MLB Players: The All-Time Cuban Team (Part 1)
The Pitchers
Luis Tiant leads all Cuban pitchers in victories all-time with 229. The Havana native has an ERA of 3.30 during his career and is 39th on the all-time list with 2,416 strikeouts.
More from MLB History
- Analyzing the Boston Red Sox trade for Dave Henderson and Spike Owen
- 5 MLB players who are human cheat codes for Immaculate Grid
- Good MLB players in different uniforms: A look at a random year and two random teams
- Sticky fingers: The pine tar incident, New York Yankees, Kansas City Royals and Gaylord Perry
- Chicago Cubs scoring 36 runs in two games? That’s nothing compared to this historic mark
The righty appeared in three all-star teams and in 1972 won the AL comeback player of the year. In 1972, “Little Louie “ led the AL in shutouts. For all the reasons stated above, “El Tiante” is my righty.
My lefty is Mike Cuellar. In his 15 Major League seasons, he won 185 games, the most by any Latino lefthander. The pitcher from Villa Clara, Cuba was the first Latino to win a Cy Young and his 1,632 K’s are only topped by Johan Santana when we talk about Hispanic southpaws. Cuellar also led the AL in ERA twice and was inducted in the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame in 1982.
The man to close the game on my team would be Aroldis Chapman. The lefty flamethrower leads Cubans with 273 saves and set the record for the fastest pitch thrown when he hurled fastball of 105 mph in 2010. During his career, he has an ERA of 2.23, a WHIP of 1.02, and has been an all-star six times.
His FIP of 2.01 is the lowest of any pitcher with more than 500 innings pitched. His SO9 of 14.8 is astonishing and 883 strikeouts are only a little more than 300 off the all-time lead for closers.
My Cuban all-time team:
1. Cristóbal Torriente CF
2. Martín Dihigo 2B
3. Rafael Palmeiro 1B
4. Tany Pérez 3B
5. Tony Oliva RF
6. José Abreu DH
7. José Canseco LF
8. Yasmani Grandal C
9. Dagoberto Campaneris SS
RHP Luis Tiant
LHP Mike Cuellar
CP Aroldis Chapman