The second stage of Cuban National Baseball Series will start in a few hours; a more suggestive phase since each of the 8 remaining teams could choose 5 reinforcements to fight for the four tickets to reach postseason.
As quality is higher, fans can enjoy more dynamic and offensive games. It will be very difficult for a squad to take advantage from the others, the difference between first place, Industriales, and those in bottom of the table, Artemisa, is only of six points. 42 games remain and there is opportunity for all, although it is almost utopian to think that there will be sudden movements at the top of the standings.
The leaders must be the same, perhaps with some circumstantial change. Industriales, Matanzas and Villa Clara must be on top without underestimate Pinar del Rio and Santiago. I do not think that Isla de la Juventud to remain the fourth place; they do not pick properly their reinforcements.
Holguin and Artemisa have received important additions to strengthen their squads, but it will be very difficult, despite being less weak on paper, they can move up in the standings. However, you must always leave a gap for surprises, and right now there is a qualitative short distance between the 8 teams enrolled in this second stage.
After this preamble, we can then analyze each team with its reinforcements for this stage :
Artemisa: Coach Danny Valdespino wisely strengthened his offensive. Undoubtedly, the Cazadores (Hunters) lineup now changes completely with Frederich Cepeda, Yosvani Alarcon and Jorge Johnson, a triad of respect to support their excellent pitching staff, which was also reinforced by Ciego de Avila’s Dachel Duquesne, and Camagüey’s Alexander Ayala, a pretty decent shortstop, also joined them. From my perspective, although it is a utopia that Artemisa to qualify to the play offs, or climbing a couple of steps, this has been one of the be
