White Sox's Abreu up next in Cuban ballplayer smuggling case

Published March 16, 2017

MIAMI (AP) Chicago White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu is up next as a prosecution witness in the trial of a Florida sports agent and a baseball trainer accused of smuggling Cuban players from the communist island.

Abreu is scheduled to testify Wednesday in the case against agent Bartolo Hernandez and trainer Julio Estrada. Prosecutors say they oversaw an illegal operation that smuggled players from Cuba to third countries so they could sign lucrative free agent deals with Major League Baseball teams.

Abreu signed a $68 million deal with the White Sox after defecting from Cuba in 2013. Typically, Estrada's company got a third of the contracts and Hernandez got 5 percent.

Abreu was American League rookie of the year in 2014 and last year had 25 home runs and 100 RBIs.

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