Edwin Gómez (minors02)

Edwin J. Gómez

• Bats Both, Throws Right
• Height 6' 3", Weight 175 lb.

• High School Puerto Rico Baseball Academy

• Born August 25, 1991 in Caguas P.R.

BR register page

Biographical Information

Edwin Gómez has played in the minors and for the Puerto Rican national team.

The Detroit Tigers took him in the 4th round of the 2009 amateur draft, their second position player picked after Wade Gaynor. He hit .190/.233/.216 for the GCL Tigers that year and fielded .976 at short. He played for his hometown Criollos de Caguas in the Puerto Rican Winter League, going 1 for 1. In 2010, he improved his offense slightly with the GCL Tigers (.226/.273/.262) and stole 5 bases in 6 tries. He also moved from short to the outfield, playing center and left.

In 2011, he was with the West Michigan Whitecaps (.182/.222/.247 in 22 G) and Connecticut Tigers (.286/.423/.381 in 15 G). After starting 2012 2 for 15 with a walk for Connecticut, he was let go by Detroit. The Houston Astros signed him and he produced at a .260/.304/.385 clip for the GCL Astros. After hitting .208/.326/.292 for the '13 Greeneville Astros, Houston also cut ties with him.

Gómez then went to play in the independent leagues, like others who had washed out of the affiliated minors. He batted .253/.356/.376 for the 2014 Fort Worth Cats, playing all four infield spots as well as in the outfield. In '15, he was with the Sugar Land Skeeters (.184/.231/.184 in 16 G) and Sioux Falls Canaries (.184/.225/.342 in 11 G).

He picked things up in 2016 with the Joplin Blasters. Used mostly at DH, he posted a .292/.370/.426 batting line as a solid contributor. Moving to the Joliet Slammers and being used at first base the most, he put up very similar numbers in 2017 (.292/.371/.451). That got him his first look at Puerto Rican League pitching in 8 years. With the Cangrejeros de Santurce, he hit .310/.385/.552 with 6 doubles and 14 RBI in 17 games, the season shortened by Hurricane Maria. He finished 5th in the league in average (between Anthony García and Jack López), 7th in OBP (between García and Jay Gonzalez), 3rd in slugging (after David Vidal and Kennys Vargas), 3rd in OPS (behind the same duo), 1st in doubles, tied for 1st in triples (1), tied for 3rd in homers (2) and tied for 1st in RBI with García and Vargas.

The Caguas native was a corner infielder and DH for the 2018 Road Warriors, hitting .227/.284/.312 with 14 doubles for the homeless squad. In the winter, he slipped to .231/.279/.346 for Santurce.

He then appeared for Puerto Rico in their two events of 2019. In the 2019 Pan American Games, he started in left field and hit .333/.400/.524 with five RBI in six games. In the Gold Medal Game, he hit a two-run single off Evan Rutckyj in a 6-1 win over Team Canada. It was Puerto Rico's first baseball Gold in the Pan American Games. He tied for 7th in the Games in RBI. He was a backup in the 2019 Premier 12 as David Vidal and Danny Ortiz started the first two games in left, but Edwin came off the bench against champion Japan and singled off Yoshinobu Yamamoto. With Puerto Rico having scored one run in two games, they were looking for some more bats, so he got a chance in game 3 against Venezuela. While his team was mostly shut down, he came through with a 2-for-4 day with hits off Dedgar Jiménez and Jhonleider Salinas; he drove in Yariel González with Puerto Rico's 2nd and last run of the tourney. His 3 hits wound up second on the team despite having only played 2 of their 3 games and started only one of them; Iván DeJesús Jr. was the only player with more hits. His teammates hit .116 for the event while he was at .600.