Dominican player of the week: Oscar Taveras wins Texas League MVP

Dominican Oscar Taveras was recently named the MVP of the Texas League. He actually dropped off a little from his A-ball numbers last year and only hit .322 with 22 homers, 89 RBIs, 10 steals and a .380 on-base percentage for Springfield.

The Cardinals prospect Taveras has been on the Dominican Baseball Guy's radar all season. He played in the Texas League where the Dominican Baseball Guy was able to see him play live a few times against the Corpus Christi Hooks. He definitely 'looks' like an MLB player. Along with his batting numbers, he shows plus fielding ability in the outfield.

In addition to the Texas League player of the year award, he won a Texas League player of the week award this season and was selected to the MLB Futures Game. He also won two Dominican Baseball Player of the Week awards here on my site.

He is from Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. Expect to see him in the big leagues next year at some point.

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.

5 Dominicans to play in Korea Baseball Organization in 2011

The eight teams in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) have signed 16 foreign players for the upcoming 2011 season, and 5 of the imported players are Dominican.  Like many lower tier sports leagues throughout the world, the KBO has a limit of 2 foreign players per team.  The Dominican Winter Baseball League limits it's teams to 5 foreign players at one time, and other sports leagues such as Major League Soccer also have limits on foreign born players, so this is a common practice designed to ensure that local teams have a majority of local players.

Thanks to True Stories of Korean Baseball for the list of foreign players.  Here are the Dominican players scheduled to appear in Korea this season:

Radhames Liz, P El Seybo, Dominican Republic

Ramon Ramirez, P Puerto Plata

Aquilino Lopez, P Villa Altagracia

Julio DePaula, P Santo Domingo

Oneli Perez, P Bonao

Radhames Liz and Ramon Ramirez both have big league experience.  And The Dominican Baseball Guy has seen several of these players show up in the Dominican Winter Baseball League (LIDOM).  They all have some experience in the LIDOM and Ben Jukich, another player on the list, also spent the whole 2009 year in the LIDOM with Aguilas.

Interesting that they are almost all pitchers.  A lack of quality arm strength in domestic players leads the teams of the KBO to import pitchers with 90 mph stuff.

Radhames Liz in 2010 spring training with the Padres, by SD Dirk on Flickr