{"id":7769,"date":"2013-10-01T07:25:01","date_gmt":"2013-10-01T11:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7769"},"modified":"2013-10-01T12:05:49","modified_gmt":"2013-10-01T16:05:49","slug":"cuban-players-free-to-sign-elsewhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7769","title":{"rendered":"Cuban players free to sign elsewhere"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Will<\/a>

Will we be seeing many more Yasiel Puigs in the majors soon? photo mlb.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Big news last week (that I’m just posting today because I forgot to over the weekend :-). \u00a0Reversing literally decades of draconian socialist policy, Cuba announced on 9\/27\/13 that its residents will be allowed to compete in foreign leagues<\/a>. \u00a0Players would be allowed to play in professional leagues outside of Cuba as long as they paid taxes on their income and returned home to play in the Cuban (winter) national league. \u00a0It seems like a more than reasonable policy that should end the “under cover of darkness” defection policy that Cuba’s best players have been adopting (and mostly risking their lives in the process) in order to pursue their dreams at salaries more commensurate with their skills on the international market.<\/p>\n

My favorite side-effect of this policy may very well be the future effect on the World Baseball Classic Cuban team. \u00a0I surmised what a “politics-free” version<\/a> of the Cuban team may have looked like for this year’s WBC, a post I wish I could re-visit now that we’ve seen just how amazing guys like Yasiel Puig<\/strong>, Jose Fernandez<\/strong>, Alberto Despaigne<\/strong> and Jose Iglesias<\/strong> really are. \u00a0Nonetheless you have to think a consolidated Cuban team (if they can find some pitching…they are thin on the mound) would be an early favorite for the next incarnation of the event.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite baseball novels is\u00a0The Duke of Havana<\/a>:\u00a0Baseball, Cuba, and the Search for the American Dream<\/em>\u00a0by two newspaper writers\u00a0Steve Fainaru<\/strong> and Ray Sanchez<\/strong>. \u00a0They\u00a0covered\u00a0Orlando Hernandez<\/strong>, Cuban baseball, his amazing defection and eventual Yankees career in this 2001 novel (which was a partial compilation of a number of their newspaper articles over the years). \u00a0They show the effects of the ruthlessly cruel Cuban government on the nationalistic Hernandez, watch his general fall from grace, and hear the story of his near-death defection. \u00a0After reading this book you’re struck by a few obvious points:<\/p>\n