The 2024 Serie Nacional champion, the Lenadores de Las Tunas, will compete in the 2025 Serie de Las Americas tournament in Nicaragua in late January.
The Lenadores de Las Tunas official roster was announced on Tuesday, January 7.
The No. 3 seed, Leñadores de Las Tunas, won the 2024 Serie Nacional regular season, winning the best-of-seven championship series over Vegueros de Pinar Del Rio in five games back on July 28. The Lenadores de Las Tunas finished in third place in the 2024 season with their record at 42-28, and the Vegueros de Pinar Del Rio were No. 1, ending their record at 50-24.
The No. 1 seed Leñadores de Las Tunas also won the 2023 Serie Nacional regular season, sweeping the No. 5 seed Industriales de La Habana in the best-of-seven championship series.
Leif Skodnick of World Baseball Network reported on October 23 of everything going on with the Cuban Government alongside the 2024-25 winter Elite League season was canceled due to political and economic issues: /news/cuba-premier12-team-trains-in-south-korea-and-players-leave-island-amid-crisis-at-home.
Skodnick reported, “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,” Instituto Nacional de Deportes, Educación Física y Recreación stated in Spanish in a press release published by JITDeportivo.cu, a sports media outlet run by the Cuban government” from back in mid-October.
The Elite League operated for two seasons in 2022-23 and 2023-24, and were made up of the teams that finished in the top-six of the Serie Nacional season in the spring-summer.
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. Eight teams participated in that tournament. The 2024 Caribbean Series, held at loanDepot Park in Miami, featured seven teams, with Cuba absent.
The Agricultores team played in the 2023 Caribbean Series and were champions in the 2022-2023 Elite League Season while winning in seven games in the best-of-seven championship series over the Portuarios when Agricultores’ Osvaldo Abreu hit a walk-off single to center field to capture a 7-6 win and berth to Caracas, Venezuela, including coming back from a 3-1 series deficit. The Cocodrilos de Matanzas won in six games in the 2023-24 Elite League best-of-seven series over the Cazadores de Artemisa and did not participate in an alternative league tournament out of Cuba.
Cuba went 1-6 in Caracas, Venezuela, at the 2023 Caribbean Series, with their first win only coming against Curacao 3-1 in 10 innings on the first day of the tournament at Estadio Estadio Fórum La Guaira. Colombia, Panama, Curacao, and Cuba were invited to the 2023 Caribbean Series.
Cuba, before the 2023 event, previously played in the 2019 Caribbean Series in Panama City, Panama, at Rod Carew Stadium with the 2018-19 Serie Nacional, the Lenadores de La Tunas, who lost 3-1 in the championship game against the 2018-2019 Panama Probeis league champion Toros de Herrera.
The 2014-15 Serie Nacional champion, the Vegueros de Pinar del Rio, won the 2015 Caribbean Series for the second consecutive year the country was back at the event. They were the only Cuban team to win the Caribbean Series after 1960 when the United States Trade Embargo began.
Cuba won the Caribbean Series as the formerly known Cuban Winter League, with the Alacranes del Almendares winning in 1949 and 1959, the Leones del Habana in 1952, the Tigres de Marianao in 1957 and 1958, and the Elefantes de Cienfuegos in 1960 before professional sports being abolished from the island and putting a halt to the Caribbean Series until it was brought back in 1970.
Cuba, now in recent times with club events heading into 2025, has changed during the last few years with the alignment of competition that they have faced with professionals from other leagues in club events in the western hemisphere.
The Cocodrilos de Matanzas and the Federación Cubana Beisbol y Softball held the Serie de Estrellas with Venezuela, Mexico, and a 2023-2024 Elite League All-Star team from late January until early February at Estadio Victoria de Girón in Matanzas, Cuba. The Cocodrilos de Matanzas won the Serie de Estrellas over the Elite League All-Star Team 12-2 in the championship game on February 1, 2024.
The 2023 World Baseball Softball Confederation Baseball Champions League was held back from September 28 until October 21, with the 2022 Cuban Serie Nacional champion, the Alazanes de Granma, the 2021-22 Liga Profesional De Béisbol Colombia champion, the Caimanes de Barranquilla, the 2022 American Association champion, the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks, and the host team, the 2022 Liga Mexicana de Beisbol champion, Leones de Yucatán at Parque Kukulcán Alamo in Merida, Mexico.
The next club event for the island will be an ultimate test to see if they can compete against growing countries and top-tier countries from the Caribbean with the Serie De Las Americas event in late January.
The Serie De Las Americas is labeling the event from the formerly named tournament, the Latin-American Series, held from 2013 to 19.
The Latin American Series featured champions from club teams in the winter leagues: the Argentine Baseball League in 2019, Liga Profesional De Béisbol Colombia from 2013-19, the Curaçao National Championship AA League in 2018, the Liga Invernal Veracruzana in Mexico from 2013-19, the Veracruz State League in Mexico from 2017-18, the Liga de Béisbol Profesional Nacional in Nicaragua from 2013-19, and the Panama Probeis league from 2013- 19.
The 2013 and 2019 Latin American Series were held at Estadio Universitario Beto Ávila in Veracruz, Mexico; the 2013 and 2017 tournaments was at Estadio 18 de Junio in Monteria, Colombia; the 2016 and 2018 events were at Estadio Nacional Soberania in Managua, Nicaragua, and in 2015 it was at Estadio Rod Carew in Panama, City Panama.