This weeks Twins Minor League Player of the Week is 19-year-old Cedar Rapids Kernels (A-Midwest League) infielder Engelb Vielma. Vielma played in seven games for the Kernels, hitting .423 (11-for-26) with two doubles, one triple, three RBI, one walk and a .444 on-base percentage.
It seems like everybody that comes from Venezuela is a shortstop and this scrawny looking 5’11” and 157 pound switch-hitting Maracaibo, Venezuela native that the Twins signed as a non-drafted free agent in 2011 fits that same mold. Vielma played in the Dominican Summer League in 2012 and moved up to the Gulf Coast Twins in 2013 and had a 6 game cup of coffee stay with Elizabethton Twins late in 2013. Certainly not a power hitter by any stretch of the imagination Vielma has no home runs and has hit .251 in 483 career plate appearances. It’s the glove they say that makes Vielma stand out but yet when you look at his stats he has 38 errors in 122 games.
We have a trivia question for you. Prior to the 2014 season only six players in big league history have gotten 1,000 or more hits in both the NL and AL, two of these players once wore Twins uniforms. Can you name them?