2008 Olympics: Cuban National Team Breakdown

Looking ahead to the 2008 Olympics, I want to run through the projected starting lineup of each baseball team to get a feel for how this competition might go. Official rosters don't become available for another week or two, but it's never too early to start speculating. We start with Cuba....

Here’s really all you need to know about the Cuban National Team:

1992: Olympic Gold Medal
1996: Olympic Gold Medal
2000: Olympic Silver Medal
2004: Olympic Gold Medal

Add to that a second place finish in the 2006 World Baseball Classic plus twelve gold medals over the last fifty years in the Pan American Games, and you have something more than just a pretty decent team—you have an international powerhouse.

They’ve had a dominant march to Beijing . In 2006, Cuba finished 5-0 to win the Group A Division in the preliminary round of the Americas Qualifying Tournament. In the final round, Cuba tied the U.S. with a 5-1 record, easily securing one of the two open Olympic slots allotted to the two best teams coming out of the Americas.

The scary thing is that this year, Cuba feels it has something to prove. In 2007, the Cuban National Team was denied its tenth consecutive World Cup, falling to the U.S. in the final game 6-3. That’s two second-place finishes in a row for Team Cuba in international play. So heading into the Olympics, Cuba is out for revenge. A Cuban National Team with a chip on its shoulder? Like I said, scary.

Peter Bjarkman reports the forty-three man roster has been announced. For now, I’ll just focus on the projected starters—the big guns—at each position. And yes, there will be some glaring omissions, in the outfield particularly. As follows:

MANAGER: Antonio Pacheco, Santiago de Cuba Avispas. It all starts with the manager. Pacheco has led the Wasps to three of the last four national championships and the last two in a row. He’s a hero from the Cuban national teams of the 1990s; he’s also kind've like Cuba's version of Pete Rose, without the lying and the gambling and the mullet. The career leader in base hits (2,356) and doubles (366), Pacheco is also third in batting average (.344) and fifth in runs scored. Also, like Rose, all Pacheco does is win. (To run with the Rose/Pacheco comparison for a bit, Rose managed the Reds for a few years. So the question becomes, as a baseball manager, would you rather answer to Marge Schott…or Fidel Castro? You decide.) When asked who would appear on the ideal Cuban National Team, Pacheco said (very diplomatically), “The important thing is that the team has its own identity, a seal, that everybody knows as says, ‘That’s the Cuba Team!’” Let’s see who the baseball gods (ie, the Cuba National Commission) decided to grant him.

CATCHER: Rolando Merino, Santiago de Cuba Avispas. Post-season MVP of the 2007-2008 season. Selected as a starter for the All-Star Team. He’s got a career line of .353/.457/.557. He’ll most likely be backed up by Gold Glove winner Ariel Pestano of Villa Clara.

FIRST BASE: Alex Mayetta, Industriales. The slugging hero of the 2007 Central America Games (Colombia), Mayetta is still very young with limited international experience. A great prospect, though.

SECOND BASE: Hector Olivera, Santiago de Cuba Avispas. Hit 353/.467/.542 in 2007-2008. Stole 21 bases, good enough for third in the league, and finished with a sparkling 95% stolen base success rate. Yup. He was only caught once.

THIRD BASE: Yulieski Gourriel, Sancti Spiritus. Arguably the “best” player in Cuba right now, scouts project him as a first-round draft pick were he ever to become eligible for the amateur draft. The 2004-2005 National Series MVP, Gourriel also showcased his immense skills at the WBC where he went 343/.395/.371 with eight runs and four RBI in nine games. For what it’s worth, he’s also a pretty damn good looking guy. If he played stateside, he’d give Grady Sizemore a run for his money—fo’ sure.

SHORTSTOP: Eduardo Paret, Villa Clara Naranjas. The starting shortstop on the 1996 and 2004 Gold Medal Olympic teams, as well as the 2006 WBC, Paret has been compared to Miguel Tejada but without quite as much power. He’s also almost certainly better defensively and has more speed—he ranks among the career stolen base leaders in Cuba. He hit 328/.439/.500 in the 2007-2008 National Series and won the Gold Glove. And he’s thirty-six years old! He’s like Julio Franco—or the age Miguel Tejada actually is in real life.

LEFT FIELD: Freddie Cepeda, Sancti Spiritus. Switch-hitting outfielder Freddie Cepeda has a flair for the dramatic. He hit .385 in the 2006 WBC and a robust .455 in the 2004 Olympics. He’s fifth in career slugging percentage (.547), although his lifetime .322 BA falls well below some of the other Cuban greats. What he is, however, is Mr. Clutch: one of those guys who seems to rise to the occasion, who matches his performance to the size of the stage. Twenty-seven years old, scouts believe he ranks right up there with Gourriel as a can’t-miss major leaguer. At any rate, he made Baseball America ’s “Exclusive Ten” list of best unsigned major league prospects.

CENTER FIELD: Alfredo Despaigne, Granma Alazanes. Only twenty-two, this kid’s a stud, a five-tool, perennial All-Star. As a twenty-year-old rookie in 2004-2005, Alfredo Despaigne was fifth in homers, fifth in total bases, fifth in slugging, and fourth in RBI. In 2007-2008 he set a new National Series record with 58 extra-base hits to go along with his .364/.474/.714 line. Still relatively unknown on the international stage, I can’t get wait to get wowed by his athleticism and skill.

RIGHT FIELD: Alexei Belle, Santiago de Cuba Avispas. Led the league in 2007-2008 with a record-breaking 31 home runs and 113 RBI. Averaged an RBI every three at-bats. His career batting average is .334. Another young one—only twenty-four—his international experience has also been limited.

So that's my projected starting lineup for Team Cuba. And who knows, maybe Cepeda moves to first base and Yoandry Urgelles (career .356/.440/.545) plays left. We won’t know for a couple more weeks. But this team is absolutely stacked; clearly the favorite heading into the games.