STEINER STORIES: NASWELL PAULINO

Paulino, 22, remembers 2015 and watching the Toronto Blue Jays from his home in the Dominican when fellow countryman Jose Bautista fired a home run in the bottom of the seventh inning in the 2015 ALDS against the Texas Rangers. From then, Paulino didn’t just want to make pro baseball; he wanted to join the Blue Jays.

“I’ve played baseball since I was five years old, and so playing professionally is something I had dreamed of all my life,” he said. “In 2015, the Blue Jays were my favourite team because they had a lot of Dominican players. So for me, the bat flip was special -- I have a t-shirt with the picture on it.”

In 2023, Paulino is enjoying a successful campaign with the Vancouver Canadians, competing in his third North American season with the Blue Jays organization after playing with the Low-A Dunedin Blue Jays in 2021 and the C’s in 2022.

Nine months after the Blue Jays passed the Rangers and fell to the Kansas City Royals in the 2015 ALCS, Blue Jays’ Vice President, International Scouting & Baseball Operations, Andrew Tinnish, visited the Dominican Republic. When he lay eyes on Paulinho, then an outfielder, he saw the potential for the mound.

While Paulino, then 16, had never pitched, he switched to the position and hasn’t looked back since. Tinnish liked what he saw.

Paulino began taking baseball seriously at 14, trying out for some of the top developmental programs in the country. At that point, he moved into the city to push his game to the next level. He was in an academy, training every day, away from his family, who were miles away.

At 16 years old, on an ordinary day, as he approached batting practice, Tinnish asked him to throw a bullpen session. A few hours later, there was an opportunity with the Blue Jays, as Paulino put pen to paper with the MLB organization.

“I was smiling the whole time,” he said.

He played pro in 2017 in the Dominican Summer League. In 2018; however, the 5’11” right-hander sat out the season due to a suspension. Returning in 2019, Paulino split the year between the now-defunct Bluefield Blue Jays and then High-A Lansing.

For most, playing in the DSL is a massive achievement. There is similar branding to major league clubs, and it is the most apparent pathway to the major leagues outside of the United States.

“Back home, you feel like it's the big leagues,” Paulinho said of a season where he made the DSL All-Star team. “Everyone is looking at you because you play with the Blue Jays.”

When he moved to the U.S.A. in 2019, there were many challenges. Although baseball was a familiar aspect in the first season, and many of his minor league teammates spoke Spanish, the move wasn’t simple. He was far from the life he knew, living in a foreign country and fighting to learn the language as quickly as possible.

“I didn’t know very good English, so it was hard,” he said of the move. “It was different every day too. In the Dominican, you always eat rice and chicken, and here you eat many different things, which was difficult.”

As he sits in the sun-soaked seats of Nat Bailey Stadium ahead of a June game which he isn’t scheduled to play, Paulino feels right at home, despite being farther than he has ever been from where he grew up.

While Nat Bailey Stadium may be over 4,000 kilometres away from Downtown Toronto’s Rogers Centre, just having the Blue Jays patch on his sleeve means a lot to Paulino, who looks to one day stare down a batter where Bautista once thrived.

“First, there was a lot of rain when I got here, but the people are very welcoming, and the support at the stadium and in the city is cool,” he said. “This is the best in the league; the other teams get 500 people, and we always get at least 2,000, even on a Tuesday.”