Dominican Republic baseball player of the week: Oscar Taveras

Normally the Dominican Baseball Guy goes with a big league Dominican baseball player for his Dominican Player of the Week pick. In fact, the Dominican Baseball Player of the Week has never gone to a minor league player. 

That all changes this week, as Oscar Taveras gets the Dominican Baseball Player of the Week award based on his performance in the 2012 MLB Futures Game. Taveras went 1-3 from the plate in the Futures game, as the World team was thumped by the American squad by a score of 17-5. The Dominican Republic baseball player Taveras had a few bad throws in the field to go along with his one hit.

So, that does not sound like a performance worthy of the Dominican Baseball Player of the Week huh? Well the fact is that the Futures minor league All-Star game featured 8 Dominican players and Taveras performed the best out of those eight players.

Taveras is ranked as the number 74 prospect in all of baseball by Baseball America, and he has been an all-star at every minor league stop he has made. He hit .386 last year in single-A and is hitting above .300 again this year in double-A. The Cardinals see him as an every day outfielder in the next two years.

He is from Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, an awesome Dominican beach town on the north coast of the country.