I just read in Baseball America that a Cuban player by the name of Kendry Morales has recently defected. I had the great fortune of having watched Morales play for the Industriales of the Cuban League two years ago. I believe that he was only 19 years old at the time, and believe me, the kid can rake! The local fans were very excited about him, and he did hit a homerun in one of the games I watched with my friend Geoff Emerick at Estadium Latinoamericano in Havana. I'll try to locate my scoresheets from those games to provide more details on Morales's hitting exploits.

I am unfortunately unaware of any reliable statistics for Cuba's modern league, and as a sabermetrician I much prefer to make talent judgments on the basis of statistics and performance rather than on just observation the way some scouts do. (It actually amazes me the way they can genuinely see potential that does not readily manifest itself through statistical performance). So based upon just the few games I saw in Havana, Morales looked like the real deal to me.

I believe that he's already taking part in the standard domiciliary shell game to establish himself as a citizen of another country (perhaps the DR?) so that he can circumvent MLB's amateur draft - as any self-respecting foreign free agent would do. This is the route that agent Joe Cubas has gone with some of his clients so successfully in the past. This would make him a free agent and allow him to negotiate a potentially huge contract, rather than make him the indentured servant of the lucky club that drafts him and having then to endure playing 2-3 years for less than his market value before finally becoming eligible for salary arbitration.

Realistically, I wouldn't be surprised if he made a much bigger splash than any of the other Cuban defectors, from Rolando Arrojo to Rey Ordonez to El Duque. And although he doesn't have the extensive body of work of Ichiro Suzuki or Hideki Matsui from Japan, Kendry Morales could well become the greatest player to come to the U.S. from Cuba since the embargo...or he could just join recent Yankee bust Andy Morales (no idea whether they're related) on the scrap heap. It'll be interesting to see what happens, but if Jose Contreras can get $32 million for 4 years, then Morales should soon become a very wealthy young man.