Altoona player honored this week.

Esmerlyn Valdez was selected as the Eastern League Player of the week. Valdez hit .444 with a double, four home runs, and nine RBIs during the week. He hit home runs in three straight games from August 28-30th and had a multi-home run game on August 29th as part of the Curve’s win over Harrisburg.

Valdez is ranked as the 15th best prospect in the Pittsburgh Pirates system. Though he does lead all Pittsburgh Pirates minor leaguers in home runs this year with 26. He was also named to the MLB Prospect team of the week along with teammate Konnor Griffin.

This is the first time the Curve have had both award winners in a week sense 2012 and only the fourth time in franchise history they have done it. It’s good to see them heating up as the playoff race is well underway for Altoona as the season gets into the closing stages. A hot Dotel and Valdez should be a spark to the team as they fight for the second half division title.