Higinio Vélez will again lead a team of “hombres” and not “nombres” into the battle with celebrity big leaguers.

Those familiar with the recent USA Today Sports Weekly World Baseball Classic preview issue (published March 4) know that I have already gone on record with my bold prediction that we will see Team Cuba later this month performing in Los Angeles. In the USA Today Team Cuba report (one of four squads previewed in depth by that journal) I told writer Tim Wendel that I expected three factors to land the Cubans back in the semifinals. Skeptics can, of course, again complain that my evaluation of this 2009 Cuban team is based more on sentiment than sensible analysis. But I answer once more that there are indeed sufficient “hard baseball-related facts” to underpin my rather bold outlook for Cuba’s deep and experienced—even if “non professional” by big league measures—all-star squad of underdog challengers.

The three reasons cited in the USA Today article were topped by the numerous “defections” over the last month of top big leaguers from provisional rosters of the other early favorites: the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico. I also referred to Cuba’s advantages found both in their mid-season readiness and their luck with first and second round matchups. This is not the first time I have gone out on such a limb, since I also tabbed the Cubans (like few others did) to go the distance back in the inaugural MLB showcase event. This time around the pick is admittedly a bit more risky still, given that few teams will likely be overlooking the non-MLB “outsiders” this time around. No opponent is about to take Cuba lightly, especially first-round foe Mexico or second round challengers Japan and Korea.

But why precisely is it that I place my faith and my wagers on the side of Team Cuba? This is, after all, a team (with much of the same key personal) that, despite its numerous successes, has lost a pair of key gold medal shootouts in the past two years, first with the Americans (2007 Taiwan World Cup) and then the Koreans (2008 Beijing Olympics). And those were not teams stacked with top-draw major league veterans like Derek Jeter, Magglio Ordóñez or Geovany Soto. True enough. But then again, let’s briefly consider each of the following weighty factors underpinning my optimism.

MANPOWER

This team might be better than the one in San Juan and San Diego back in 2006, and that earlier version proved it could battle toe-to-toe with the big leaguers. When it comes to hitting the Cubans are loaded—Urrutia and Garlobo may be gone, but Cepeda is at the top of his game, and Despaigne and Céspedes are a much more potent outfield duo than Tabares and Alexei Ramírez (especially the 2006 version of Ramírez). Gourriel is enjoying his best season at the plate since his auspicious debut in the mid-2000s. Enríquez (whose one true international slump came in the first WBC) is still Enríquez, and Mayeta potentially offers much more pop at the plate out of the cleanup spot than either Borrero or Pedroso three years back. And a whole new dimension is also added to this team offensively by the eye-popping power of Yosvany Peraza, either performing as a DH, a clutch-situation pinch hitter, or a fill-in catcher to spell Pestano. The pitching—which was often brilliant at crucial moments in 2006, but also subject to breakdowns (as in the first match with Puerto Rico)—could show some dramatic improvement. Maya is more mature and seasoned. Much will turn on whether or not Vladimir García can reinforce Lazo adequately in the bullpen, and also on whether Aroldis Chapman can come up big as a southpaw starter. In short, the Cuban artillery hit MLB pitchers quite successfully in WBC I, and this reinforced group of sluggers is more potent still. This is a talented big league ball club, missing only the seven or eight-figure paychecks..

MANAGER

Higinio Vélez is not the most popular manager back home on the island—either with his ballplayers or with Cuban fans. But he does nonetheless seem to be the perfect fit for the WBC venue. In opinion polls conducted in February on this website—as well as on Cuban-based sites run by Radio COCO, Radio Rebelde, and the journal Juventud Rebelde—former national team skipper (Atlanta Olympics) Jorge Fuentes easily outpolled Vélez and Antonio Pacheco as the fans’ choice for the slot. There were rumors surrounding the last WBC that Cuban ballplayers felt alienated from (if not cowed by) their discipline-tough manager. (The same rumors, it should be said, also surrounded last summer’s Beijing Olympic team, with Pacheco as manager and Vélez also along as head of the Cuban Baseball Federation.) But Vélez certainly motivated his club last time out. And there could not have been a more eloquent spokesman on board for either the Cuban team or the Cuban baseball system itself, with its alternative world views of “professionalism” and of a national-team-oriented national sport. Vélez was clearly the leader of the Cuban forces when leadership was a crucial ingredient and there is no reason to expect less this time. Managers don’t win tournaments or even individual ball games; players do. Sometimes it is merely the bounce of the ball which—despite all bench strategy—tips the final scales. (Case in point, remember Yulieski Gourriel’s double play roller in the bottom of the ninth in Beijing six months back.) But give me Higinio Vélez any day over Davy Johnson, Luis Sojo, or Vinny Castilla. Especially over Davy Johnson, who has already boasted about a Team USA win. At least Higinio has had the good sense (in contrast with Johnson) not to go public with any proclamations that “our team is the one to beat” in this year’s highly competitive and wide-open field.

MID-SEASON FORM

Cuba has one major advantage over all other WBC entrants and it is that they come to the tournament in mid-season form. And it will remain a unique Cuban advantage as long as this tournament is played under its current format and in its current time slot. (It is hard to imagine any other scenario, either, since the MLB players union is not about to support the idea of its stars performing in November at the end of a six-month big league season marathon. Nor are the profit-minded MLB owners about to shut down their own operation for a fortnight in the middle of June or July to stage an international exhibition series. There are simply too many dollars to be lost if two dozen big league ballparks are vacant at the apex of midsummer.) Thus we have Cubans playing at their peak against big leaguers who are playing themselves into shape and honing their timing as batters or limbering their arms as pitchers. The best big league pitchers are a rung above the Cuban Leaguers, without doubt, and the big league sluggers (with a few exceptions like Cepeda and Despaigne and Enríquez) are more consistent in their production than the islanders. But not necessary in early March, despite a couple of extra weeks of spring preparations and exhibitions for WBC rosters this time around. In March 2006 Cepeda hit .385, Urrutia .345 and Garlobo a stratospheric .480. Pujols, Soriano and Magglio Ordóñez all weighed in around or below the Mendoza Line (.200). There was obviously a “mid-season comfort zone” factor weighing in here somewhere.

MATCHUPS

Pool B will not be an easy venue, but it will be far less challenging than any of the others where Cuba might well have landed. Beating Australia and South Africa is a piece of cake compared to having to eliminate either Canada or Venezuela in Toronto, or perhaps Panama and the always pesky Netherlands crew in San Juan. None of the tournament’s widely picked favorites—Japan, Korea, USA, Venezuela, Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic—reside in Cuba’s opening round pool. Once out of Mexico, the second round obstacles will be Japan and Korea—a scenario I would pick any day over the alternative, which is matches with the Americans and Caribbean rivals like the Dominicans or Venezuelans. Korea’s WBC club is very similar to the one that barely took Cuba’s measure twice in Beijing, and a third straight victory might not be a good bet, given Cuba’s tournament resilience. Puerto Rico discovered that fact in San Juan, where an early-round 12-2 drubbing of the Cubans was answered by a much tougher challenge in the later match that really counted (since a ticket to San Diego was on the table). Many are picking Japan to repeat, but they may be overlooking just how badly a similar squad of Japan’s celebrated all-stars underperformed in Beijing. It must also be remembered that Japan did not look very much like a champion last time around during the tournament’s first two rounds, losing twice to their Korean rivals, and also to the Americans, before peaking (with substantial aide from the hokey pitch-count rule) on the final weekend. No one will have an easy road in this tournament. But Cuba could not have gotten a better draw in the early pairing, even if Higinio Vélez had hand-picked it himself.

MYSTIQUE

Cuba’s string of world tournament successes is unmatched anywhere in the sports world and especially in the baseball world. Fifty tournaments over a half-century have found the Cubans in the top spot, either winning gold or (seven times) losing only in a final gold medal game. (Other reporters occasionally reduce that number to 38 straight by eliminating the Pan American Games tournaments from the equation and thus tallying up only the WBC, Olympics, IBAF World Cup, and IBAF Intercontinental Cup. But over the years, I would contend, the Pan Am baseball tournament has often been as hefty as any Intercontinental Cup matches, and sometimes the equal of World Cup play.) Nonetheless, if success breeds confidence than this is the true “classic” case in point. And the factor is ramped up by the fact that Cuban national teams usually carry over as much as half of any given edition from tournament to tournament for most of a decade. When the crucial moments in a single-elimination gold medal round emerge, half or more of the nine Cubans on the field have been there before—often a dozen times before. Pedro Lazo has been tested in the finals of every (all five) official Olympic baseball tournament ever played. These guys just don’t beat themselves under the pressures of “world series” stress; they are—in this sense at least—just like the New York Yankees dynasty teams of the 1940s-1950s-1950s, except their own dynasty has lasted a couple decades longer. The Cubans simply believe they will win against anybody; and most of the time they have been right on target with that assumption.

MARINES VERSUS MERCENARIES

Higinio Vélez’s memorable quote from San Diego and the first WBC fray has been repeated numerous times and is full of poignant significance. Vélez reminded the assembled press on the heels of his team’s semifinal triumph that Cuba was truly a team of “hombres” (men) and not “nombres” (names). Of course Vélez meant this is a very specific sense: he had been asked to account for how his “amateurs” were able to upend the high-priced Dominican celebrity big leaguers numbering Albert Pujols, Alfonso Soriano and Bartolo Colón in their legions. The Cuban manager responded that he had a true team of talented ballplayers all dedicated to a “team concept” and not a coterie of recognizable but perhaps self-centered superstars. Perhaps the comparison of “marines” versus “mercenaries” might have been more appropriate still, if not quite as poetic in the original Spanish.

Cuban Leaguers performing in league play back home are rewarded financially like foot-soldiers (standard equal pay, and low pay at best) and consequently they behave just like well-drilled and enormously dedicated disciples to the cause of national victory. Big leaguers are high-priced mercenaries and their loyalties—like all hired guns—are most often pointed toward self-preservation and the next higher contract rather than any form of self-sacrifice. And in a tournament like this one, where they are performing for temporary national honor on a “team” pasted together a week or two earlier, the contrast is widened still further. Their Cuban rivals take the WBC as World Series, All-Star Game, and ultimate paycheck all rolled into one; for the MLB stars it is still a glorified exhibition outing more about the television showcase than the legions of fans back home. We saw back in 2006 that while many big leaguers—on temporary holiday from spring training camps with their MLB club—may talk in sound bites about “playing for national honor” this is certainly not something they sleep, eat and breathe. If Team Cuba enters the final rounds with a bit less talent, they will also do so with a truckload of more deep-seeded motivation.

In brief, Cuba is indeed a long-shot in this tournament, though perhaps not quite as long a shot as the first time around. This club has many things going for it as it enters the fray to play against the kind of elevated opposition talent it rarely encounters. A handful of exhibitions in Puebla over the past week (against AAA Mexican League foes) have signaled that the Cubans are slugging the ball at mid-season level. Unlike the run-up to last summer’s Olympics, when the Cuban squad seemed sluggish offensively in both Haarlem and Seoul, this version appears to be neither over-trained physically or unprepared mentally. And if the youthful Cuban pitching is perhaps on the whole a step below big-league proficiency, it also has the advantages of mid-season fine-tuning, plus the element of surprise. Cuban hurlers are an unknown quantity for big league batters who have never faced them previously. That is not a small factor in a short tournament with few opportunities for mechanical adjustments.

Above all else, supreme confidence in their own game and in own their fine-tuned abilities is always the major factor for Team Cuba; it is what so often lifts Cuban ballplayers under the pressures of the single-elimination-format that characterizes international tournaments. This is a system of competition largely unfamiliar to big leaguers more accustomed to deciding championships by lengthier series of games. And that confidence now has to be boosted even further for players like Cepeda, Paret, Gourriel, Lazo, Enríquez and Pestano after their first successful taste of the WBC spotlight a mere three years in the past.

Bjarkman’s WBC Picks and Prognostications

Pool A: Japan and Korea advance without stress. Korea will likely again surprise Japan head-to-head, just as they did back in 2006. Both China and Chinese Taipei will be easily overmatched, even if a bit competitive this time around.

Pool B: Cuba and Mexico also advance as expected. Cuba will split its two matches with host Mexico’s big leaguers and move comfortably into Round 2. Neither South Africa nor Australia will pull any big or even small surprises.

Pool C: USA and Venezuela are the winners in several thrilling shootouts. This ARod-less and Clemens-free American squad will be more motivated if less talented that the 2006 version. Venezuela has enough MLB stars, even without Santana and Zambrano, to climb over outmanned Canada and thin Italy.

Pool D: Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic will both coast. The Dominicans will win three straight matches by comfortable margins, while The Netherlands and Panama won’t be capable of defeating either of the two frontrunners.

San Diego Round 2: Cuba, Mexico, Japan and Korea. Cuba will lose again to the same Koreans who upended them in Beijing, but they will edge out both the Mexicans and defending champion Japanese. This young and highly touted Japan team will perform more like the 2008 Olympic version in Beijing than the Ichiro-led 2006 winners in San Diego.

Miami Round 2: USA, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic. In by far the most competitive field of the entire event, the Dominicans and Americans will prevail mainly on the strength of their larger contingents of MLB regulars. The more inspired American squad will be motivated enough this time to shut down the Dominicans head-to-head.

Los Angeles Finals: Semifinal 1: Cuba prevails against Team USA in perhaps the biggest game in the island’s glorious baseball legacy. Semifinal 2: Felipe Alou’s Dominicans also out-slug the Koreans and coast into the all-Caribbean finals. What happens next is anyone’s guess, but just like in 2006, Cuba will have already made its ringing statement just by getting there. I suspect that in Los Angeles between March 21 and March 23 we may witness the best baseball of the entire summer season.



Peter C. Bjarkman, author of A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006, will cover the 2009 WBC II for www.baseballdecuba.com from Mexico City, San Diego and Los Angeles. His latest books entitled Baseball’s Other Big Red Machine: The History of the Cuban National Team and Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball, 1962-2007 will appear from McFarland & Company Publishers during the coming year.