2023 World Baseball Classic: Cuba Team Preview

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The 2023 World Baseball Classic kicks off March 7, the first edition of this tournament since 2017. Cuba looks to improve on its seventh-place finish back in 2017, and they have a good shot at advancing to the second round with one of the more favorable pool groupings. The 2023 WBC is must-watch TV for all baseball lovers with the most talent-packed rosters to date.

It will be tough to top what happened in 2017 when USA’s center fielder Adam Jones robbed his former Orioles teammate Manny Machado of a HR in an elimination game versus the Dominican Republic with the world watching. But I wouldn’t be surprised if we see something that we’ll remember for years.

Cuba Team Preview: WBC 2023

Cuba and the Netherlands kick off the 2023 WBC tournament March 7 in Taichung, Taiwan. Cuba is part of the Pool A group along with Taiwan, Netherlands, Italy, and Panama. Unlike most clubs, Cuba gets a day off before facing Italy in their second game March 9. (Check out the entire World Baseball Classic schedule.)

Here’s the WBC bracket (via MLB.com), with the WBC Championship being played March 21 in Miami.

WBC: Cuba Roster

Cuba’s team is led by a number of MLB position players, as their lineup looks fairly solid with a strong OF group. Their pitching staff is somewhat thin and that is the main reason why they’re such long shots to win the tournament. The lineup is led by White Sox teammates, Yoán Moncada and Luis Robert. We could see manager Armando Johnson roll out a lineup that looks something like this:

WBC: Cuba Pitchers

The Cuba pitching staff has a couple of question marks, but they are rostering a few MLB arms. It’s tough to project their rotation and bullpen, but the Team Cuba starting rotation could look something like this.

The bullpen has a handful of solid arms, and they’ll need their best efforts if they want to play deep into the tournament. Their bullpen is led by Raidel Martinez, who should be the club’s closer, along with Onelki Garcia, Miguel Romero and Elian Leyva.