Andy Ibañez, Yoan López and Elian Leyva are the first of the overseas players to confirm their participation in the national preselection for the V World Baseball Classic.
This was announced on Twitter by the Cuban Federation (FCB), who expressed their pleasure at being able to make this announcement and reaffirmed that “we continue to work on the formation of the group of athletes with a view to the V World Baseball Classic , in which we will have stars from our elite league and others who play on the international stage”.
FCB have strongly denounced the harassment, aggression and false reports surrounding the process they use to put together their squad for the important international event.
Ibañez was already present at the 2013 World Classic. At the time, he said it was a great pride to wear the national team shirt and stand alongside players of Friedrich Cepeda’s class. Ibañez, who plays second base, was with the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball (MLB) and currently plays with the Detroit Tigers of Major League Baseball.
In an interview conducted by Alejandro Abadía and Giancarlo Gil in November 2020, he replied that “with 100% certainty he would play for the Cuban team.
Fellow Isla de la Juventud player Yoan López is a pitcher who made his MLB debut with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2018, went on to play for the Atlanta Braves and joined the New York Mets this year.
Havana’s Elián Leyva currently plays for the Naranjeros de Hermosillo in Mexico’s Pacific League, where in 2018 he was one of only five players to win the Triple Crown of pitching (most games won, best clean runs per game average) with Charros de Jalisco and most strikeouts) in this prestigious competition.
