Photo: Calixto Llanes.

With the sixth defeat of the Farmers of Cuba against Panama 10-4, the performance of our team in the 65th Caribbean Series came to an end.

More than a comment on everything that happened, I invite you to review what was written after the closing of each performance of a Cuban team from the Caribbean Series of 2014 to 2019.

Errors, pending issues, and repeated ideas appear in capital letters (in bold).

Has it been worked on?

Are only the players responsible?

Until when the same mistakes?

I invite you to remember.

What happened in 2023 is a complete retrospective.

I still have dozens of comments from fans saying that I was wrong to write my first work on this 2023 Caribbean Series entitled: Stimulus yes, but names are missing.

The journalist looks at baseball (and any sport) from specialization and passion, but without fanaticism.

Reality is not romanticism.

Caribbean Series 2014: Defoliating the Daisy

Raining down on Villa Clara's sad failure in the 56th Caribbean Series is like telling a movie that the majority saw.

, are some of the leaves torn off in Isla Margarita.

What happened and the future of Cuba in these conflicts require a more intentional analysis.

The tournament, it is true,

, for reasons ranging from players who do not want to play the game due to lack of incentives to absences due to spring training in the Major Leagues. .

We underestimate our rivals and let ourselves be carried away by the pride of a baseball that is still respected in the region, but that today is experiencing a crucial fight to maintain its quality.

The one we saw is a professional ball, with laws, routines and enjoyment very different from ours. 

Will we be less if we do the same in 2015, thinking of the country, as is the course of the Caribbean Series?

baseball players —perhaps not by arrobas as before, but there are—, except that the national series mean for them a ceiling that has already been exceeded.

Insertion into other leagues is necessary without ending ours

.

The approved steps must be expanded now (whether in Mexico, Japan or another country) to demonstrate that what happened on Isla Margarita is an erasable chapter in memory.

We can be full of possible solutions and criteria, but nothing will speak better for Cuba than victories, those that Villa Clara could not now and that we all owe ourselves

.

Caribbean Series 2015: Champion without raising the smoke

The second experience in the Caribbean Series left more lessons for Cuban baseball, while our fans must understand, more and more, that

The first important concept, ratified by the most knowledgeable specialists in the discipline in the region upon finding out about some misunderstandings generated in Cuba about the constitution of the vueltabajero cast, is that we

.

Hence, at one point it intended to be considered a small World Series.

Once again

, which is perfectly possible to solve if we add the scientific news of sabermetrics and follow the players not only in the finals of their championships, but since long before.

To be fair, and after talking to various mentors, the rest of the outfits didn't know as much about ours, but they pay for that service right away.

Of the technical lessons it is also necessary to comment again.

, even if they look impeccable, nor to put together a staff of less than 12 pitchers.

and above all the training of relievers, setters of innings and closers.

Learning to make quick adjustments in turn means more discipline in the hitting box.

It is true that the lower zone that the umpires call in this baseball does not look like ours,

.

Nor is it possible to mess up due to lack of coordination as we saw in the gardens.

Caribbean Series 2016: Blunt Claws

When Vegueros de Pinar del Río caressed the title of the Caribbean Series a year ago,

.

Now the Ciego de Ávila tigers showed their claws, but without enough edge to do much more than win a game.

On the field they were inferior to the rest of the teams in almost all aspects:

they were the ones with the fewest hits (243), runs scored (11), hits (36), while the pitchers allowed more runs than anyone else (33, of they 32 clean), more extra-base hitters (14) and as if that were not enough, the least strikeouts (25).

What else failed in the Avila tigers?

Nor if from the third to the fifth bat they barely pushed two runs.

As for those in charge of going up to the box, the lack of control (29 tickets and four hits by pitches), the ineffectiveness of the starters and the little resolution of the relievers reported more than one headache.

To all of the above, we must add that there was

, and only in the game Against the Dominican Republic that extra appeared that for many years made us take games out of the freezer, but that today we yearn for in extinct times.

We are waiting for more from Alfredo Despaigne, Yosvani Alarcón, Yorbis Borroto, Yurisbel Gracial, Lourdes Gurriel and Osvaldo Vázquez, while

A team is never that bad when it loses or that good when it wins, goes an old baseball saying.

These tigers

.

And that's baseball.

Caribbean Series 2017: Sorrels wounded, Sorrels applauded

Alexander Ayala's strikeout decreed the fatal injury for the Alazanes de Granma team in the semifinal of the 59th Caribbean Baseball Series, when they fell 1-0 against the Águilas de Mexicalli.

Perhaps Carlos Martí could have moved the bench a little earlier when the total dominance of the rival pitchers was appreciated.

It seems so, no matter how hard it is now not to do the autopsy.

We have to work more on the concentration and selection of the hitting zone with our players

, who we saw more than 50 percent attack the pitcher's first delivery.

Not everyone can be Despaigne who with a swing can change the decoration of a party and can afford that luxury.

The Alazanes de Granma have given the best impression of a Cuban team since 2014. Second in pitching with 1.67 pcl;

no opposing batter could homer them;

leader in connected doubles (8) and second in home runs (4);

first in defense and third in offensive average (251 average).

Of course,

Not long ago, a director of many years remembered that

.

And that happened to Carlos Martí, to his boys, to Granma and to Cuba that followed him.

Defeat hurts, but perhaps this one hurts less because the performance of the champions of the 56th National Series came close to the level we could expect from them.

Caribbean Series 2018: Alazanes in Jalisco: power and desire

There is a rosary of arguments to defend what was done by Carlos Martí's troops, as well as to disapprove the final result, beyond the two setbacks against the Águilas Cibaeñas of the Dominican Republic.

Let's say it clearly:

and we can win as we did in 2015 with Vegueros de Pinar del Río, or fall in the semifinal gates, as has happened in 2017 and 2018 .

The fundamental differences between the professional sets and any that we carry are centered in the assumption that each one makes of the event

, the most up-to-date game tactics and the timely resolution in key situations, to name only three.

The conformation of the sets to this type of contest cannot combine stimulus and competitiveness

, although the passions seize the hobbies of the champions in the National Series.

If the rivals do not conceive it from a different reality, why should we?

The care given to the base runners by the pitchers, the few runs and hits in a game, the lack of stealers

, the specialization of pitching since the National Series,

(70% of the turns were consumed between the first and second pitches),

and taking advantage of each opponent's mistake are some of the evils that have been carried over for a long time and that they do prevent international victories and podiums.

The Sorrels of Granma did what they could and not what they wanted.

They earned sympathy, respect and praise from many, although the dream of Cuba was left unfinished.

Caribbean Series 2019: The dilemma is not winning or losing

In the Panamanian tournament, as we have seen in the six previous editions,

.

This was reflected by the markers and even the possibility of discussing a title for the second time since the return in 2014. Succeeding did not mean that everything was fine, just as the setback does not show only spots or darkness.

Obvious in this analysis the idyll of going to these games with the full champions of our National Series, since

and it is not possible to establish quotas since a cast may need more pitchers and other more batters.

It is necessary then to go to the center of the target.

Our offense misbehaved because

.

The first pitch was him 32% of the time.

Cuba was the one that made the most swings at that initial shipment among all the cast.

It is true that the fact of facing pitchers, without being active Major Leaguers, has a broader repertoire than the average of our pitchers;

but the questions arise: Has this not always happened?

How can we counter it?

Is the best Cuban pitching dominant because he is superior or because his rivals don't know him?

Talent, quality and virtues to prevail in professional leagues count for arrobas in our players

.

There are plenty of examples in the Major Leagues and in the Caribbean winter circuit itself.

In other words, the dilemma is not whether or not we win a tournament, but how we can look better by solving errors, trends and visible deficiencies in each international competition.

In short tournaments, lineup changes have to be agile

if a batter doesn't respond;

and it cannot be that a man in charge of pushing runs like Alfredo Despaigne —who proved to be the best Cuban baseball player today— by far opened innings six times in the two final games.

To all of the above we must add the psychological aspect, which is not equivalent to pressure or stress.

, the one that Cuba imposed as soon as it attended an international event and we see today in all the other casts, except ours: celebrating races, cheering from the bench, laughing and enjoying baseball as a king sport.

The almost protocol greeting when scoring or driving weighs as much or more than the bats themselves.

If something is clear, it is the need to review everything and everyone in charge of making Cuban baseball look distinguished, happy and close to world leaders

.

When that happens, we will be able to win many tournaments again and a defeat will not hurt as it hurts this town now.

(Taken from the author's Facebook profile)