Dominican baseball player of the week / Pelotero de la semana: Carlos Gomez

Dominican baseball player Carlos Gomez has had a pretty average career, spending parts of six seasons in the big leagues. He came up with the Mets in 2007 and then was a full-time starter for two years with the Twins. He has been with the Brewers for the last three seasons, and the highlight of his career probably came last season when he was a member of a Brewers team that made the NLCS.

That is until now. Gomez was awarded the NL Player of the Week last, as he hit .346 (9-for-26) with four home runs and scored 10 runs. He was also first among National Leaguers with 10 RBI and three stolen bases. 

The Santiago, Dominican Republic native Gomez already has a career high nine home runs this season. Though the Brewers are more than likely out of the playoff picture, Gomez could possibly see a career high in RBI, walks, and stolen bases as well. Some consolation for a bad year as a team.

Gomez’s Milwaukee teammate, and fellow Dominican, Aramis Ramirez (.417, 10 H, 4 2B, 2 HR, 6 RBI) also received some consideration for the player of the week award. Ramirez won the Dominican Player of the Week award earlier this season. He is from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Dominican baseball player of the week Carlos Gomez, photo by Steve Paluch on Flickr

Dominican beisbol player of the week: Robinson Cano

Robinson Cano has been hot. He almost won the Dominican Baseball Guy's Dominican Beisbol Player of the Week last week, but was the runner up to Aramis Ramirez.

Last week Cano had a better week than most players have in a career (.286, 4 HR, 5 RBI, 6 R). But this week he hit .414 (12-for-29) with four home runs and 10 RBIs in seven games. It was good enough for his sixth career American League Player of the Week honor, and his first career Dominican beisbol player of the week award.

Amazingly, these two hot weeks by Cano were not enough to win him the American League Player of the Month award, which he has already won 2 times. He was edged out in this award by fellow Dominican beisbol player Jose Bautista of the Blue Jays. Bautista had 14 home runs and 30 RBI in June, compared to Cano's 11 home runs and 21 RBI, though Cano did hit for a much higher average.

Yankees skipper Joe Girardi commented that he basically expects these types of performances by Cano on a consistent basis.

He is one of the best player in MLB and will contend for the MVP, as he has done for the last several years. So, the Dominican Baseball Guy agrees with Girardi. Expect to see more Dominican beisbol player of the week awards for Robinson Cano throughout the rest of the season as well.

Cano is from San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic. Bautista and Ramirez are both from Santo Domingo, the Capital of the Dominican Republic.

Dominican beisbol player of the week Robinson Cano, by Keith Allison on Flickr

Dominican baseball player of the week: Aramis Ramirez

The Dominican baseball player of the week goes to Aramis Ramirez, who edged out Robinson Cano by a vote of 1-0. Cano had a good week for the Yankees (.286, 4 HR, 5 RBI, 6 R), but Ramirez had a better week for the Brewers.

Aramis Ramirez had eleven hits last week and hit for a .500 average. He also added two home runs and seven RBI.

The Dominican Baseball Guy was surprised to see that Ramirez is in his 14th season. He played for the Pirates? What? And he actually had a couple good years for them? What?

For as maligned a player he has been in Chicago at times, his career numbers are great.  He has hit 20 home runs nine times and had 100 RBI six times.  Ramirez has probably deserved more than the two All-Star games that he has made. May be due to the fact that he has been a late starter many years. More evidence of late starting? He got his first Silver Slugger last year in his 13th season in the big leagues.  

Sure he will put up big numbers this year for the Brewers. But, let's face the facts Brewers fans.  Your team is bad, almost as bad as the last place Houston Astros.  Well, not that bad.

Dominican baseball player Aramis Ramirez es de Santo Domingo, Republica Dominicana.

Dominican baseball player of the week Aramis Ramirez plays third base for the Cubs,
photo by terren in Virginia on Flickr

Brewers and their cultural immersion program for Latin and Dominican players

Currently every single MLB team has a Dominican baseball academy in the Dominican Republic.  However, only 5-6 teams have a full time staff dedicated to cultural immersion of Latin and Dominican baseball players, the Brewers are one of those teams.

The Dominican Baseball Guy is a trained anthropologist, so he could tell you all about culture shock, language acquisition, cultural relativity, and many other issues facing people moving to a new country and culture.  Dominican players coming stateside face all these issues and more.

One of the anecdotes that the Dominican Baseball Guy has heard many times, both in print and from Dominican players, is that when they first get to the states they do not realize they fall into the "black" racial category.  Most consider themselves Latin and feel like they fit in with the Hispanic population, because of their shared language.  In the Dominican Republic, many of the players that are categorized as "black" in the states are categorized as "prieto" or some other racial classification.

The racial classifications are much more free flowing in the Dominican Republic.  The Dominican Republic is mainly a homogeneous population, and the racial classifications are more descriptive characteristics based on shades of skin color.  This is a complicated issue, so for simplicity sake: whereas in the United States, the racial classifications fall into black-white-brown-yellow, in the Dominican Republic the classification are more like black-dark brown-light brown-yellowish brown-whitish brown-white.  Even Dominican family members may be classified as a different "races" due to their skin color.

However, the skin color does not necessarily decide a Dominicans "ethnicity," as in the States.  Everyone is Dominican, and there is no separation of ethnicity like in the United States.  With that says it does have an affect on social standing.  As with many parts of the world and world history, "white is right."  The famous Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo was said to have whitened his skin, and many think Dominican baseball player Sammy Sosa did the same.  And the lowest members of Dominican society are the Haitian immigrants, also the darkest in complexion.  Haitians in the Dominican Republic are often discriminated against.

As you can see, it is a complicated issue, and it is just one issue Dominican baseball players face when moving to the states.  Others are of course language, food, treatment of animals, and travel.  The Brewers up and coming Latin baseball players and Dominican players are lucky to have Rolando Valles.  Rolando is native of Maracaibo, Venezuela played for twelve years in the minors.

Dominican baseball player Aramis Ramirez remembers his baseball idols growing up in the Dominican Republic

A group of journalism students at Arizona State University has put together the Peanuts and Cracker Jacks blog.  The blog is produced for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and covers the Brewers Spring Training.

A recent post had the Brewers remembering their own idols.  The Dominican Baseball Guy was of course drawn to the comments from one of the Brewers' Dominican baseball players, Aramis Ramirez.  He is entering his 15th year in the majors and 1st with the Brewers.

Dominican player Ramirez counts fellow Dominican George Bell as his biggest influence growing up:

“Actually, that was the year that I started playing baseball because he won the MVP in the American League,” Ramirez said. “Everybody was talking about him in my hometown, he was amazing.”

Aramis Ramirez is from Santo Domingo and George Bell is from San Pedro de Macoris. The whole country was probably crazy of native Dominican baseball player Bell and his MVP run in 1987 though.

Dominican player Aramis Ramirez last year with the Cubs, photo by notmargaret on Flickr

Brewers re-sign Dominican baseball player Carlos Gomez, Dominicano firma con Brewers

The Brewers re-signed Carlos Gomez, and in so doing they avoided arbitration with the player, who will be in his sixth big league season this year, all with the Brewers.  The Brew Crew has six other arbitration eligible players yet to resign.

Gomez has been a successful major leaguer over five seasons.  He was the youngest player in the NL when he made his debut with the Mets in 2007.  He was traded to the Twins in the Johan Santana deal and was the Twins everyday center fielder for two seasons.  For the last two years he has been a utility outfielder and pinch hitter for the Brewers.  He was an important part of their playoff run last year, even as a bench player.

He should fight for an everyday outfield spot this year, and should see the 90-plus games he saw the last two years.  Gomez is from Santiago, Dominican Republic.

Carlos Gomez with the Brewers, photo by Steve Paluch on Flickr

Dominican baseball players in ALCS and NLCS, Peloteros Dominicanos en los finales de MLB

Time to announce the list of Dominicans baseball players in the league championship series this year.  Last round, The Dominican Baseball Guy's Dominican Baseball Index proved accurate once again.  The teams with the greater number of Dominican baseball players won in three out of four series in the 2011 divisional round of the Major League Baseball playoffs.

We will see if it proves accurate for the league championship series.  Here is the list of Dominican baseball players in the second round of the playoffs:

Texas Rangers: Neftali Feliz, Alexi Ogando, Adrian Beltre, Esteban German, Nelson Cruz
Detroit Tigers: Jose Valverde, Al Alburquerque, Alex Avila, Wilson Betemit, Jhonny Peralta, Ramon Santiago
Saint Louis Cardinals: Octavio Dotel, Rafael Furcal...and o yea, some guy named Albert Pujols
Milwaukee Brewers: Carlos Gomez

The Brewers were the only team to overcome the huge odds of the Dominican Baseball Index in the first round, and they will have to do it again this round, as they have only one beisbolista Dominicano on their roster. The Tigers lead the way this round with six Dominicans on their roster.

Overall there were no changes involving the Dominican baseball players. There will be 15 Dominicanos playing in the league championship series, 15% of the 100 total players.

Dominican baseball players on playoff rosters, Dominicanos en los finales de MLB

Every year, the Dominican Baseball Guy puts out a list of Dominican players on playoff rosters for each round.  So, here is the 2011 list of Dominican players on active MLB 25-man rosters for the Divisional round of the playoffs:

Texas Rangers: Neftali Feliz, Alexi Ogando, Adrian Beltre, Esteban German, Nelson Cruz

Tampa Bay Rays: Joel Peralta, Juan Cruz 

Detroit Tigers: Jose Valverde, Al Alburquerque, Alex Avila, Wilson Betemit, Jhonny Peralta, Ramon Santiago 

New York Yankees: Ivan Nova, Rafael Soriano, Robinson Cano, Eduardo Nunez

Milwaukee Brewers: Carlos Gomez

Saint Louis Cardinals: Octavio Dotel, Rafael Furcal...and o yea, some guy named Albert Pujols

Arizona Diamondbacks: NOT A SINGLE DOMINICAN...they are definitely going to lose

Philadelphia Phillies: Placido Polanco, Michael Martinez, Wilson Valdez, Antonio Bastardo

This is 26 of the 200 players on active rosters for the first round of the playoffs.  This is the exact same number that were on Divisional playoff rosters last season.  It comes out to 13% of the 200 active players, which is slightly ahead of the 10% represented on opening day rosters.  The Tigers lead the way with 7 Dominican players on their playoff rosters and the Rangers have 6.

Interesting that the Dominican Baseball Guy has seen several of these players pop up in the Dominican Winter Baseball League (LIDOM), and they are now playing at the highest level of baseball.  See the tags for Esteban German, Nelson Cruz, Wilson Betemit, Ramon Santiago, Wilson Valdez...all players that the Dominican Baseball Guy has seen in LIDOM action in recent years.

Dominican Winter Baseball League: Gigantes lose, Fernando Abad and Victor Mercedes shine for Toros

10/17/09 Game-
The Gigantes lost their second in a row to start the season tonight. They were never in this contest and looked sloppy throughout, going down by a score of 8-0. The Toros even had an inside the park home run in the eighth inning, after an error (and lack of effort in my opinion or at least ignorance of the situation by pitcher Rhiner Cruz).

There was not much good to say about the Gigantes performance in this game. Estarlin de los Santos had another good game. It is somewhat strange to see a player with only high-A experience be entrenched as a starter at short stop. However, he has played well and went 1-3 last night, and also hit a hard liner right at the center fielder. He made some good plays in the field again too.

Luis Taveras, the brother of Willy Taveras, saw action as a pinch hitter and got a hit. Erick Almonte, a leading hitter for los Gigantes last year, got on track a little going 1-2, with a walk. He was with the Brewers in AAA last year and had a good year (.291, 2HR, 31RBI) in 105 games. He is big, at 6'2" and 180 pounds, with long ball potential.

Astros minor leaguer Fernando Abad pitched 4 innings of no-hit ball for the Toros. Victor Mercedes went 3-3 and had the inside the park home run.

The Gigantes head back home for their home opener tonight against the Aguilas.

Erick Almonte warming up for Gigantes, by Dominican Baseball Guy