Richard Ureña

This name uses Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is Ureña and the second or maternal family name is Castillo.
Richard Ureña
Toronto Blue Jays
Shortstop
Born: (1996-02-26) February 26, 1996
San Francisco de Macorís, Duarte, Dominican Republic
Bats: Switch Throws: Right

Richard Ureña Castillo (born February 26, 1996) is a Dominican professional baseball shortstop in the Toronto Blue Jays organization. He is considered the top prospect in the Blue Jays organization,[1] and the 74th best prospect in Major League Baseball (MLB).[2]

Professional career

Ureña was signed as an international free agent by the Blue Jays for $725,000 in 2012,[3] and played his first professional season split between the Dominican Summer League Blue Jays and Gulf Coast League Blue Jays. In 64 games with the DSL Blue Jays, he batted .296 with one home run and 35 runs batted in (RBI). He then played seven games in the Gulf Coast League, batting .333 with three RBI.[4] Ureña was promoted to the Rookie Advanced Bluefield Blue Jays of the Appalachian League for the start of the 2014 season, and recorded a 28-game streak of reaching base safely.[5] In 53 games, he hit .318 with two home runs and 20 RBI before he was promoted to the Short Season-A Vancouver Canadians on August 21.[6][4] Ureña appeared in nine games for Vancouver, batting .242 with five RBI.[4] On September 24, Urena was named the Most Valuable Player for Bluefield in 2014.[7] He began the 2015 season with the Class-A Lansing Lugnuts. On June 5, Ureña was named a Midwest League midseason All-Star. At that time, he led the Lugnuts with seven home runs, and had 35 RBI.[8] Ureña was called up to the Advanced-A Dunedin Blue Jays in early July, and played 30 games there before returning to Lansing. In 121 games played, he batted .262 with 16 home runs and 66 RBI.[4] In the offseason, he appeared in 33 games with the Gigantes del Cibao of the Dominican Winter League. Batting against pitchers that were over seven years of age older than him on average, Ureña hit .258 with five RBI.[4]

Ureña was invited to Major League spring training on January 12, 2016,[9] and reassigned to minor league camp on March 12.[10] He was assigned to the Dunedin Blue Jays to open the 2016 minor league season.[11] Ureña recorded his first career five-hit game on July 9 which gave him 91 hits on the season, raising his batting average to .292 and tying him with Scott Kingery for first place in the Florida State League.[12] On July 27, Ureña was ranked 91st on MLB's Top 100 Prospects list, and was named the Blue Jays top prospect.[13] He was promoted to the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats on August 3, and had three hits in his debut that day.[14] On August 10, Ureña hit three triples against the Bowie Baysox, which set a Fisher Cats single-game record.[15] In a career-high 127 games in 2016, he hit .295 with eight home runs and 59 RBI.[4] The Blue Jays added him to their 40-man roster after the season.[16]

References

  1. ↑ "MLB 2016 Prospect Watch". MLB.com. Retrieved November 18, 2016.
  2. ↑ "2016 Prospect Watch". MLB.com. Retrieved November 18, 2016.
  3. ↑ Caskey, Charlie. "2014 Toronto Blue Jays Top Prospects: #28 Richard Urena". jaysjournal.com. Retrieved August 11, 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Richard Urena Minor League Statistics & History". Baseball-Reference. Retrieved August 11, 2014.
  5. ↑ "Twitter / BluefieldJays". Twitter. August 6, 2014. Retrieved August 11, 2014.
  6. ↑ "Bluefield Blue Jays on Twitter". Twitter. August 21, 2014. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
  7. ↑ Chisholm, Gregor (September 24, 2014). "Blue Jays name MVPs in Minor League system". MLB.com. Retrieved September 24, 2014.
  8. ↑ Fine, David (June 5, 2015). "Urena added to All-Star Roster". milb.com. Retrieved June 6, 2015.
  9. ↑ "Blue Jays Invite 14 to Spring Training". bluebirdbanter.com. January 12, 2016. Retrieved January 13, 2016.
  10. ↑ "Ben Nicholson-Smith on Twitter". Twitter. March 12, 2016. Retrieved March 12, 2016.
  11. ↑ Rosenbaum, Mike (April 7, 2016). "Where the Blue Jays' Top 30 prospects are starting the season". MLB.com. Retrieved April 8, 2016.
  12. ↑ Leboff, Michael (July 10, 2016). "Urena delivers first career five-hit game". MiLB.com. Retrieved July 10, 2016.
  13. ↑ Chisholm, Gregor (July 28, 2016). "Urena, Reid-Foley crack Top 100 Prospects list". MLB.com. Retrieved July 28, 2016.
  14. ↑ Jackson, Josh (August 3, 2016). "Promotion doesn't slow down Jays' Urena". MiLB.com. Retrieved August 4, 2016.
  15. ↑ Peng, Michael (August 10, 2016). "Fisher Cats' Urena hits record three triples". MiLB.com. Retrieved August 12, 2016.
  16. ↑ Chisholm, Gregor (November 18, 2016). "Blue Jays protect Urena, Alford from Rule 5 Draft". MLB.com. Retrieved November 18, 2016.
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