The Cuba Elite League, which played its first two seasons as a winter league, will play its third season between March and June 2025.
The change in the league’s schedule was announced by Cuba’s sports ministry, the Instituto Nacional Deportivo, Educacion Fisica y Recreacion, or INDER, last Wednesday. In addition to moving the Elite League season to the spring, the Serie Nacional’s next season will begin in September 2025.
The season changes were made because the “absence of Cuba in the Caribbean Series makes it unnecessary to continue adhering to the changes made two years ago in our calendars to adjust to the date of that tournament,” INDER stated in Spanish in a press release published by JITDeportivo.cu, a sports media outlet run by the Cuban government.
Cuba last played in the Caribbean Series in 2023, when the annual winter ball tournament of champions was held in Caracas and La Guaira, Venezuela, and had eight participating teams. The 2024 Caribbean Series, held at loanDepot Park in Miami, featured seven teams, with Cuba absent.
The announcement came two days before the island nation’s power grid collapsed, plunging the country into a nationwide blackout that has largely continued, though power has been intermittently restored in Havana and a few other locales, according to media reports from CNN, the New York Times, and Australian Broadcasting Corp.
While Cuba deals with the blackout, Cuba’s entry in the WBSC Premier12 is prepping for the tournament in South Korea, where they were slated to play the LG Twins of the KBO League in an exhibition game on Tuesday. The game was rained out.
“The position players completed all the swings planned in the batting tunnel, the pitching staff added the pitches planned for each of its members, and there was also action in the gym,” Cuba manager Armando Johnson told JITdeportivo.cu. Cuba is slated to face the NC Dinos on Wednesday and will use the lineup intended for Tuesday’s game against the LG Twins. Former Boston Red Sox farmhand and right-hander Yusniel Padron is expected to start for Cuba.
Yusniel Padrón abrirá el martes ante LG Twins, primer partido preparatorio del #CubaPremier12 en Ulsan, Corea del Sur.
Aquí sus declaraciones.#Cuba #Beisbol #BeisbolCubano#Premier12 @Premier12 pic.twitter.com/R7rtjuftoL— JIT Deporte Cubano (@jit_digital) October 20, 2024
Cuba is expected to play another pair of exhibition games in South Korea on Friday and Saturday against opponents that have not yet been announced.
Five Young Players Leave The Island – Francys Romero of BeisbolFR.com reported that five players have left Cuba in the past two days and are in the Dominican Republic in hopes of signing with a Major League Baseball organization.
On Monday, Romero reported that right-handed pitchers Eric Valenzuela, 20, and Adrián Gomez, 18, had both reached the Dominican Republic. Valenzuela, who can throw with mid-90s velocity, has appeared in three Serie Nacional seasons with Isla de Juventud, pitching 259 innings with a 1.96 ERA. Gomez, from Santiago de Cuba, has reached the low 90s and can throw a good slider, which could make him attractive to MLB clubs, Romero wrote.
Also leaving the country were infielder Eugenio Rodriguez, 20, who Romero crowned the No. 1 prospect in Cuba in the U-18 age group in 2022, outfielder Osney Castillo, 18, and right-handed pitcher Dayron Nunez, 20. Rodriguez and Castillo have both appeared with the Cuba U-18 national team, while Nunez has two seasons of experience in the Serie Nacional and a season in the Elite League, all with Guantanamo. Nunez, who stands 6-foot-3, has a low-90s fastball according to Romero, but could gain velocity and command if his lanky frame fills out.
