Remember....Always a Tiger

Good news. Timo Perez is tearing up the Liga de Beisbol Dominicano as a member of the Tigres del Licey. He's batting a cool .356 in 132 AB, with 26 RBI and 9 stolen bases (he's been caught three times). Fun fact for you, Timo's full first name is Timoniel. Betcha didn't know that, did you? I didn't anyway.

I always had a soft spot for Timo, and hoped he'd break into the bigs for good. Not to be. After being released by the Tigers in April 2009, Timo spent last season in the Mexican League playing for the Rojos del Aguila, where he lead the team with a .323 batting average.

Maybe Timo's hot performance in the Dominican Winter League will earn him an invite to Spring Training with a big league club. I'll be rooting for him.

Winter Ball Update

The Dominican Winter League, or more properly (and way more fun to say) Liga de Beisbol Dominicano, features several of our own:

Timo Perez - Licey, .407 AVG, .686 SLG, 1.162 OPS

Ramon Santiago - Gigantes, .353 AVG, .441 SLG, .905 OPS

Brent Clevelen - Escogido, .256 AVG, .316 SLG, .663 OPS

Timo and Ramon are performing well so far over a small sample size (10-15 games appearances).

Pitchers Aquilino Lopez and former Tiger Francisco Cruceta are also in the DWL.

Cruceta:  2.89 ERA, 9.1 IP, 1.29 WHIP

Lopez:  1.13. ERA, 8 IP, 0.75 WHIP

All I can say is I wish I could travel to one of the winter ball league games (sigh).  Already pining for baseball, and it's only November.