For the first time since 2010, when Carlos Duran accomplished the feat, Federico Celli has won the Triple Crown in Italy’s highest baseball league.
With a batting average of .473, 10 home runs and 36 runs batted in, Celli stayed ahead of all of the Serie A1. When it comes to batting average, only Ray-Patrick Didder came “close” with .413.
Celli ranks first in almost every offensive categorie: Slugging percentage (.935), On-base-percentage (.538), runs scored (38), hits (44), doubles (11,) and total bases (87).
Perhaps it is too much credit to say that Federico Celli is the reason why San Marino ended at the top of the standings in the regular season, but for sure he is one of the contributors. San Marino has five players in its ranks that ranked in the batting average top 10 with averages well above .300.
Besides the good hitting, two of San Marino’s pitchers ranked in the ERA top two with a microscopic ERA: Markus Solbach (0.23) and Alessandro Maestri (0.82).
Celli, a Rimini native has made a huge stride forward compared to last year when he “only” hit .325 with 6 home runs in a full season.
In 2014, Celli joined the Dodgers’ organization. With the AZL Dodgers he batted .343. In 2015 he split the season between the Great Lakes Loons (.230) and the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes (.286). In 2016, he hardly got playing time. He played a total of 8 games, 6 for the Great Lakes Loons, where he hit a sub-par .091, and the Ogden Raptors where he teared down the Pioneer League pitching in two games and seven at-bats (.429). At the end of June of 2016, Federico was released by the Dodgers.
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