Gurriels Leaving Cuba Is No Surprise, But Cuban Underground Remains Secretive

BOCA CHICA, Dominican Republic—I’m at a team’s complex watching the start of a private workout early in the morning of Feb. 8 when the news starts to trickle in. Late in the night, Yulieski and Lourdes Gurriel bolted from the Cuban team hotel here at the Caribbean Series, leaving everything behind to pursue a future in Major League Baseball.

The general public reaction seemed to be shock that the Gurriel brothers would ever leave Cuba. If they had left Cuba two years ago, I would have shared that sentiment. Not now.

Over the past year, the signals have been blaring and the talk in the underground had picked up that the Gurriel brothers were coming. In June last year, I even wrote a story called “Something Is Up With The Gourriel Brothers” after the two didn’t play in the Pan American Games, with Yulieski initially on the roster before later being removed.

That came after Yulieski, 31, passed on the opportunity to return to play for Yokohama in Japan on a multi-million dollar contract that the BayStars eventually terminated when Gurriel wouldn’t report to their spring training, reportedly so he could take care of his hamstring in Cuba. What Cuban player is going to pass on millions over a hamstring? Then there were rumors that the Gurriels might sit out the 2015-16 season in Serie Nacional, though ultimately they did play this year.

Scouts noticed a difference on the field, too. While 22-year-old Lourdes Jr. plays with passion and energy, Yulieski’s reputation in the international scouting community—fair or not—is that he doesn’t always give his best effort. Perhaps he’s bored, having been on the national team for more than a decade, winning back-to-back MVP awards in Cuba at age 20 and 21, with little reward for a skill set that would have earned him north of $100 million at this point had he been able to sign with an MLB team as a teenager.

Since the Caribbean Series last year, however, scouts have taken notice of Yulieski’s newfound hustle. Suddenly every routine groundball he hit turned into an all-out sprint to first base. It was the same at the Premier 12 in November and again this month at the Caribbean Series. Yulieski had been told directly about what his reputation was among the international scouts who had followed him for years, and that if he wanted to play in the majors, it would be in his best interests to start showing more consistent focus and hustle on every play. Message received.

The Gurriel brothers even talked publicly about their desire to play in MLB, though always with the caveat that they would only do so with the permission of the Cuban government. If they had their wish, that’s how it would have gone down, but despite the U.S. easing sanctions against Cuba, there isn’t an agreement on the horizon that will allow Cuban players to freely play in MLB without leaving the country and becoming a resident of another country.

Right away, the disappearance of the Gurriel brothers is already having ramifications for Cuban players all over the Dominican Republic. Many of the Cuban players here are in the country illegally. With a high-profile case like the Gurriels allegedly involving a Dominican military official, the Dominican government—depending who you talk to—is either trying to crack down or get a cut of the action for themselves.

Some players have already felt the impact. According to a report from Marti Noticias, two Cuban pitchers who were already in the Dominican Republic—righthanders Carlos Juan Viera and Alain Tamayo—were sent back to Cuba. Righthander Norge Ruiz and lefthander Cionel Perez, two young prospects drawing interest from major league teams, had originally started showcasing in the Dominican Republic but left the country and are now working out privately for teams in the Bahamas, where they have their residency.

The situation for Cuban players has gotten tense enough in the Dominican Republic that people involved in handling Cuban players have recently built different fields for them play at secret locations.

For one of these fields, if you want to get there, you won’t find it anywhere on Google Maps. Even giving directions there isn’t easy because it’s so remote. Getting there involves turning off a paved road on to a dirt path that wasn’t designed with automotive transportation in mind. Down the sides of the bumpy dirt path are bushes, trees, occasional horses, a few shanty homes and small cinderblock buildings.

Then suddenly, there it is—a pristine, immaculate baseball field. It’s not a full-fledged facility like the academies the teams operate in the country, but the field is well maintained and does its job of allowing Cuban players to practice in a private setting.

But today, there’s nobody here. Word around the island is that the Gurriels’ escape and the circumstances surrounding it have sent the Dominican authorities out looking for people who might have answers—either about the Gurriels or other Cuban players—with Cuban officials also mobilizing around the island.

Such is the secrecy of Cuban players, whose stories often go untold, and what does get revealed to the public is often more fiction than reality. One day, Cuban players might no longer have to go through such clandestine routes to sign with an MLB team. It’s easy to point fingers at the commissioner’s office, but there’s only so much MLB can do when it’s the U.S. and Cuban governments that are responsible for the creation of this underground operation.

While some players have been granted the opportunity to leave Cuba through legal immigration, Cuba still for the most part doesn’t allow players to freely leave the country. The Cuban government is open to negotiating contracts for players to participate in foreign professional leagues such as Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan, and it would welcome the opportunity to do the same with MLB, but even though the U.S. has eased sanctions against Cuba, the embargo still prevents that from happening.

Much of the public reporting paints a rosier picture of a warming relationship between the U.S. and Cuba, of MLB building goodwill with Cuban baseball officials while major league stars such as Clayton Kershaw and Miguel Cabrera visit the island. For Cuban players looking to get to the majors, the reality is much different.

There’s hope that those roadblocks could soon disappear, that the journey from Cuba to MLB will no longer involve the shadiness of the underground. There’s an excitement in the baseball world about the departure of the Gurriel brothers. But for many Cuban players in the Dominican Republic, anxiety levels remain high.