MIAMI, United States. — The massive exodus of Cuban baseball players is one of the phenomena that has most affected the official practice of that sport on the Island, as well as the quality of domestic competitions such as the National Series.
A report of the journalist and writer Francys Romero points out that, since 2012, 56% of the players that have made up the Under-15 teams emigrated from Cuba some time later, a statistic that clearly speaks of the magnitude of the stampede.
The list prepared by the reporter includes illustrious names such as Yordan Alvarezbrand new World Series winner with the Houston Astros, or Luis Robert, of the Chicago White Sox.
Talents such as pitchers Adrián Morejón (San Diego Padres), Johan Oviedo (Pittsburgh Pirates) and infielder Miguel Antonio Vargas (Los Angeles Dodgers), who have already reached the Major Leagues, also represented Cuba in U-15 teams. .
Romero points out that the tendency of the players who have represented Cuba in that category to leave the country continues, since of the 20 who participated in 2022, five have left the country.
The figures indicate that the island’s players no longer even wait to debut in the National Series to leave the country, as indicated by data collected by the journalist.
In 2015, the average age of players leaving the country was 24.4 years. This dropped to 20.3 years in 2016 and already in 2018 it was 17.9.
According to Romero, these are numbers that show how the base of a baseball cannot be sustained if young talent is not retained.
Although the state press blames the exodus on the cancellation in 2018 of the agreement between the Cuban regime and Major League Baseball, the reporter points out that one of the factors that favor it is “the low standard of living and the economic crisis” in Cuba.
“The official press and the sites that pay taxes to the government or regime of Cuba will say that the only culprit for this disproportionate and faceless exodus is the “cancelled Cuba-MLB agreement”. However, this may be the first trap for not fixing a more than poor structure that laments looking at the “outside”, says the reporter, author of the book The dream and the reality: Stories of the emigration of Cuban baseball (1960-2018).
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