Have bat, will travel.
That’s the mantra for former Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Yasmany Tomas, who has returned to his native Cuba to play for Industriales in the Cuban Elite League, which will begin its third season on March 15.
Tomas, who played in 309 Major League Baseball games with the Arizona Diamondbacks from 2015-19, says he’s not interested in playing for Cuba’s national team, but will suit up for the Industriales, who play out of Havana’s Estadio Latinoamericano.
“Joining Industriales quickly is something that helps me a lot, because I don’t lose the rhythm of playing and I think that being here is going to be good for the team,” Tomas told Guillermo Rodríguez in an interview first reported on Cuban Baseball Digest by Yusseff Diaz.
The Cuban Elite League will play from mid-March through mid-May after being postponed from the fall. The postponement restored the Serie Nacional to its traditional winter schedule, which will run.
Tomas returned to Cuban baseball in the 2024 Serie Nacional playoffs, appearing in 15 games for the Industriales, batting .272/.337/.446 with four doubles and four homers in 92 at-bats with 18 RBIs. It was his first time playing in Cuba since the 2013-14 season, when he appeared in 65 games with the Industriales before defecting.
“When I played here in Cuba before leaving the country… I was on the Cuban team. At that time, I had that motivation to play for the Cuban team,” Tomas said in Spanish in the interview. His goal in Cuba, he says, “A championship, it doesn’t matter if it’s the elite or the series, that’s my goal right now here in Cuba. I’m not interested in the national team.”
Tomas has played each of the last three winters in Mexico with the Caneros de Los Mochis in the Liga ARCO Mexicana del Pacifico. His best season there was his first, when he batted .328/.383/.510 with an .893 OPS, 10 homers and 51 RBIs in 2022-23. He led the league in homers this past winter with 13, though his batting numbers dropped significantly from two years ago. Tomas hit .222/.287/.459 with a .746 OPS and 41 RBIs this past winter.
Nonetheless, Tomas expects to be on the field this summer, likely somewhere other than Cuba.
“I have work in the summer,” Tomas continued in the interview. “I have offers from the independent leagues in the United States. In Mexico I have several interested teams, and as well in Venezuela.”
