Cuba’s Major League Roster Now Reaches 170 and Shows No Signs of Falloff

by Peter C. Bjarkman

With the impressive April debut of 20-year-old Miami Marlins right-hander José D. Fernández, the roster of Cuban-born big leaguers has now edged up to 170, and several more former Cuban Leaguers (Leslie Anderson, Kenen Bailly, and Ronnier Mustilier topping the list) now also stand poised in the AAA on-deck circle. Fernández took the loss in his initial April 7 road outing versus the New York Mets and has since dropped a second decision while posting two victories as a regular-rotation starter.

This latest sterling Cuban prospect (born in Santa Clara in 1992 but raised in Tampa and graduated from that city’s Braulio Alonso High School) was a first-round selection (number 14 overall pick) of the then-Florida Marlins during MLB’s 2011 summer amateur player draft. In two years of low-level minor league seasoning the top Miami prospect amassed a most impressive 14-2 won-lost ledger, splitting the 2012 season between Greensboro (Sally League) and Jupiter (Florida State League) with but a single setback in 15 decisions. In his big league lid-lifter Fernández struck out eight while walking only one and his current K/BB ratio (as of May 27) is a most impressive 46/18. In his nine starts to date the hard-throwing righty has only twice failed to last through at least five complete innings.

The debut of Fernández now extends to nine the number of consecutive years in which at least one Cuban has cracked into “The Show” (the last MLB season with no Cubans debuting was the 2004 campaign). But of the last 20 Cubans to make it to the big time Fernández is now only the fourth among them who did not actually play baseball on his native island. Beginning with René Arocha back in 1993, 33 of the latest 41 Cuban big leaguers have been true refugees from the domestic Cuban League; the other eight (now including José Fernández) departed from their homeland as youngsters and acquired their considerable baseball skills only while playing as schoolboys here on the United States mainland.

With the big league recalls last week of both Yunieski Maya (Washington) and José Iglesias (Boston), this season’s current MLB tally of native Cubans now stands at 14, Brayan Peña and Yonder Alonso being the only other two non-Cuban-League veterans found in the contingent. José Contreras (now hurling out of the bullpen for Pittsburgh) remains the senior statesmen of the group, having debuted two years ahead of both Peña and Yunieski Betancourt. José Iglesias has ironically hit much better in his two brief trials this year with the Bosox than he has back at AAA Pawtucket (.257 BA in 294 total games) and may just stick around for a while – especially given his spectacular glove work at shortstop.  But Maya’s disastrous single outing in his first post-recall start (Maya survived only a third of an inning in his initial outing in San Francisco) is likely to mean yet another quick return to International League Syracuse for the 31-year-old Pinar del Río right-hander. Cincinnati’s Aroldis Chapman (12 saves in 14 opportunities, with a 3-2 won-lost ledger) and Oakland’s Yoennis Céspedes (9 homers with 24 RBIs, despite a rapidly sliding .219 BA) remain the top Cuban big league performers across the first two months of the 2013 big league season.

Statistical Breakdown of All-Time Cuban Major Leaguers

Total Cubans in Major Leagues: 170

Cubans Debuting in American League: 94

Cubans Debuting in National League: 75*

Cuban Big Leaguers Who Also Played in North American Negro Leagues: 16

Cuban Big League Positions Players: 97#

Cuban Big League Pitchers: 71 (56 RHP, 15 LHP)

Cubans Debuting during 1871-1900 Era: 1

Cubans Debuting during 1901-1940 Era: 21

Cubans Debuting during 1941-1960 ERA: 65

Cuban Big Leaguers Debuting during Post-Revolution Period (1961-2013): 83

Cuban Big Leaguers Who Also Played in Cuban National Series: 34

*Esteban Bellán debuted in the National Association (then considered a major league)

#Angel Aragón (pinch hitter) and Rogelio Valdés (pinch runner) never played a field position

The above breakdown of the all-time Cuban MLB roster reveals at least one observation worthy of further comment. The fact that more than half the total number of Cuban-born big leaguers (83 of 170) have reached the majors since the demise of the old MLB-affiliated Cuban Winter League (in 1961) seems to annihilate any further support for a slow-to-die myth suggesting that the heyday of Cuban baseball was to be found during the pre-revolution epoch (1940s-1950s). Of course there are many other reasons to disband that myth, not the least of which is the strong showings by the Cuban national team in all three editions of MLB’s recently inaugurated World Baseball Classic. Even with the obstacles mounted by nearly six decades of political standoff between Washington and Havana, and even with an iron-clad Cold War wall thrown around the modern-era Cuban League, it is nonetheless still the case that the past decade has now produced as many (arguably many more) top-level Cuban MLB stars (viz., Liván Hernández, Orlando Hernández, José Contreras, Alexei Ramírez, Kendry Morales, Yoennis Céspedes and Aroldis Chapman) as any previous decade. And this is true despite the fact that all the above-mentioned contemporary Cuban big leaguers have had to choose the painful route of political defection in order to make it into baseball’s professional big time. One can only imagine what Cuba’s big league impact over the past half-century might have looked like had the long-standing follies of the Cuban economic embargo never taken place.

Cuban Major Leaguers List (170 Cuban Major Leaguers)

Complied by Peter C. Bjarkman (List Updated May 1, 2013)