San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Gurriel an inspiring force for Cuban players
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — One February afternoon, amid a lockout trudging through its third month, Yuli Gurriel’s kindred spirit sat on a folding chair beneath a tent.
Most Americans cannot comprehend Gurriel’s gravitas in Cuba. One glimpse of Roilan Machandy offered an apt appreciation.
Machandy found his seat after finishing a workout at the Astros’ minor league minicamp. He is a 20-year-old outfielder with elite speed, a $250,000 signing bonus and a batting stance he stole from Gurriel. The Astros pounced on him before the 2019 international signing period.
Machandy opted to sign, in part, because of one person, the face of Cuban baseball’s past and present. He leaned forward to discuss it more. His untucked back pocket billowed in the wind. He did not fasten either of the two buttons atop his orange jersey. Pick any Cuban in the Astros’ organization. The franchise has upward of 20. All of them wear their uniforms this way.
“Everyone in Cuba does that, I swear to you,” Cuban pitcher Julio Robaina said. “As a child, you see Yuli doing something, and everybody would do it.
“We all, when we were small children, wanted to play like Yuli. How he put his uniform on and all that. When he got here and played with the Astros, in Cuba, all the players — even the people — wanted to always see the Astros because of Yuli.”
Robaina stopped buttoning his jersey after turning 9 years old and realizing his idol is a rebel. Cuban baseball has strict rules governing its uniforms. Umpires are trained to make sure players abide by them. Gurriel did not comply.
“I cut the buttons of my jerseys off,” Gurriel said this week through an interpreter. “Obviously, in Cuba there were a lot of laws, and that was one — we always had to have the jersey buttoned. I got in trouble. The umpire told me to button my jersey, and I told him, ‘I can’t. I don’t have any buttons.’
“It feels great to see the younger players, younger generation, emulating some things I’ve done. That’s not necessarily probably the best thing to do, but I do feel happy that is something they are doing.”
Island pipeline
Gurriel is a giant to this generation of Cuban baseball players. Because of him, the Astros are fostering the next one. Ten Cubans were on their initial minor league spring training roster. The total number of Cuban prospects in the system is closer to 20. No other organization has more than 11.
The Astros are the first team since the 1960s to employ at least 20 Cuban players, according to Frances Romero, an author and longtime baseball reporter who covers Cuban major leaguers. Gurriel, Yordan Alvarez and Aledmys Díaz are contributors on a major league club contending for a pennant. Touted outfield prospect Pedro León, ranked anywhere from second to fourth in their system, is Cuban. Houston’s latest international signing class contained 15 players. Three are Cuban.
“Down in Cuba, it’s known the Astros give the most chances to Cuban-born players,” Machandy said through an interpreter. “There’s a lot of hype around all Cuban players, but so far the ones that the Astros have signed have kind of stuck.”
The Astros acquired or signed nine Cuban-born players from 2015-16, the same year they inked Gurriel to a five-year free-agent contract. No other free agent in Jim Crane’s ownership tenure has received a longer deal. Former general manager Jeff Luhnow and international scouting director Oz Ocampo deserve ample credit. Special assistant scout Charlie Gonzalez is often a vital part of Houston’s Cuban signees. Gonzalez signed León and former pitcher Cionel Pérez.
“When I was younger, I honestly don’t think I’d ever heard of the Astros organization. There wasn’t much influence there,” Alvarez said through an interpreter. “When I was in Cuba, Yuli signed, so a lot of people started to take notice. Then they traded for Aledmys, and now that I’m here, a lot of people are following the Astros.”
Gonzalez and Ocampo scouted Alvarez heavily in the Dominican Republic, where a majority of Cuban defectors land once establishing residency elsewhere. The Los Angeles Dodgers eventually signed Alvarez. On the advice of Gonzalez and Ocampo, the Astros acquired him in 2016 for reliever Josh Fields.
Alvarez arrived in the major leagues midway through the 2019 season. He has never left. At one point that year, the Astros had five Cuban-born players in their major league clubhouse. No team since the 1969 Cincinnati Reds had five Cubans in the same season.
“What Yuli and Alvarez have been doing the last couple years with this team, that says a lot about them and how the team approaches the Cuban international market,” Díaz said. “They see these guys put in the work at this level and perform.
“A lot of young Cuban players that defect from Cuba, they want them here, too. It’s a huge impact that they have been doing the last couple years in the big leagues. The organization knows that. They want to have the next Yuli or the next Yordan.”
The trio of major leaguers has cemented the Astros as Cuba’s strongest baseball brand. Success by pitchers Liván and Orlando Hernández made the New York Yankees and Florida Marlins the two most talked-about major league teams during Gurriel’s upbringing.
The Chicago White Sox have a spectacular young core of Cubans — José Abreu, Luis Robert and Yoán Moncada — and get ample attention on the island. Reigning American League Rookie of the Year Randy Arozarena makes the Tampa Bay Rays relevant, too.
“But I feel comfortable saying we’re the team that’s followed the most in Cuba,” Gurriel said.
Example to follow
Gurriel left with his brother, Lourdes, after the Caribbean Series in February 2016. Yuli left as a two-time Most Valuable Player, three-time World Baseball Classic participant and 2004 Olympic Gold medalist. His style, signature batting stance and missing buttons made him an icon for almost all young players in the country.
“He’s the hero for every Cuban player,” Leon said through an interpreter. “Everyone looks up to Yuli. Ever since I was little, I (liked) how he plays, like his style, and like everything about Yuli.”
Lourdes is entering his fifth season with the Toronto Blue Jays. Yuli is about to start his seventh with the Astros. The brothers have made their homes in Florida, raising families and training yearround for the dream both share.
Robaina, a 21-year-old lefthanded pitcher who reached Class A Advanced last season, trained with the Gurriels after he defected in 2015. Now he works with Alvarez in Miami during the winter.
“Training with those two guys, I want to be like them,” Robaina said. “Someday I want to get there. All the work they have put in, all the effort in workouts in the offseason, that’s pretty impressive. To me, it’s kind of (like) these guys are getting successful doing this like this — I have to do it like that.”
Alvarez and Gurriel afford these young players something they never had themselves. This week, Alvarez acknowledged he struggled to assimilate early in his minor league career. One swing of the bat or round of batting practice drew a crowd, but Alvarez never felt comfortable asking for help.
“I may have felt a bit intimidated to go to the major leaguers,” Alvarez said. “Here, I try to be that person. I try to go to them from the get-go and tell them I’m someone you can count on. I try to make myself accessible to them.”
Gurriel is the man to whom all of the Cuban prospects gravitate. As of minor league minicamp, Machandy said he had still not met either Gurriel or Alvarez. León met Gurriel face-to-face for the first time last spring training. The two men had numerous clubhouse conversations this spring — León’s first in major league camp.
“It was amazing,” León said. “It’s not the same when somebody tells you about something or you watch them on TV. To be able to hang out with him, talk to him and see how he thinks and see how he acts, to see everything, be able to pick his brain, it was amazing to be around him.”
Gurriel said the Astros’ front office and international scouting department have asked for his input on certain Cuban prospects. Gurriel gives scouting reports and advice whenever he’s asked. He said this week he has even advocated for a few Cuban-born prospects not yet eligible to be signed.
“That’s why we work as hard as we do,” Gurriel said. “We only don’t think about ourselves but also the future generations that might be coming over to open opportunities for them as well, working really hard to give them an example.”
No easy decision
Gurriel’s is a glowing one. It does not arrive without heartbreak, the sort of consequence he knew loomed after leaving. The Cuban government denied him reentry into the country this past winter. Gurriel left in 2016. Cuban law has changed to allow defectors back in five years after their departure. Previously, it was eight.
During the winter, Gurriel made plans to go back to Cuba and see his elderly grandmother. He phoned Cuban officials to alert them of his impending arrival. They gave no indication of anything awry.
“The day before the flight back to Cuba, they called and told me my whole family could go back except for me,” Gurriel said. “I got the call basically to tell me the law changed for everyone except me. I had my whole family there waiting. It was something that disturbed me a little bit on the inside. It was super tough for me.
“I’ve done the same thing everyone else has done. I haven’t killed anyone. I just came here to prove myself within the best baseball in the world, live a dream I’ve had since I was young. I don’t understand why that applied only to me.”
According to Alvarez, the Cuban government tries to avoid showing games between major league teams with multiple Cuban defectors. León said he had trouble watching the 2017 World Series but found a workaround for some games. Alvarez received messages during last year’s Fall Classic from friends in Cuba who did the same.
The treatment might offer some trepidation, hesitation to leave a place they might never be allowed back. Gurriel said he wants his three children to see where their father grew up but acknowledged it might never happen. Whether he ever sees his grandmother again is in serious doubt.
“I still do think it’s worth it,” Gurriel said. “These are opportunities to play baseball among the best baseball players in the world and be able to live a dream. Yes, I do still think it’s worth it, even if it’s tough.”
Gurriel is one of his native land’s greatest heroes. His influence is spread across two countries and, in West Palm Beach, two clubhouses. The players he inspires might never match his on-field production. Most might never reach the major leagues. All will leave in awe.
“They grew up seeing Yuli as an idol,” Díaz said. “Having a chance to share a clubhouse or talk with him here in spring training, those guys look up to him a lot. It’s great for this organization to have a guy like Yuli.”