Updates On Top Cuban Players Outside The Pools

The international bonus pools are a mechanism designed to cut costs for owners by reducing bonuses for international amateur players with a system of penalties and taxes for teams that exceed their pools.

For Cuban players, being at least 23 with five seasons in Serie Nacional is the sweet spot where players become exempt from the pools, which significantly enhances their earning power. Not only are their contracts not subject to any pool limitations or overage taxes, but any team can sign them, regardless of a team’s current status with regards to international amateur signing restrictions.

That means a team like the Yankees or Red Sox, who are limited to signings of no more than $300,000 for pool-eligible players after they exceeded their international bonus pools in 2014-15, have no restrictions when it comes to signing Cuban players who are exempt from the bonus pools. That freedom for top Cuban players to negotiate with all 30 clubs will take on even more importance after July 2, when at least 10 teams—including the Cubs and Dodgers—will be in the penalty box for pool-eligible signings but can still spend freely on Cuban players exempt from the pools.

And unlike players subject to the bonus pools, who are all required to sign minor league contracts, players exempt from the pools are allowed to sign major league deals, enabling teams to spread out the financial expenditure over a longer period of time.

Here’s the latest information running down the top Cuban players off the island right now who don’t fall under the bonus pools.

Jose Miguel Fernandez, 2b/3b

Fernandez is the top Cuban player off the island right now, one who should step into a major league lineup immediately upon signing, though there is some uncertainty about him because of his long layoff from competitive baseball. Fernandez ranked as the No. 3 player in Cuba in our April Top 20 rankings, but the last time he played in a game was October 2014, when he was suspended for attempting to defect. Scouts were expecting to have an opportunity to get updated looks at Fernandez in the Dominican Republic at his first open showcases, which were scheduled for Feb. 3-4 at the Reds academy. However, today Fernandez’s camp informed teams that those showcases have been postponed because Fernandez has dengue, a mosquito-borne disease.

Fernandez, 27, is a lefthanded hitter with excellent contact skills and plate discipline. During the 2013-14 season, he ranked second in Serie Nacional in OBP by hitting .326/.482/.456 in 314 plate appearances with 65 walks and just 10 strikeouts. He has a gap-to-gap approach with occasional power, with his value heavily tied into his on-base skills as an offensive-oriented player who has primarily played second base but has experience at third base as well. Given that he just left Cuba around early December, I wouldn’t expect him to be declared a free agent for a few more months.

Guillermo Heredia, of

The commissioner’s office declared Heredia a free agent last year in July and he had an open showcase in Florida in October, but he is still on the market. Heredia, who turns 25 on Sunday, was the center fielder on the Cuban national team at the 2013 World Baseball Classic and is a standout defender in center field. He’s a plus runner with a quick first step who gets good jumps off the bat and covers a lot of ground in center field to go with a strong arm. The question several teams have on Heredia is whether he will hit enough to be an everyday player. A former switch-hitter, Heredia stopped batting from the left side during his final full season in Cuba, so he’s the rare player who throws lefthanded yet hits exclusively righthanded. His swing is quick and short and he doesn’t chase too many pitches off the plate, but there isn’t much rhythm in his stroke and he tends to leak open early, without much power when he does make contact, so whoever signs Heredia will have to be more bullish than most on his offensive game translating against major league pitching. Heredia has been going through private workouts for teams in the U.S, including ones for the Cubs and Astros, among others.

Luis Yander La O, inf

La O, 24, fled from the Cuban national team during a warmup series for the Pan American Games in North Carolina last year in July. MLB declared La O a free agent Thursday and he has an open showcase today in Florida. He ranked as the No. 10 Cuban player in our April 20 Top 20 rankings.

Aside from a great name, La O is one of the more fascinating Cuban players because he’s tooled up but also quite unorthodox. Primarily a third baseman in Cuba, La O has quick-twitch athleticism with 60 or better speed on the 20-80 scale. He has excellent arm strength, though his low slot hampers his accuracy, with the instincts and quick reactions to be a plus defender at the position. Players with that type of athleticism typically play somewhere in the middle of the diamond, and La O did spend more time in the second half last season at second base, with some time at shortstop as well as he won the league’s gold glove award in the utility player category. I saw La O play quite a bit at second base last year and showed he can play that position, though he will need more experience when it comes to turning the double play. There are also scouts who think he can play shortstop based on what he’s shown at other positions, so he’s going to showcase all over the infield when he works out for teams.

A righthanded hitter, La O batted .327/.404/.401 in 76 games last season with two home runs, 35 walks and 15 strikeouts. He has good hand-eye coordination, which gets him into trouble at times with his aggressive approach by making contact on pitches outside the strike zone that he should take instead. It’s a quick but unusual swing geared toward hitting line drives to the opposite field, hitting the ball hard but without much loft to show game power, so there are adjustments with his approach scouts would like to see him make.

Yadiel Hernandez, of

Like La O, Hernandez left the Cuban national team last summer in North Carolina and is now in Mexico, where he has his residency already and is now waiting for MLB to declare him a free agent. The No. 16 prospect in our April Top 20 rankings, Hernandez has his first open showcase scheduled for Feb. 23 in Mexico City.

Hernandez is 28, so any team that signs him should be expecting him to be on the major league roster immediately, though he doesn’t have a traditional corner outfielder profile. At 5-foot-10, 185 pounds, Hernandez has a nice lefthanded swing that stays through the hitting zone and a strong batting eye, which helped him hit .369/.509/.535 in 80 games in 2014-15, when he ranked second in the league in batting average, OBP and walks (77) while striking out 44 times. Hernandez uses the whole field with occasional power, projecting to hit around 10-14 home runs over a full major league season. A gold glove winner in 2013-14, Hernandez is a below-average runner who can play either corner outfield position with good reads off the bat and a solid-average arm. I’ve compared him before to Daniel Nava, who never inspired for his tools (the Red Sox signed him for $1 in 2008 after J.J. Cooper named him the No. 1 prospect in the independent leagues) but hit .278/.364/.403 from 2012-14 during his age 29-31 seasons and averaged 2.5 WAR per season, according to Baseball-Reference.com.

Some teams will be hesitant to sign a corner outfielder who doesn’t have plus raw power, which is why I would bet on him signing with a club that leans heavier on analytics and their statistical translations of Hernandez’s recent performance in Serie Nacional.

Alexei Bell, of

Scouts who have followed Bell for years on the Cuban national team would have been all over him had he left Cuba 10 years ago when he was just entering his prime. In the 2007-08 season, when Bell was 24, he won the Serie Nacional MVP award by hitting .355/.454/.722 in 90 games with 31 home runs—which at the time was the league’s single-season home run record—and won a gold glove.

Since then, Bell has been one of the most productive players in Cuba and played regularly on the national team, though he’s tailed off at age 32, which is why he didn’t rank among the Top 20 Cuban players in April. Bell is a smart hitter with a good approach, but he’s only around 5-foot-8, 190 pounds. There just aren’t many corner outfielders his size who aren’t speedsters, and Bell is a fringy runner who doesn’t have plus power. He has a plus arm to play right field, but even the scouts I talked to who were extremely high on Bell in his mid-20s are skeptical of him being an everyday big leaguer.

Bell has his residency in Mexico, where he will have his first showcase on Feb. 15, though it’s likely going to be at least a few more months until MLB declares him a free agent.

Luis Valdes, ss

Reliable information on the exact whereabouts for Valdes is still scarce, but several sources said he is in fact out of Cuba. So the timetable on Valdes is still murky, but he’s going to be a player of interest to major league clubs.

The 27-year-old Valdes isn’t toolsy, but he’s a fundamentally sound defender at shortstop. At 6 feet, 190 pounds, he doesn’t make many mistakes in the field, and while his arm strength is just around average, the arm plays up because of his incredibly quick release. Offensively, there are more question marks with Valdes. He wasn’t a great performer in Cuba, though in his last season there he batted .364/.413/.543 in 38 games (he either left or was caught leaving midway through the season) with 10 walks and 10 strikeouts. Valdes has subpar bat speed from the right side without much power and a swing he doesn’t always repeat, staying short at times but often getting long. He didn’t strike out much in his final season in Cuba, but he’s prone to chasing and swinging through sliders off the plate.

Urmani Guerra, of

Guerra, 28, is in the Dominican Republic, with his first open showcase scheduled for Feb. 4 at the Reds’ complex. Guerra led Serie Nacional in home runs (21) in 2014-15, when he hit .316/.393/.553 with 38 walks and 43 strikeouts in 365 plate appearances. After the season, with Cuba having lost several of its top outfielders in recent years, Guerra joined the national team at the Pan American Games in July. This season, Guerra was hitting .295/.411/.525 in 73 plate appearances before he left the country. Guerra, who’s 5-foot-11, 195 pounds, was one of the top offensive players in Cuba before he left the country, though projections on him range from Triple-A depth to a righthanded-hitting platoon outfielder.

Maikel Caceres, 2b/of

Caceres is 32 and never played on the Cuban national team, so scouts don’t have as much history on him as they do with another player in his 30s such as Bell. However, Caceres is an intriguing player with some versatility, and while he might not fit an everyday role, he’s worth giving an opportunity to so he can prove himself given his track record.

A righthanded hitter, Caceres is 5-foot-9, 170 pounds and hit .314/.383/.453 in 327 plate appearances in his last season (2014-15) in Serie Nacional, drawing 29 walks with just 18 strikeouts. The season before, Caceres was the runner-up for the batting title by hitting .363/.430/.383 in 399 plate appearances with a league-leading 28 doubles.

The latest move for Caceres was to play for Margarita in the Venezuelan League this winter, which should help him after he hit .371/.426/.454 with 10 walks and seven strikeouts in 31 games. While it’s been difficult for top American executives to get into Venezuela recently, Caceres is now in the Dominican Republic, has his residency and is waiting for MLB to declare him a free agent.

While Caceres was primarily a right fielder in Cuba, he also played some second base. From what I saw of him in Cuba, he looked comfortable in the infield and showed good range for the position. The one standout tool Caceres does have is his arm, which he used to record 21 assists in 86 games as a right fielder in 2013-14.

Caceres never showed much power in Cuba (though he has bulked up since leaving), and while his overall offensive production still might not be good enough for an MLB role, he’s likely going to get a shot with someone to start out in Triple-A and, if he performs well there, get a chance to be at least a utility player in the right organization. The Padres and Tigers are two teams that have been connected to Caceres.