The national team recently completed a productive five-game Asian tour, which allowed dissimilar analysis facing the upcoming World Baseball Classic III, scheduled for March 2013.
In the tour we could see several strengths in the national squad such as the excellent work of the pitchers, the visible motivation of all players or the power that Cuba still has to compete against top level opponents, as in this case Taipei China and Japan were.
However, we Cubans suffered from the impoverished offensive by most players, especially the so-called sluggers, poor tactical variants set in motion by the new leadership of Victor Mesa, and the total lack of a second baseman that guarantees that position in the Classic.
The offensive was a walking shadow. We saw the best hitters of the team Frederich Cepeda, Yulieski Gourriel, Alfredo Despaigne, Rusney Castillo and José Dariel Abreu constantly make swings in positions of imbalance and wrongly select more than 70 percent of the picthes, leaving much to be desired, especially when we wonder if that is the real level of Cuban baseball.
Asian pitchers have certainly possess great control over the strike zone, but those Cuba faced on the tour are not part of the global super elite, so that the huge number of strikeouts Cuban hitters had, one per inning, must set all alarms.
Baseball fans are already wondering what would happen if Cuban hitters had to face pitchers like Justin Verlander, CC Sabathia, Steven Strassburg, Felix Hernandez, or CJ Wilson, just to mention a few that shine in the American Major Leagues.
Victor Mesa, this colorful character who now heads the national team, warned before leaving for Asia that he would enhance the "tiny baseball" to promote the constant manufacturing of runs, however his plans were only in words because what we saw was an inoperative team, short of ideas and spark, but I can guarantee that players have a great motivation.
Mesa rarely commanded bunt plays, and also moved unsuccessfully the offensive line-up for better performance, although the proposed changes never offered more than those in recent years.
Many of us were looking forward to seeing Gourriel in the second at-bat, or fifth, or sixth, anyone but the third that always hurts him, others like Alexei Bell and Castillo lost the opportunity to earn experience to give place to younger players who, obviously, are not suitable to play at the III Classic level, and most of the audience was curious about who the second baseman would be.
Yes, the second baseman. The only position that, by far, Cuba is bereft of top players and this directive has the luxury of doing without players like Guantanamo´s Yoilan Cerce or Ciego de Avila´s Raul Gonzalez, the latter crowned champion Cuba in the 2011 – 2012 season.
But beyond success or blunders, Cuba could play against fine players and at least see their deficiencies surface. To say that the balance of the tour was two wins and three losses is to simplify the story, especially if we remember that Cubans could only scored two runs in 27 innings against the national teams of Taipei and Japan.
The World Classic III will be held in March 2013 and the 16 teams involved Japan (defending champion), Cuba, China, Canada, USA, Mexico, Netherlands, Italy, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Australia, Taipei China, Spain and South Korea.
Cubans will play in group A, in Japan, against the hosts, China and a team to be determined yet, which it could be either Brazil, Canada or Spain.
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