Eduard Pinto

Eduard Alejandro Pinto Gil

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 5' 11", Weight 150 lb.

• Born October 23, 1994 in Valencia, Carabobo Venezuela

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

Outfielder Eduard Pinto was signed out of Venezuela by the Texas Rangers before the 2012 season, when he was only 17 years old. In spite of his youth, he had already been on the professional radar screen for a couple of years, having made his debut in the Venezuelan League with the Navegantes del Magallanes in 2010-11, when he was barely 15. He played his first season in organized baseball with the DSL Rangers in the Dominican Summer League in 2012 and destroyed the competition, hitting .396/.475/.477 in 56 games. He won the league's batting title. He then moved stateside in 2013, splitting the season between the AZL Rangers and Spokane Indians of the Northwest League, hitting a combined .276/.307/.306 in 36 games. He then started 2014 with Spokane before getting a promotion to the Hickory Crawdads of the South Atlantic League. In 82 games, he hit .294/.341/.346, his power consisting of 14 doubles and 1 homer. He did score 49 runs. His .335 average with Spokane earned him a second minor league batting title.

Eduard returned to Hickory in 2015, spending an entire season there and hitting .261 with 2 homers and 36 RBIs. He had played all three outfield positions in his first few minor league seasons, but by then he had settled mainly in left field. While there were some flashes of production, he was still not showing the kind of bat appropriate for a corner outfielder. That is why he was back in Hickory at the start of 2016, by which time he was of average age for the league. This time, things really clicked, as he hit .337 in 51 games to earn a mid-season promotion to the AA Frisco Rough Riders of the Texas League. He continued to do well at the higher level, ending up with a slash line of .330/.385/.435 in 80 games between the two levels. he missed significant time because he had to go back home to Venezuela in mid-season when his wife gave birth to their first child prematurely; young Gael was born with serious helath issues and died shortly after his birth. In spite of more than holding his own in AA the previous year, though, he was sent to the level he had skipped - Advanced Class A - to start 2017, with the Down East Wood Ducks of the Carolina League. There he hit .311 in 46 games before being traded to the Toronto Blue Jays in return for veteran major league reliever Jason Grilli on July 2nd. The Jays kept him at the same level, assigning him to the Dunedin Blue Jays of the Florida State League.