Dominican baseball player of the week: Wilin Rosario

Rockies rookie and Dominican baseball player Wilin Rosario is the latest winner of the Dominican Player of the Week here on the Dominican Baseball Guy blog. I dare you to write a sentence that has more derivations of 'Dominican baseball' than that last one.

The Dominican Rosario has a slew of minor league awards, but this appears to be his biggest award while playing in the big leagues. He was a Futures Game selection twice, a post-season and mid-season all-star in the AA Texas League, and won a few other minor league awards. The Dominican Baseball Guy got a chance to see Wilin Rosario play while he was in the Texas League.

He was considered a top-100 prospect at the start of the 2011 season. After six years in the minors, he made the jump from AA to the majors at the end of last year, and has never looked back. He has been an every day player for the Rockies this year, and has home runs and a .274 average, while playing the most important position on the field, catcher.

Last week, he hit a ridiculous .448, with 13 hits, 2 home runs, and 5 RBI. He should be the starting catcher for the Rockies for many years to come.

Dominican baseball player Wilin Rosario is from Bonao, Dominican Republic.

Dominican baseball player Wilin Rosario playing catcher at the Texas League All-Star game,
I promise he is there, photo by monstersweare on Flickr

Dominican baseball player of the week: Wily Peralta

Dominican baseball player and rookie with the Rockies, Wily Peralta is the latest winner of the Dominican baseball player of the week. Last week he went 1-0 with a 0.64 ERA and 9 strikeouts in 14 innings. Quite a line for a pitcher that made his first start on September 5th.

Peralta got his first call up in April, but the starter has received his first extended action in the last couple weeks. The Dominican pitcher received a slew of minor league awards, but the Dominican baseball player of the week is his first major big league award. He projects as a mid-rotation starter, and should get a chance to compete for a rotation spot next Spring Training with the Rockies.

He grew up in Samana, Dominican Republic, but moved to the capital in order to pursue baseball more seriously when he was just eleven.

Futures minor league All-Star game to feature 8 Dominican players

The Futures All-Star game rosters were release Thursday, and both the rosters of the United States and the World All-Stars are packed with future stars.  The United States of course has a whole squad of American players, but on the World side, Dominican players lead the way with eight selections.

The World team has players from eleven different countries.  Dominican players to be featured in the game are the Diamondbacks Alfredo Marte (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic), the Rockies Edwar Cabrera (Bani), the Royals Yordano Ventura (Samana), the Angels Jean Segura (San Juan), the Phillies Lisalverto Bonilla (Samana), the Padres Rymer Liriano (Santo Domingo), the Cardinals Oscar Taveras (Puerto Plata), and the Rays Enny Romero (Santo Domingo).

Jean Segura is perhaps the most highly touted of these Dominican prospects.  He was the highest ranked Dominican player on Baseball America's top 100 prospects of 2012, appearing at number 55 on the list.  Segura has been threatening to crack the Angels roster and should make it up this year or next.  For that matter all these prospects should be in the big leagues within the next few years.

This is the 14th annual Futures Game.  The game will take place All-Star weekend on July 8th at 5 p.m. E.T.

Dominican baseball player Ubaldo Jimenez to make first start for Indians, Jugador de Dominican beisbol va a jugar primer vez por Indians

Dominican baseball player Ubaldo Jimenez has had an up and down existence in Major League Baseball with the Rockies, and he was recently traded to the Cleveland Indians.

Just last year, Jimenez pitched a no-hitter and was in the running for the Cy Young at the end of the season, after finishing with a 2.88 ERA and 19-8 record.  He was named the ace of the Rockies pitching staff this past off-season, and got off to decent start to the year.  Then he cracked his cuticle and could not pitch, and it all fell apart.

He was 6-9 with a 4.46 ERA and the Rockies decided to trade him to the Indians for three minor leaguers.  Interesting move.  The Rockies seemed to trade him at the first sign of trouble.  He did have two complete games and one shutout for the Rockies.  Complete games and shutouts do not just fall out of thin air.  It takes some real skill to achieve that stuff on a consistent basis, which Ubaldo seems to do.

The Indians got an ace, or at the very worst a number two starter.  Aces are like gold in the MLB landscape, so the Dominican Baseball Guy cannot agree with this move from the Rockies.  Even if they were out of the playoffs this season, Jimenez is just 26, so would seem to have a long career ahead of him.

He makes his first start today, and the Dominican Baseball Guy will of course be following him.  Ubaldo Jimenez es de Nagua, Republica Dominicana.

The Indians logo has to be one of the coolest in MLB:

Dominican baseball pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez returns to Rockies tonight, Dominicano Jimenez lanza este noche

Ubaldo Jimenez pitches for the Rockies
by Chamber of Fear on Flickr

The Dominican Baseball Guy is a big fan of Ubaldo Jimenez and thinks Jimenez will be an ace for many years to come.  So, the Dominican Baseball Guy has been blogging on Jimenez and his rough start to the season.  He is the ace of the Rockies pitching staff, but had to leave in the opening game of the season.  Jimenez went to the 15 day disabled list on April 6th.

He is returning tonight to face the Giants.  Don't ask the Dominican Baseball Guy how that adds up to 15 days on the DL.

The Rockies are 12-4 thus far, but will need Jimenez this series and in a division with the defending World Series champions.  So, this is a good time for him to be returning.  Jimenez is looking to build on his Cy Young worthy performance last year, but this is not a good start.

Ubaldo is from Nagua, Dominican Republic.  He pitched a no-hitter last year.

Ubaldo Jimenez goes to disabled list for Rockies

As the Dominican Baseball Guy recently posted, Ubaldo Jimenez is the ace of the Rockies pitching staff.  He is coming off a year in which he started for the NL in the all-star game and challenged for the Cy Young at the end of the year.

So, it was strange to see him struggle in his opening day start and give up five earned runs in six innings.  But it turns out there is an exclamation in that he had an injured pitching thumb.  Apparently he has a cracked cuticle on the thumb.  Yes, that right, he is going to the 15 day DL for a cracked cuticle.  The Rockies and Jimenez do not want the pain in his thumb to alter his mechanics and lead to an arm injury, so he will see a short stint on the DL for the first time in his career.

Ubaldo is from Nagua, DR.

Ubaldo Jimenez, by Chamber of Fear on Flickr

Ubaldo Jimenez to ace Rockies staff

It comes as no surprise that Ubaldo Jimenez will be the Rockies ace for the upcoming season, but the Rockies made it official last week.

He had a Cy Young worthy first half last season, but fizzled in the second half.  Jimenez was in fact the National League starter in the all-star game.  He basically had no run support in the second half of the season, but still finished with a 19-8 record and 2.88 ERA.  He also made the prestigious Dominican Baseball Guy all-Dominican team for 2010.

Ubaldo is from Nagua, DR.

Dominican Winter Baseball: Gigantes game canceled due to strike, Ecogido has Venezuelan Cheerleaders!

10/19/09 Games-
The Gigantes have an off night tonight, and their game tomorrow has been canceled due to protests in San Fransisco de Macoris over public transportation and electricity services.

The Dominican Baseball Guy does not blame the strikers, the electricity is really sporadic at best in my apartment. Most of the businesses are closed today and people have set up road blocks to stall public transportation. There have been ongoing clashes with police in some parts of the city. The Gigantes will play in the capital tomorrow though, and this game has been rescheduled for Thursday. Unfortunately, this is not all that uncommon in the Dominican Republic.

In other games tonight Yasser Gomez had a double, single, and three runs. He is from Cuba, and as far as I can tell this is his first experience outside Cuba. He could be a player to watch going forward. Also, Robinson Diaz had three sinlges and a run for the Estrellas Orientales from San Pedro de Macoris. Diaz played in 41 games with the Pirates last year and posted a respectable .279 average in 129 at bats as a catcher. Francisco Rosario pitched four shutout innings, but Roberto Giron got the win pitching scoreless innings in the 5th and 6th.

Astros farmhand Jose Capellan got the loss for the Bulls from La Romana.

The other game had Licey vs. Escogido, the two teams in Santo Dominigo. Aparently, the Listin Diario web site thought it was more important to publish an article about the Escogido cheerleaders being from Venezuela (not Dominicans as is the norm), than to publish the results of the game. Anyway, imported player Tobi Stoner took the win for Escogido. He was in the Mets organization last year, and allowed 1 run in 5 innings last night. Another American, Michael McKenry had a two RBI double for Escogido. He was an everyday player last year with Tulsa of the Texas League, an affiliate of the Rockies.

American player Michael McKenry had two RBI for Escogido Monday,
photo by Keith Allison on Flickr