Quick Facts
Aquarius
Biography
Raimel Antonio Tapia Linarez (born February 4, 1994) is a Dominican professional baseball outfielder for the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball (MLB). Tapia made his MLB debut in 2016 with the Colorado Rockies.
Career
Colorado Rockies
The Colorado Rockies signed Tapia as an international free agent in 2010.He spent the 2013 season with the Grand Junction Rockies of the Rookie-level Pioneer League, and was named the league's player of the month for July. He had a 29-game hitting streak for Grand Junction. After the season, he was named the Topps Pioneer League Player of the Year for 2013 and was named by Baseball Prospectus as the No. 97 prospect in all of baseball prior to the 2014 season. The Rockies added him to their 40-man roster after the 2015 season.
Tapia began the 2016 season with the Hartford Yard Goats of the Class AA Eastern League, and was selected to appear in the 2016 All-Star Futures Game. The Rockies promoted him to the Albuquerque Isotopes of the Class AAA Pacific Coast League in August.
The Rockies promoted Tapia to the major leagues on September 2, 2016.
On July 20, 2018, Tapia hit a two out, two strike, go-ahead pinch hit grand slam in the top of the 7th inning against Arizona Diamondbacks reliever Archie Bradley to give the Rockies an 11–8 lead. It was the first grand slam of Tapia's career and would ultimately prove to be the difference as the Rockies would go on to win the game 11–10.
In 2018, in 25 at bats he hit .200/.259/.480. He had the fastest baserunning sprint speed of all major league designated hitters, at 28.6 feet/second.
Tapia received more playing time in 2020 after Ian Desmond opted out of the season because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 51 games, Tapia hit .321, drove in 17 runs, and stole eight bases.
In 2021 he batted .273/.327/.372. He had the highest ground ball/fly ball ratio in the major leagues, at 4.10, the highest ground ball percentage, at 67.4%, and the lowest fly ball percentage, at 16.4%.
Toronto Blue Jays
On March 24, 2022, Tapia and Adrian Pinto were traded to the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for Randal Grichuk.
Scouting report
Tapia has been noted for altering his batting stance during at-bats. He generally stands at the plate with an upright stance except when there are two strikes against him, at which point he crouches deeply, dropping his eye level approximately five and three quarter inches.
