Just who is Ricardo Cubillan? For Red Sox fans, he is a member of the organization, but is also serving a season long suspension for violation of drug policy and that suspension is a 76 game one – or the entire season, since he was on the Lowell Spinners roster. Not every player is a top of the charts prospect.
I saw his name on Sox Prospects as I was checking on the status of Jon Denney – a player on the restricted list that I wrote about. Cubillan has very little in the area of biographical information. A search brings up the various news stories of his suspension, but that is about the limit of this mystery man or mystery teenager since Cubillian is only 17-years-old.
Cubillan was signed as a free agent and no contract specifics are listed, but somewhere in the servers of MLB I am sure it is dutifully noted in binary. Maybe a nice target for the group that hacked Ashley Madison will target that? Maybe find a pile of Kansas City Royals “ballots” that never made it to the final tabulation?
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What is also available is that young Mr. Cubillan stands six feet tall, weighs 155 pounds, bats and throws right-handed and plays shortstop. Cubillan is also a native of Venezuela and that is some great linkage – Venezuela, shortstops and the impact of a few Venezuelan players on Red Sox history.
The Red Sox had one of the best shortstops back 40 or so years ago in Luis Aparicio. Luis was near the end of the line in his three Boston seasons from 1971-1973. “Little Louie” – as he was known – did slash a very respectable .253/.303/.320 in Boston, made two All-Star teams and may have cost them a pennant in 1972.
That was a strike year and there were no make-up games. Late in the season the Sox needed a valuable run and Aparicio, an all-time great as a base runner, tripped over third. No run. No win. Sox finish second by one-half game.
Aparicio, when he started with the White Sox, replaced another great shortstop from Venezuela – Chico Carrasquel. In fact next to oil that country apparently has the inside track of churning out shortstops. The list of players from Venezuela is extensive and the Red Sox currently have one – Pablo Sandoval – who I will 100% guarantee will not play shortstop.
There is another connection to Venezuelans that is present with all the hype over Pedro Martinez being inducted into the Hall of Fame and have his number retired. That connection is Tony Armas, Jr.
Tony’s father, Tony Armas, also played for Boston and led the AL in Home runs and RBI (and strikeouts) in 1984, but his son was later a PTBNL is the deal that brought Pedro to Boston.
I have no idea what will happen to Ricardo Cubillan? This happened when he was 16-years-old and to what extent family or agents were involved no one will probably ever know. What will be interesting is to follow Cubillan this off-season in the DR, where he will probably spend some time.
Statistics via baseball-reference
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