Ariel Martínez Marrero

Cuban baseball player. Infielder. Catcher specialist. He possesses very good qualities in the performance of his position. Member of the national pre-selection.

He was born in the municipality of Matanzas into a humble family, and from an early age he developed aptitudes for sports.

He started playing baseball at an early age. He went through the EIDE where he later joined the Provincial Baseball Academy participating in youth competitions. He is part of the Matanzas selection.

Ariel Martínez played in Japanese baseball for three seasons with the main Chunichi team and his numbers and participation improved as the seasons went by.

Adding up the three, he had 431 at-bats in which he hit 118 hits, with 12 home runs and about 44 runs batted in.

During that time, he also had to assume other positions besides catcher in order to play, because he was not always able to do so as a catcher.

"I want to keep doing all three things," he declared regarding his performances in the positions of outfielder and first baseman, in addition to his usual position of catcher, something that would also give him more versatility to join Team Cuba for the World Baseball Classic.

Furthermore, the Matanzas native aspires to establish himself as a starter with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters to continue growing in his career.