Havana, Cuba.- Cuban catcher Ariel Martinez signed on Wednesday with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters team of the Professional League of Japan.

Happy to be able of continuing to represent Cuban baseball, the 26-year-old catcher, who has played in that Asian country since 2018 said, although until now he was part of the Chunichi Dragons team.

So far, the details of the contract are kept in absolute confidentiality. The Twitter account of the Jit media outlet, attached to the National Sports Institute (Inder), shows a photo in which the president of the Cuban Baseball Federation, Juan Reinaldo Perez, is signing the contract together with the player, trained in Matanzas’ Cocodrilos team.

According to experts, Martinez is a catcher whose main value is in the defensive field, although this season he averaged .276 with the Chunichi team in the elite level of Japanese baseball, with OBP .350 and slugging .437, in addition to hitting eight homers in 286 times at bat, a respectable offensive performance for his position.