For years a tiny island of Cuba has dominated the international baseball world. Cuba has a set of leagues that their players play in and hone their skills. The major league, the Cuban National League, has 16 teams and plays a 90 game schedule from late Novemeber until mid April. After this season ends the best players play in a semi All-Star league. This league is called the Cuban Super League and consists of for teams who play thirty games. Only players from this league are eligible for the Cuban National team that plays on the international level.
The relative quality of the National League isn't easy to define. Unlike the Japanese Leagues or even Mexico, there simply isn't a constant flow in and out of the league to America to grade the league. All of the data we have is coming out and is subject to a high degree of sample size issues. Still, Clay Davenport tried to gauge it from this data a couple years ago and found the quality play roughly the same as the Midwest League or the New York-Penn League, way at the bottom of the scale. Using the same method for Japan on the other hand gets a figure well above Triple A.
This leads to all sorts of questions. As defectors have shown, the high end talent from Cuba can certainly make it in the majors and perform at a high level. However, the average talent level for the Cuban National League is quite low. This leads to a very broad range of talent level on the individual level. You would get some Johan Santana versus Marcos Vechionacci or Albert Pujols versus Kris Johnson matchups. You'll also get some variants in between like Adam Stern versys Kris Johnson. If Albert Pujols and Stern bothed faced a lot of weak pitching equivalent to the low majors, I would doubt you'd be able to notice much of a difference in their stat line.
The end result, on the offensive side, is a lot of guys with absurd batting lines. For instance, in 2006 the league average batting line was .293/.369/.421, and out of the guys who had 200 PA, four had an on-base percentage over .500 and four had batting average over .400. The unpredictable weather seasons from year to year has also led to varying levels of offense on the year to year basis. 2006 was a high level of offense, but in 2005 the average was .281/ .333/.400 a huge difference. Not only do all of these differences cause an issue of comparing players, but the season is only 90 games, making it less reliable to guage a players true ability which is so crucial in predicting a players future.
While the range is quite high, as I've said the elite talent is pretty good. The Cuban Super League is probably similar to Double A or Triple A. At least mathematically, let's compare it to Japan and the Dominican Winter League. Both leagues grade out significantly better, with the DWL being in the middle of AA and AAA and Japan being AAAA borderline MLB. The CNL has sixteen teams based off of Cuba's population of about 11,000,000 people, a relationship of about 700,000 people per team. Japan has a population of over 120,000,000 spread over twelve teams, a relationship of about 10,000,000 people per team. The Dominican Republic only has a population of about 8,000,000, but it's a league that only consists of six teams so it's roughly 1,300,000 people per team. If we consider that each racial group produces the same quality of players based on a function of it's population base, we would expect a direct relationship between players per team and talent level. Just out of pure 'coincidence' Clay Davenport found the league rating of the CNL of like .400 and the rating of the DWL like .800, roughly twice as difficult. The relationship isn't linear, but it's going to be there. The Cuban Super League has four teams, and which raises the ratio to around 2,750,000 people per team, which should bring the concentrated talent level to a pretty high rating. There's almost no reason to even attempt to quantify this leagues difficulty because the sample size caveats are going to be even more problematic. Now, with all of that out of the way, here are the EqA leaders for 2006 in the league with a minimum of 200 PA.
The relative quality of the National League isn't easy to define. Unlike the Japanese Leagues or even Mexico, there simply isn't a constant flow in and out of the league to America to grade the league. All of the data we have is coming out and is subject to a high degree of sample size issues. Still, Clay Davenport tried to gauge it from this data a couple years ago and found the quality play roughly the same as the Midwest League or the New York-Penn League, way at the bottom of the scale. Using the same method for Japan on the other hand gets a figure well above Triple A.
This leads to all sorts of questions. As defectors have shown, the high end talent from Cuba can certainly make it in the majors and perform at a high level. However, the average talent level for the Cuban National League is quite low. This leads to a very broad range of talent level on the individual level. You would get some Johan Santana versus Marcos Vechionacci or Albert Pujols versus Kris Johnson matchups. You'll also get some variants in between like Adam Stern versys Kris Johnson. If Albert Pujols and Stern bothed faced a lot of weak pitching equivalent to the low majors, I would doubt you'd be able to notice much of a difference in their stat line.
The end result, on the offensive side, is a lot of guys with absurd batting lines. For instance, in 2006 the league average batting line was .293/.369/.421, and out of the guys who had 200 PA, four had an on-base percentage over .500 and four had batting average over .400. The unpredictable weather seasons from year to year has also led to varying levels of offense on the year to year basis. 2006 was a high level of offense, but in 2005 the average was .281/ .333/.400 a huge difference. Not only do all of these differences cause an issue of comparing players, but the season is only 90 games, making it less reliable to guage a players true ability which is so crucial in predicting a players future.
While the range is quite high, as I've said the elite talent is pretty good. The Cuban Super League is probably similar to Double A or Triple A. At least mathematically, let's compare it to Japan and the Dominican Winter League. Both leagues grade out significantly better, with the DWL being in the middle of AA and AAA and Japan being AAAA borderline MLB. The CNL has sixteen teams based off of Cuba's population of about 11,000,000 people, a relationship of about 700,000 people per team. Japan has a population of over 120,000,000 spread over twelve teams, a relationship of about 10,000,000 people per team. The Dominican Republic only has a population of about 8,000,000, but it's a league that only consists of six teams so it's roughly 1,300,000 people per team. If we consider that each racial group produces the same quality of players based on a function of it's population base, we would expect a direct relationship between players per team and talent level. Just out of pure 'coincidence' Clay Davenport found the league rating of the CNL of like .400 and the rating of the DWL like .800, roughly twice as difficult. The relationship isn't linear, but it's going to be there. The Cuban Super League has four teams, and which raises the ratio to around 2,750,000 people per team, which should bring the concentrated talent level to a pretty high rating. There's almost no reason to even attempt to quantify this leagues difficulty because the sample size caveats are going to be even more problematic. Now, with all of that out of the way, here are the EqA leaders for 2006 in the league with a minimum of 200 PA.
| Rk | EqA | AVG | OBP | SLG | Name, Team |
| 1. | .333 | .407 | .548 | .619 | Yoandy Garlobo, MTZ |
| 2. | .332 | .425 | .522 | .616 | Osmani Urrutia, LTU |
| 3. | .329 | .353 | .454 | .680 | Joan Pedroso, LTU |
| 4. | .326 | .447 | .559 | .690 | Michel Enriquez, IJV |
| 5. | .319 | .327 | .416 | .676 | Yuliesky Gourriel, SSP |
| 6. | .317 | .320 | .512 | .559 | Frederich Cepeda, SSP |
| 7. | .315 | .351 | .442 | .649 | Yohenis Cespedes, GRA |
| 8. | .306 | .315 | .447 | .555 | Alexander Mayeta, IND |
| 9. | .300 | .363 | .435 | .574 | Leslie Anderson, CMG |
| 10. | .300 | .351 | .428 | .543 | Roberqui Videaux, GTM |
| 11. | .299 | .362 | .470 | .482 | Yoandry Urgelles, IND |
| 12. | .298 | .366 | .454 | .514 | Pedro Poll, SCU |
| 13. | .297 | .346 | .431 | .514 | Ariel Borrero, VCL |
| 14. | .296 | .340 | .414 | .565 | Yordanis Samon, GRA |
| 15. | .296 | .303 | .420 | .544 | Yosvani Peraza, PRI |
| 16. | .295 | .323 | .397 | .518 | Jokel Gil, MET |
| 17. | .295 | .337 | .393 | .542 | Dayan Viciedo, VCL |
| 18. | .294 | .351 | .454 | .507 | Loidel Chapelli, CMG |
| 19. | .294 | .314 | .421 | .575 | Vismay Santos, GTM |
| 20. | .293 | .340 | .437 | .512 | Rolando Meriño, SCU |
| 21. | .292 | .330 | .502 | .402 | Eduardo Paret, VCL |
| 22. | .292 | .353 | .417 | .508 | Alexis Laborde, GTM |
| 23. | .291 | .329 | .399 | .523 | Giorvis Duvergel, GTM |
| 24. | .289 | .317 | .435 | .500 | Reutilio Hurtado, SCU |
| 25. | .286 | .310 | .410 | .539 | Danny Miranda, CAV |
| 26. | .285 | .337 | .423 | .538 | Jose Abreu, CFG |
| 27. | .285 | .321 | .393 | .485 | Yeral Sanchez, HOL |
| 28. | .285 | .340 | .400 | .483 | Amaury Suarez, LTU |
| 29. | .284 | .344 | .396 | .522 | Yorelvis Charles, CAV |
| 30. | .284 | .322 | .399 | .523 | Alexei Bell, SCU |
Many of those players were on the Cuban National Team that played in the World Baseball Classic including almost all of the top 10. This list of hitters represent the top third or so of the offensive players. All of them could probably make the majors in some sort of way, not all of them are starters, but some of them could defenitely and it would be quite foolish to think some of them would not be stars in America.
I am sure that the only reason some of you are reading this is because you want to hear more about Yuliesky Gourriel and the awesomeness that surrounds him. He actually became the first Cuban player ever to have 20 steals and 20 homers in the CNL season. He played all 90 games and led the league in home runs (27), runs batted in (92), runs scored (89) and triples (11). He also became the first player in the league history to have fifty extra base hits. His biggest problem of course, was his discipline. In years past it was due to horrible walk rates, but this year he actually had a good one. He walked 51 times to just 30 strike outs, but his batting average was low and thus his on base percentage too. There were four guys with obp's over .500 by 12 points, his obp was just 16 points over .400. However, he played every inning of every game so he produced more runs than anyone with his bat.
In 2005 he was 6th in the league in EqA, at .315, but his season this year was a marked improvement. His batting average dropped by 30 points but his obp went up by 40 points and his slugging percentage went up by 70 points. If we merge the two seasons as an all-time EqA like stat, we will find EqA in 2005 of .311 and one this season of .324. His EqA last season translated to a .285 mark in the US, but the previous season he was .296. His season this year is probably closer to the latter. He might just be the best second baseman on the planet, and he played this season at 22. He's certainly 25-35 homer guy at the plate presently with room to grow. Unfortunately the likelihoud of Gourriel defecting is next to nilch. We'll just have to wait for the regime to fall.
The other guy you might be interested in is the 16 year old with a .245 (!) translated EqA going into the season. Dayan Viciedo was 17th. He didn't show great discipline, but man he's going to be fun to watch. Cuba is the main reason I am going to love the WBC. Learn to love it. While Americans and scouts talk about Gourriel's talents and wish they had him on their hands, Viciedo is heralded as the next Omar Linares on the island, and everyone's all over him. He's never played in front of a large international audience, outside of some small Junior World Championships. He'll get his first chance this November in the Intercontinental Cup.
I am sure that the only reason some of you are reading this is because you want to hear more about Yuliesky Gourriel and the awesomeness that surrounds him. He actually became the first Cuban player ever to have 20 steals and 20 homers in the CNL season. He played all 90 games and led the league in home runs (27), runs batted in (92), runs scored (89) and triples (11). He also became the first player in the league history to have fifty extra base hits. His biggest problem of course, was his discipline. In years past it was due to horrible walk rates, but this year he actually had a good one. He walked 51 times to just 30 strike outs, but his batting average was low and thus his on base percentage too. There were four guys with obp's over .500 by 12 points, his obp was just 16 points over .400. However, he played every inning of every game so he produced more runs than anyone with his bat.
In 2005 he was 6th in the league in EqA, at .315, but his season this year was a marked improvement. His batting average dropped by 30 points but his obp went up by 40 points and his slugging percentage went up by 70 points. If we merge the two seasons as an all-time EqA like stat, we will find EqA in 2005 of .311 and one this season of .324. His EqA last season translated to a .285 mark in the US, but the previous season he was .296. His season this year is probably closer to the latter. He might just be the best second baseman on the planet, and he played this season at 22. He's certainly 25-35 homer guy at the plate presently with room to grow. Unfortunately the likelihoud of Gourriel defecting is next to nilch. We'll just have to wait for the regime to fall.
The other guy you might be interested in is the 16 year old with a .245 (!) translated EqA going into the season. Dayan Viciedo was 17th. He didn't show great discipline, but man he's going to be fun to watch. Cuba is the main reason I am going to love the WBC. Learn to love it. While Americans and scouts talk about Gourriel's talents and wish they had him on their hands, Viciedo is heralded as the next Omar Linares on the island, and everyone's all over him. He's never played in front of a large international audience, outside of some small Junior World Championships. He'll get his first chance this November in the Intercontinental Cup.
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