The two best Cuban pitchers alive are not in the major leagues. They are nearly 900 kilometres apart in Japan, both having the kind of season that gets remembered — and one of them is, as of this weekend, two saves from history.
Almost nobody covers this in English. Here is where both stand, and why the next week matters.
Raidel Martínez: two saves from the Golden Players Club
Yomiuri Giants closer Raidel Martínez recorded his 248th career save on August 26 against the Yakult Swallows. That leaves him two short of 250 — the number that admits a pitcher to the Meikyukai, Japan’s Golden Players Club, the country’s most exclusive playing fraternity. Its pitching thresholds are 200 wins or 250 saves; in more than 45 years, no foreign-born pitcher has ever reached either. Alex Ramírez, who collected 2,000 hits, remains the club’s only foreign-born member. Martínez, at 29, is about to become the second — and the first to do it from the mound.
His 2026 season, per NPB’s official statistics: 45 appearances, 36 saves — leading the Central League — and a 1.50 ERA. It is his fourth league saves crown in five seasons. The all-time list he is climbing looks like this:
| Rank | Pitcher | Career NPB saves |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hitoki Iwase | 407 |
| 2 | Shingo Takatsu | 286 |
| 3 | Kazuhiro Sasaki | 252 |
| 4 | Yoshihisa Hirano | 250 |
| 4 | Naoya Masuda | 250 |
| 6 | Raidel Martínez | 248 |
Source: NPB official all-time saves register, August 29, 2026. Martínez is the only active pitcher in the top six still closing at his peak.
The countdown should be short. The Giants sit second in the Central League, four and a half games back — a pennant race that manufactures save situations. Two clean chances gets him to 250, and Sasaki’s 252 becomes the next number in sight before the season ends in October.
Moinelo’s return: a 0.43 ERA and a masterpiece
Across the country in Fukuoka, Liván Moinelo — the reigning Pacific League MVP, the first Cuban ever to win the award — spent most of 2026 sidelined by shoulder trouble. He returned to the SoftBank Hawks’ rotation in mid-August and has been untouchable: three starts, 3–0, 21 innings, 21 strikeouts, a 0.43 ERA.
The third start was the statement. On August 26 against the Lotte Marines he threw a complete-game shutout — nine innings, three hits, nine strikeouts, 115 pitches. His first shutout of the season, in his third game back from a shoulder problem, at the exact moment the Hawks need him for the stretch run.
For anyone who lost the thread: Moinelo spent seven seasons as arguably the best reliever in Japan, converted to starting in 2024, and promptly won consecutive ERA titles:
| Season | Role | W–L | IP | ERA | K |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Starter (year one) | 11–5 | 163 | 1.88 — led league | 155 |
| 2025 | Starter — Pacific League MVP | 12–3 | 167 | 1.46 — led league | 172 |
| 2026 | Returned mid-August | 3–0 | 21 | 0.43 | 21 |
Source: NPB official statistics, August 29, 2026. Career: 651.1 innings, 1.75 ERA, 770 strikeouts.
Two arms, one province, one road out
Here is the part the Japanese coverage never carries and the Cuban coverage never says out loud: both of these pitchers come from Pinar del Río, Cuba’s westernmost province, and neither of them ever really had a Serie Nacional career.
Moinelo was dispatched to SoftBank in May 2017, at 21, under the Cuban federation’s contract system — the sanctioned route, not a defection. Martínez signed with the Chunichi Dragons three months earlier as a 20-year-old developmental player through the same channel. His entire Serie Nacional record amounts to a handful of relief outings for Pinar del Río — 14.2 innings in the 57th Series. The most decorated closer in Cuban history, by any professional measure, threw fewer innings at home than a September call-up throws in a month.
That is the real story of Cuban pitching in this decade. The island no longer develops its aces at home and shows them off in the Serie Nacional; it exports them at 20 and borrows them back. Both men wore the Cuba jersey at the 2026 World Baseball Classic in March — see our full Team Cuba roster breakdown — in the tournament that ended with Cuba’s first-ever first-round exit. Then both went back to Japan and resumed being the best in their league. The federation route gave Cuba two WBC arms and gave Japan two franchise pitchers; what it never gave Pinar del Río fans was the chance to watch either one in his prime.
It also complicates the usual accounting of Cuban baseball talent. Our database of all 403 Cuban major leaguers counts everyone who reached MLB or the Negro leagues — but the two most accomplished Cuban pitchers of this era will not appear in any MLB register. Their careers live entirely in NPB’s record book, which is precisely why they are invisible in English.
What to watch
- Save No. 250 — could come in the Giants’ next series. When it does, Martínez becomes the first foreign-born pitcher to reach the Meikyukai standard.
- Moinelo’s next start — on his current schedule, early September. If the shoulder holds, he anchors SoftBank’s rotation into the postseason.
- October — both could pitch deep into the NPB postseason while the Serie Nacional opens at home on October 4. Two Cuban Octobers, an ocean apart.
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