Over the past quarter century the Dominican Republic has been one of the most fertile breeding grounds for future MLB players. The DSL is a rookie-level minor league and the Indians’ affiliate is the unimaginatively named DSL Indians. As of this writing (June 13), the Indians have played just 12 games having started their season on May 30th and are 5-7. The pitching staff has been the strength of the team thus far posting the second lowest ERA in the league at 2.07. The hitting has struggled so far with a .214 team batting average (33rd out of 38), their 3 home runs is more than just 10 other teams.
Unfortunately there is not a lot of available press regarding the DSL, which makes it much harder to follow and determine who the league’s best players are. However, these are some of the DSL Indians who are off to good starts this season.
Perez has been the Indians’ starting short stop this season, as well as the team’s best hitter. He’s posting a slash line of .278/.333/.417 with a team-leading 10 hits and 9 RBI.
The Indians’ starting first basemen is on his second stint in the Dominican Summer League after playing sparingly last season with the team. Thus far, through nine games played he is hitting .269/.321/.423 with 1 home run.
De Oleo is an imposing figure at 6’4″ 210 pounds, along with being the team’s biggest player, the Indians’ third baseman is the leading home run hitter with a whopping 2. He only has 6 hits thus far in the year, but 3 have gone for extra bases, he’s also leading the team with 7 walks.
Francisco Perez has been the Indians’ best pitcher through the first few weeks of the season. In 3 starts he has pitched 13 innings, allowing just 1 earned run (0.69 ERA) while striking out 12 batters.
Ventura was one of the Indians’ best pitchers last season, pitching in 11 games (8 starts) posting a 2.02 ERA. This year he has made 2 appearances, each out of the bullpen, allowing just 1 earned run in his 2.2 innings pitched.
Cedeno is also off to a good start through his first two starts of the season. He’s pitched 7.1 innings allowing just 1 earned run (1.23 ERA) while walking 5 batters and striking out 3.
Obviously this is far too early to draw any real conclusions as to how these players and the rest of the team is performing, but it will be interesting to keep an eye on them as the season progresses. A number of the organization’s best players have started their careers in the Dominican Summer league, such as: Claudio Bautista (Lake County), Anderson Polanco (Lake County), Luigi Rodriguez (Lynchburg), Enosil Tejeda (Columbus), Jesus Aguilar (Columbus), Giovanny Urshela (Cleveland) and Danny Salazar (Cleveland). So while we may not know any of these players now, they very well could become key contributors to the Cleveland Indians in just a few years.
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