12.29.2005
News from the Winter Leagues
Except for the days sandwiching the Major League All-Star Break, there is good baseball being played in North America just about every day of the year. Today is no exception. There are numerous major leaguers who do not stop taking swings and throwing strikes when October rolls around. These players make their way down to the Caribbean to play in the Caribbean Winter League.
The baseball action in this league is interesting for a number of reasons. There are a lot of young, up-and-coming major leaguers in this league, including highly touted prospects like Andy Marté and Fabio Castro . Plus, it's not just for Hispanic or Latino players. For example, Luke Scott of the Astros, Aaron Heilman of the Mets, and Michael Restovich of the Pirates are all playing (and playing well) in the Caribbean this year.
It is somewhat difficult to find out exactly what is going on in this league. Perhaps this is because most of the information I can find is in Español. So, instead of looking for stats I look for estadísticas; instead of looking to see who is leading in home runs, I look to see who has hit the most jonrones. The ERA leader leads not in ERA but in EFE. Don't even ask me what that stands for.
The Caribbean League is composed of three divisions: oriental, occidental, and comodín. Teams hail from the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. I have been pulling up the box scores page for the Tigres del Licey—El Glorioso!—of the Dominican League. From here, I can download box scores from the past few months and go through the names of the players to see which I recognize. The boxscores download as a PDF and include all of the games played on that day. I also go to the central home page for theVenezuelan teams. This page has a pretty good estadísticas section in which there is a link to the líderes for the 2005-06 Caribbean league season. Once you click on this link, you will pull up a PDF document running down the standings and the stats for the batting and pitching leaders.
Keeping up with these stats is an excellent way to stay fit for the upcoming fantasy baseball season. For instance, maybe Chad Gaudin (whom the A's recently snatched from Toronto) could be someone to keep your eye on. He's 3-3 with a 2.19 EFE and 40 ponches in 53.1 innings. Or how about Michael Restovich? He's hitting .337 with 7 jonrones and 34 impulsadas. All of these numbers are league top-ten. Then there's Luke Scott with 9 jonrones. Maybe this is the year he starts hitting in Houston.
In no particular order here are some more names from the Caribbean League:
Henry Rodriguez (Oh Henry!) • Ramon Ortiz • Ronnie Belliard • Hanley Ramirez (traded from Boston to Florida in Beckett deal) • Yhency Brazoban (who is racking up the salvados) • Randall Simon • Jorgé Cantu • Pete Munro • Marcos Scutaro •etc.
