As baseball watchers await news on where Yulieski Gourriel will make his MLB home, identifying Cuba as a growing source of talent into MLB undersells what has happened in recent years.
Even with mobility between the island and the United States still substantially limited, 18 Cuban-born players have made their MLB debuts over the past three seasons. By way of comparison, that’s the same number of new MLBers produced by the combination of Mexico (6), Japan (5), South Korea (5) and Canada (2) since the beginning of the 2014 season.
Despite those numbers, the current path for Cubans to arrive on an MLB roster remains personally fraught for the players, economically unsustainable for the league and teams, and politically problematic for Cuba and the United States. The process of bringing those players to North America, still deeply affected by Cold War-era prohibition of personal movement, has devolved into a high-profile variety of human trafficking, with too many people other than the players benefitting from the perilous and still-permanent choice to renounce their citizenship in favour of their baseball dreams.
In addition to the human toll that the current system takes on these players and their families, the black market in acquiring the playing rights to Cuban nationals has contributed to a poor process on the part of MLB teams, with the early returns on some of the more recent high-profile deals turning less than stellar. Large deals for highly-hyped players like Boston’s Rusney Castillo and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Alex Guerrero have already appeared to be poor investments, with the jury still very much out on the deals signed by the Dodgers with Yasiel Puig and the Arizona Diamondbacks with Yasmany Tomas.
Because the exposure to these players is limited, scouting Cuban talent becomes a real challenge. Small samples of excellence against uneven competition in international play can create false urgency for teams.
Moreover, MLB’s own spending caps for international signees from other countries has likely contributed to a premium cost for those Cuban free agents who are not subject to the international bonus pool.
In that way, seeing Cuban players up close is something of a heightened novelty, not unlike the experience of seeing hockey players from the Soviet Union or other East Bloc nations in the 1980s. There’s a healthy dose of romance and intrigue that comes from attempting to imagine these players in a big league lineup.
The good news is that there seems to be a growing movement to facilitate a more legitimate movement of Cuban players to MLB, and the steps that are taken in the coming months will define this new market.
In March of this year, the Obama administration announced changes that would allow Cuban citizens to work and receive salaries in America, thus eliminating the need for players to resettle in a third country. Moreover, MLB and the Cuban Baseball Federation are reportedly attempting to negotiate an agreement that will facilitate a more legitimate movement of players, including compensatory transfers to the federation, while remaining onside with the trade embargo which the U.S. still imposes on the communist nation.
Such an agreement would create a unique market for players, though how it will evolve remains to be seen. It seems unlikely that it will be like other Caribbean or Latin American markets, given a strong motivation to retain a vibrant Cuban National Series. This could have the positive outcome of players being more fully developed and predictably projectable before they hit the market.
It may more closely resemble the current situation in Japan, where players are developed through their domestic professional leagues before being auctioned off to MLB teams. But at what age would players be allowed out? And how would the transfer fees be determined?
While these questions remain unanswered, baseball diplomacy between Cuba and Canada is particularly vibrant at the moment. A just-concluded tour of the Cuban National Team through the independent Can-Am League offered a unique opportunity to see both established and emerging talent nurtured through the Serie Nacional.
The series was the brainchild of Quebec Capitales’ president Michel Laplante, who has brought Canadian youth players to Cuba for joint baseball camps for several years. With the trust he has engendered through his years of engagement, Laplante initially facilitated Cuban players coming to Canada to play with his team, including high profile players like Alexei Bell and Yunieski Gourriel (the older brother of the aforementioned Yulieski).
The league has since become a landing spot for veteran Cuban players, including the Ottawa Champions’ acquisitions this season of Alexander Malleta and Donal Duarte, both veterans of World Baseball Classic rosters. The traditionally warmer relationship between Canada and Cuba has made this transition much easier.
The recent Can-Am series was attended by MLB scouts, who watched a compelling group of young players. They were said to be enamoured with Luis Robert, a tall and athletic, 19 year-old left fielder who is impressive at a glance, though with an approach at the plate and a presence in the field that could use refinement. Also notable was centre fielder Julio Martinez, a 20 year-old with a smallish but muscular frame who plays like a more powerful version of Endy Chavez.
In addition to the young potential, one couldn’t help but wonder how some of Cuba’s veterans could fit onto big league rosters. Catcher Yosvani Alarcon, 31, whose 1.102 OPS last season in Cuba was second only to Yulieski Gourriel’s Bondsian 1.463, looked as though at bare minimum, he could be a very useful backup. Shortstop Yorbis Borroto, also 31, is an excellent fielder with great footwork, very good bat-to-ball skills and excellent strike zone judgment. He could certainly be a reliable depth or bench player.
But observing the Cuban team’s systems of pre-game preparations through that series, one also wonders if these players wouldn’t benefit from training and development in affiliated baseball. The team eschewed batting practice in Ottawa, but ran regimented stretching routines in the hour before game time, before devolving into informal games of pepper and catch.
An obvious question is whether if the Blue Jays haven’t missed out on an opportunity to capitalize on a strategic advantage in accessing the Cuban market as MLB’s only Canadian team. Unfortunately, the need to develop players through American-based minor league teams mutes this advantage, given the need for U.S. work visas. Moreover, one suspects the league would prefer to develop this fragile new relationship with Cuba as a collective, rather than having individual teams unsettle a developing accord before it attains a level of balance.
But given the perpetual need for MLB talent, a new and rational system to help integrate Cuban players into the global talent pool should be established soon, and could help make baseball at the highest levels even greater.
