Flamethrower Neftali Feliz Signing for Threads Baseball
September 09, 2008

One of the brightest prospects in the upcoming 2008 Donruss Threads Baseball release is pitcher Neftali Feliz, whose development at age 20 has been one of the top stories of the 2008 minor league baseball season. The legend of Feliz continues to grow, having twice struck out 11 in a game this season while also seeing his fastball reach the 100 mph mark.

Feliz opened the season with Class A Clinton of the Midwest League before a promotion to Double-A Frisco where he refused to back down from the older, and in some cases, more advanced competition.

At Double-A, he finished the regular season with a 4-3 record, 2.98 ERA and 47 strikeouts in 45 1/3 innings of work over 10 starts. He followed that up with an electrifying 11-strikeout performance over seven innings over the San Antonio Missions in Game 2 of their best-of-five Texas League playoff series.

Feliz's combined regular season stats: 10-6, 2.69 ERA with a blistering 153 strikeouts in 127.1 innings pitched.

Donruss completed a signing session with the Dominican native the day before his playoff outing against the Missions. Feliz's first Donruss autographs will appear in Threads, scheduled for a mid-October release.

"Feliz is a player our product development team had hoped to get a deal with right from the start, while compiling the initial Threads checklist," Donruss spokesman Mike Payne said. "When he was promoted to Frisco, it made sense to get a deal done and completed in person."

Feliz is joined in Donruss Threads by Rough Riders teammate Elvis Andrus, whom, like Feliz, was obtained by the Rangers in the 2007 trade that sent Mark Teixeira to the Atlanta Braves.

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