On Monday, it was announced that following the postponement of the Copa América de Béisbol to 2026, the WBSC Americas has granted five automatic qualifiers to the Central American and Caribbean Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
The Copa América was originally supposed to qualify four teams for the tournament, but that has now been altered.
Eight teams are set to play in Santo Domingo, and seven of them are now qualified. The Dominican Republic qualified as host, Nicaragua as the winner of the Central American Games, one team will qualify through the Caribbean Baseball Cup, and Mexico, Puerto Rico, Panama, Cuba and Colombia received automatic spots through the WBSC Americas rankings. Despite being the top-ranked Caribbean nation, Venezuela will not participate.
The Caribbean Baseball Cup, which will now grant one spot instead of the originally planned two, will take place Dec. 3–8 in Nassau, Bahamas. The field includes Sint Maarten, the Bahamas, Curaçao, the U.S. Virgin Islands and a team from the Dominican Republic.
Cuba announced on Tuesday at a press conference at Estadio Latinoamericano in Havana that they would not play in the Caribbean Baseball Cup, citing expense as the prohibitive factor.
In previous Central American and Caribbean Games tournaments, teams qualified for the Pan American Games, and that is expected to be the case again, though details have not been finalized. Before the postponement of the Copa América, five teams were set to qualify for the 2027 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru. There has been no official update on whether that plan will remain in place.
The Copa América has been postponed until 2026, with April being the most likely time which the event will be held in the inaugural edition. It is expected to once again be held in Panama.
