Oscar Colás

Oscar Luis Colás León

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 6' 1", Weight 209 lb.

• Debut March 30, 2023

• Born September 17, 1998 in Santiago de Cuba, Santiago de Cuba Cuba

BR page

Biographical Information

Oscar Colás played in Cuba and Japan before making his major league debut in 2023.

He hit .368/.350/.421 with 6 RBI in the 2015 U-18 Baseball World Cup, second on the team in RBI behind Luis Robert. He also was 1-0 with no runs in 6 innings, fanning 10, and beating South Africa. In 2015-2016, he made his Cuban Serie Nacional debut, hitting .278/.370/.494 in 23 games while splitting time between first base and right field.

Colás was sent by Cuba to the Softbank Hawks as one of the players Cuba let play in Japan; he was 1 for 4 in the minors in 2017. He hit .212/.259/.432 in the Japanese minors in 2018. He also spent most of 2019 down on the farm, producing at a .302/.350/.516 clip with 46 RBI in 66 games. He was 3rd in the Western League in RBI. He was briefly called up to the big club in 2019. He took Ken Togame deep, the 9th player in NPB history to homer on their first pitch. He was 4 for 17 with one walk the rest of the season with the Hawks.

Oscar was a late cut for Cuba in the 2019 Premier 12, replaced by Yurisbel Gracial. He defected from Cuba in early 2020. The hype claimed he was the Cuban Shohei Ohtani; to compare the two, at age 21, Ohtani had won one Pacific League MVP and been third once and been the league's top starting pitcher and top slugger while Colás only had a cup of coffee in the PL and had not pitched in his three years in Japan or his season in Cuba's top league.

After not playing at all for the Hawks in 2020 due to a contract dispute - Colás claims the Hawks added a number of option years to his contract without his consent - he became a free agent in December with the intent of signing with a MLB team. He did just that, inking a $2.7 million contract with the Chicago White Sox in January of 2022. He was slated to start that season in the minor leagues. He was named to the American League team for the 2022 Futures Game as he moved from High A to Double A to Triple A for a brief stint at the end of the season. His slash line was .314/.371/.524 in 117 games, with 24 doubles, 23 homers and 79 RBIs.

He not only made the White Sox's Opening Day roster out of spring training in 2023, but won the starting right field job outright. However, on Opening Day, against the Houston Astros on March 30th, Romy Gonzalez started in right field and Oscar came in as a pinch-hitter for him in the 7th inning, singling off Hector Neris. He then played the rest of the game in right and made an out in his only other at-bat as Chicago snapped Houston's streak of ten straight opening day wins with a 3-2 victory.

Further Reading

• Jim Callis: "What to expect from White Sox prospect Colás in bigs", mlb.com, March 29, 2023. [1]
• Jesse Sanchez: "'Cuban Ohtani' pursuing path to MLB", mlb.com, January 3, 2020. [2]

Related Sites

• Oscar Colás on mlb.com
• BR Register page