David Bañuelos

BIOGRAPHY

David Bañuelos was born October 1, 1996, in Ontario, California. He is a catcher in the MLB.

Banuelos attended Damien High School in La Verne, California, graduating in 2014. As a senior, he batted .395 with four home runs and 24 RBIs. Undrafted out of high school in the 2014 MLB draft, he enrolled at California State University, Long Beach, and played college baseball for the Long Beach State Dirtbags. He became the Dirtbags' starting catcher as a sophomore in 2016. During the summer of 2016, he played collegiate summer baseball for the Bellingham Bells of the West Coast League. In 2017, he batted .289 with seven home runs and 29 RBIs and was named a First-Team All-American by Baseball America and one of three finalists for the Johnny Bench Award.

The Seattle Mariners selected Banuelos in the fifth round of the 2017 Major League Baseball draft. He signed with the Mariners, receiving a $300,000 signing bonus, and made his professional debut with the Everett AquaSox, where he spent his first professional season, posting a .236 batting average with four home runs and 26 RBIs in 36 games.

On December 6, 2017, in an attempt to sign Shohei Ohtani during the 2017–18 offseason, the Mariners traded Banuelos to the Minnesota Twins for $1 million in international signing bonus money. He spent the 2018 season with the Cedar Rapids Kernels, batting .220 with two home runs and 22 RBIs in 73 games.

Banuelos begin 2019 with Cedar Rapids before being promoted to the Fort Myers Miracle in May. Over 63 games, he slashed .177/.232/.263 with two home runs and twenty RBIs.