Ramón Laureano


Ramón Laureano is a Dominican professional baseball outfielder for the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball

Career

Houston Astros

Laureano played college baseball at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College and was drafted by the Houston Astros in the 16th round of the 2014 Major League Baseball draft. He made his professional debut with the Greeneville Astros in 2014 and batted.189 with one home run and two RBIs in 16 games, and played 2015 with the Quad Cities River Bandits, batting.265 with four home runs, 34 RBIs and 18 stolen bases. Laureano started 2016 with the Lancaster JetHawks and was promoted to the Corpus Christi Hooks in July. Laureano finished 2016 with a combined.319 batting average along with 15 home runs, 73 RBIs and a.955 OPS in 116 total games between both teams. He returned to Corpus Christi in 2017 where he posted a.227 batting average with 11 home runs, 55 RBIs and 24 stolen bases.

Oakland Athletics

The Astros had no room for Laureano, coming off a down year, on their 40-man roster lest they expose him to the Rule 5 Draft, so they traded him to the Oakland Athletics on November 20, 2017, in exchange for pitcher Brandon Bailey.
On August 3, 2018, the Athletics called up Laureano and he made his major league debut. His first major league hit that night was a walk-off single to break a scoreless tie in the 13th inning against the Detroit Tigers. Since the RBI became a stat in 1920, Laureano is the first Athletic to hit a walk-off RBI hit as their first major league hit. On August 20, 2018, he hit his first two major league home runs off Bartolo Colón in a 9-0 shutout victory over the Texas Rangers. On September 7, 2018, he hit two more home runs in an 8-4 win over the Rangers, becoming the first player in A's franchise history to have 2 multi-homer games in his first 30 career games, achieving this in 29 games played.
On May 7, 2019, Laureano robbed Joey Votto of a home run in the sixth inning against the Cincinnati Reds, which would aid Mike Fiers's second career no-hitter. In 2019, Laureano batted.288/.340/.521 with 24 home runs and 67 RBIs. On defense he led all major league center fielders in errors, with 7, and had the lowest fielding percentage of all major center fielders. In the Wild Card Game, Laureano drove in the Athletics' only run with a sacrifice fly. The Athletics were defeated 5–1 by the Tampa Bay Rays.

Skills profile

Laureano has drawn attention for the strength and accuracy of his arm.