NASSAU, Bahamas – For a six-team tournament, there was quite a bit of shuffling of teams for the Caribbean Baseball Cup as the tournament drew nearer.
Normally a six-team event that qualifies, this year’s edition was played with five teams, and rather than awarding two berths to the Central American and Caribbean Games, which will be held next July and August in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, this year’s event awarded just one.
Just three weeks ago, the Caribbean Baseball Confederation and the WBSC Americas announced it had awarded berths in next year’s Central American and Caribbean Games to five teams — Mexico, Puerto Rico, Panama, Cuba and Colombia — after the Copa America de Beisbol, which was planned for mid-November in Panama, was cancelled a week before it was to begin.
This meant that Curacao was left on the outside looking in, and now had make hasty plans to come to the Bahamas and win the tournament to qualify, which they did. Puerto Rico and Cuba, having been granted an automatic berth, opted not to come to Nassau, leaving the tournament with just five teams.
A lack of transparency in the process disappointed the hosts.
“There was a meeting called by the president of COCABE. … Ramsey Bellarena, who is is also a member of the executive board COCABE, he wasn’t invited to the meeting for the reason we don’t know yet,” Samuel Rodgers Sr. of the Bahamas, the vice president of the Confederacion del Caribe de Beisbol, or COCABE, told World Baseball Network. “When we hear the results of that particular meeting, we hear that Cuba and Puerto Rico got a bye to the Central American Caribbean Games, so that that… that put a bad taste on on the way they constructed that meeting.”
Not long after that meeting, Cuba sent a message that they wouldn’t be coming to the Bahamas, and then Puerto Rico pulled out a day after Cuba. It was then, Rodgers said, that the Dominican Republic decided that they would try and send a team.
And of the five countries that sent teams here to Andre Rodgers National Baseball Stadium, the team that truly stood out from the others came from the country ranked highest in the World Baseball Rankings. Too bad, though, was the fact that the team from the Dominican Republic stood out for the wrong reasons.
Ranked No. 12 in the world, the Dominican Republic is a known quantity in this sport. Nine hundred and thirty-six Dominican players have reached Major League Baseball, and the D.R. had the second-most players of any country in the world on 26-man MLB rosters in 2025. The country won the 2009 World Baseball Classic. The six-team winter league on the island is arguably the best league playing at this time of year, worldwide.
Which is to say, as the fifth team at the 2026 Caribbean Baseball Cup, the seventh such event held by the Confederacion del Caribe de Beisbol, it’d be reasonable to expect the Dominican Republic to at least make the championship game when Curacao, the Bahamas, Sint Maarten, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are the other four teams in the field. Heck, they’ve won the event twice before, in 2018 and 2019, when it was held in Santo Domingo.
But not only did the Dominican Republic squad, which had just 13 players ranging in age from 19 to 46, not make the championship game, they weren’t even competitive. It was surprising, considering the team was comprised of players from the Liga de Béisbol del Nordeste, an amateur summer league which sent a team to the 2024 Caribbean Cup that finished fifth.
Four of them had experience in affiliated baseball, most notably Randy Cesar, who played eight seasons in the Houston Astros and Minnesota Twins organizations, and Rafael Garcia, a 46-year-old pitcher who last appeared in professional baseball in the winter of 2013-14, making one appearance with LIDOM’s Leones del Escogido to conclude a career that saw him pitch in Mexico, Taiwan, Italy, and the Dominican.
In their opener, they were no-hit by Sint Maarten, the Dutch half of the island of Saint Martin, with a population of around 60,000, losing 21-0 in a mercy-rule shortened five-inning game. Yes, really, it’s was 21-0. Garcia threw the first two innings, giving up 18 runs, 12 of them earned, on 12 hits and three walks.
Thirty-three year old Willy Santo, who didn’t have a pro career, or at least not one that would be listed on Baseball Reference, went 2-for-3 in their 7-2 loss to Curacao, an island in the Dutch Caribbean that has put more players per capita in MLB than anywhere else in the world.
Against the Bahamas, they mustered just two hits in a 29-0 drubbing.
The closest game they played was a 3-2 loss to the U.S. Virgin Islands, the only win the U.S. territory had at the event, in the preliminary finale.
As Robert Plant once sang, “Oh, it makes me wonder…”
It makes me wonder why a country with a passion for baseball like the Dominican Republic would send an undermanned, under-talented, and uncompetitive team to represent the nation abroad.
Yes, with the best players possible, the tables would have been reversed and the Dominican Republic would make short work of the other four countries in this event. Most of those players, though, aren’t available, either because they’re playing winter ball or under contract to MLB clubs, and wouldn’t want to risk an injury that would jeopardize their contracts, which is completely reasonable.
And you’d have to think if they brought the best players available — not the best possible, but merely the best available — they’d likely have at minimum, been competitive, and at maximum, won the championship in a walk.
But those in attendance in Nassau, fans, journalists, and officials alike, would have a hard time believing that this team was comprised of the best Dominican players who were available.
But the disappointing of the Dominican Republic sending a team comprised of six pitchers, five infielders, and two outfielders as a representative at the 2026 Caribbean Baseball Cup is multifold: it shows disrespect for the event and the other competitors and it shows disrespect for the national team jersey.
Which is not to say that the players the Dominican Republic sent didn’t try. No one gets on a plane to represent their country abroad only to put in a sub-par effort. There’s only so much you can do with 13 players, six of whom were listed as pitchers.
With its vaunted history in baseball, the Dominican Republic has a responsibility to help grow the game around the world — especially elsewhere in the Caribbean, where the same language may not be spoken, but it’s almost always baseball season.
They — whomever it was in the D.R. that put this team together — owed it to the players from the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, Curacao, and Sint Maarten, as well as the Confederacion del Caribe de Beisbol, to send a competitive team to this event and give the players representing those islands a challenge. Not necessarily put together a team that would dominate the event, but at minimum, put out a respectable showing.
Apparently, they didn’t see this event the same way.
No Extra Innings, But Free Baseball Nonetheless – With the Bahamas in the championship game, ticketed admission for the final game was waived, and a nice crowd larger than the announced number of 1,053 to cheer on the Bahamas as they played for gold for the first time. The sizable home crowd brought the noise, pounding out a Caribbean beat on drums with horns and whistles blaring during the downpour that caused a roughly 30-minute rain delay.
Unique Ballpark Fare – Every ballpark has its own signature concession item, and Andre Rodgers National Baseball Stadium is no different. In addition to chicken wings, which are breaded and fried with a zesty seasoning, the concession stands served both conch fritters and cracked conch. The conch fritters came with fries and pickapeppa sauce, while the cracked conch, which is conch that has been pounded with a mallet to make it tended, seasoned, breaded, and deep fried, came with fries and a spicy red pepper sauce that will clear your sinuses. Both are delicious.
All-Tournament Team And Awards – Following the championship game Monday night, the All-Tournament Team and individual awards for the 2025 Caribbean Baseball Cup were announced.
All-Tournament Team
C – Phildrick Llewellyn, Curacao
1B – Arthur Bonevacia, Sint Maarten
2B – Keanu Jacobs, Sint Maarten
3B – Daunte Stuart, The Bahamas
SS – Mairo Martinus, Curacao
LF – Ericson Leonora, Curacao
CF – Victor Draijer, Sint Maarten
RF – Jonathan James Ponder, United States Virgin Islands
DH – Toby Simmons, The Bahamas
Individual Player Awards
MVP – Nelmerson Angela, Curacao
Most Stolen Bases – Darren Sefarina, Curacao (5)
Most Home Runs – Ellison Hanna II, The Bahamas (1)
Highest Batting Average – Phildrick Llewellyn, Curacao (5-for-8, .625)
Lowest Earned Run Average – Martijn Schoonderwoerd, Curacao (0.00, 6 1/3 IP)
Best Relief Pitcher – Chavez Fernander, The Bahamas
Most Strikeouts – Yonawil Ramon Rodriguez, Dominican Republic (9)
Photo: The sunset over the hills behind Andre Rodgers National Baseball Stadium in Nassau, Bahamas. (Photo: Leif Skodnick/World Baseball Network)
