When signing a talent from a foreign league, you don\u2019t necessarily know what to expect. You can do all the in-person scouting and do all the statistical breakdowns you want, sometimes the jump in talent from another country to the majors ends up being too much to overcome. In cases like Hideki Matsui, he was an other-worldly hitter in NPB and ended translating that to a very good MLB career. However in cases like Kei Igawa, a successful overseas career didn\u2019t mean anything, and he was crushed at the major league level.<\/p>\n
In the case of Orlando \u201cEl Duque\u201d Hern\u00e1ndez, there were a lot of unknowns. Sure, you could get some info and stats from the Cuban league and he had pitched against some major league talent in appearances for the Cuban national team, but due to international relations, it wasn\u2019t always a simple task to get info and scouting out of Cuba. Beyond that, circumstances beyond Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s control got him banned from baseball by the authorities in the years leading up to his defection.<\/p>\n
Due to all that, there was some amount of wishful thinking involved when the Yankees inked El Duque to a deal in 1998. However, everything ended up working out pretty swimmingly<\/a>.<\/p>\n Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez Born to a father who had played in the Cuban National Series, with two brothers \u2014 including future fellow big leaguer Liv\u00e1n \u2014 Orlando made a name for himself on the baseball fields of Cuba. As a youngster, he wasn\u2019t expected to be much of a ballplayer, as he was told as an 11-year old that he had no ability. However, he had a great love for the sport, and continued to work at it.<\/p>\n While it took a little while, Hern\u00e1ndez broke into the Cuban league with the Industriales, who are the most successful team in Cuban National Series history. Eventually, he became one of the league\u2019s most decorated players, setting the all-time pitching wins record. He also became a regular on the Cuban national team, helping them win gold at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.<\/p>\n As that was happening, his brother Liv\u00e1n also began to make a name for himself. Liv\u00e1n became a bit more disenchanted with life in Cuba a bit earlier than his brother and defected in 1995, eventually signing with the Florida Marlins. Between that, his high profile, and a misunderstanding of Orlando\u2019s relationship with a sports agent, that put him under a big spotlight under the authorities. Worried that he would follow Liv\u00e1n in defecting, Orlando was kept off the Cuban roster for the 1996 Olympic baseball tournament in Atlanta, and he was eventually banned from playing in the National Series. Whatever level of disenchantment Orlando had previously, that certainly ramped it up massively.<\/p>\n Banned from playing the sport he loved, Orlando decided to defect himself over Christmas 1997. The boat he was traveling on was intercepted by the US Coast Guard and Orlando and the other travelers were sent to a detention center in the Bahamas. After some intervention and lobbying from El Duque\u2019s future agent Joe Cubas, the US eventually allowed the travelers to seek asylum in Costa Rica, which eventually led to them being able to obtain US visas. With the help of the Yankees, El Duque obtained one, and eventually signed with the team for four years and $6.6 million in March 1998.<\/p>\n (For more information on his upbringing and defection, I went into more detail in our post on Hern\u00e1ndez as part of our Top 100 Yankees series<\/a> from a couple years ago.)<\/p>\n
Signing Date: March 23, 1998
Contract: Four years, $6.6 million<\/p>\n