The baseball scouts came in droves to Estadio Cibao in Santiago, Dominican Republic, Nov. 4, 2011, representatives from all 30 major league clubs on hand to witness a showcase that featured Yoenis Cespedes, the Cuban star outfielder who had defected from the Communist island only months earlier.
Like many cases with Cuban players before Cespedes, baseball talent evaluators did not have a lot of statistical analysis or information available to them to gauge Cespedes’ abilities, although he put himself on the radar during the 2009 World Baseball Classic, when Cespedes slugged his way to a .458 average over six games.