Lisbán Correa

Lisbán Correa Sánchez (Kiko)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 2", Weight 192 lb.

• Born October 20, 1986 in Havana Cuba

BR register page

Biographical Information

Lisbán Correa has been a catcher in the Cuban Serie Nacional. His father Iván Correa also played in Cuba, both of them winning home run titles; his grandfather Erol Correa played there as well.

In his second season, 2006-2007, he hit .258/.300/.346 with the Metropolitanos. He batted .257/.315/.383 in 2007-2008 and allowed 27 steals in 47 tries. He made vast improvements in 2008-2009, producing at a .316/.455/.522 clip with a team-high 15 home runs and 74 RBI in 88 games. He was 11th in the Cuban Serie Nacional in RBI. He fielded .981, had a league-worst 13 passed balls, allowed a league-most 36 steals and threw out 23 attempted base-stealers.

Correa was "promoted" to the Industriales and hit .265/.336/.424 in 2009-2010. He missed six months after chasing pitcher Yanier Sosa after being plunked. Despite his limtied time, he still had 11 passed balls, second in the league behind Yosvani Alarcón.

Lisbán batted .302/.369/.518 with 37 RBI in 62 games in a similar role in 2010-2011. In 2011-2012, he had a strong season, hitting .273/.386/.521. He tied Rusney Castillo and teammate Yasmani Tomas for 10th in the league with 16 home runs, though he also allowed the second-most steals (behind Lazaro Herrera) and tied for 4th with 8 passed balls. He was just 3 for 20 with two walks, a homer and 10 whiffs in the classification phase in 2012-2013 though he did better in the second phase.

He hit .324/.417/.504 in 2013-2014, smacking 24 doubles in 250 at-bats. He was third in the league in doubles, 4 behind Maikel Caceres and Frederich Cepeda but led with 63 K (8 ahead of Edilse Silva). He was 9th in average (between José Miguel Fernandez and Luis la O), 8th in slugging (between Yordanis Linares and Guillermo Avilés) and 9th in OPS (between Yadiel Hernández and Ariel Sánchez). He was now primarily being used at DH.

Correa remained a solid producer in 2014-2015 at .291/.432/.510. He tied Reutilio Hurtado for 9th in home runs (11), tied for 3rd in strikeouts, was 9th in slugging (between Alexei Bell and Roel Santos) and was 9th in OPS (between Urmani Guerra and Michel Enríquez). He then defected and went to Haiti, where smugglers had told him a MLB team was ready to sign him. There was no such arrangement in place and he went to the Dominican Republic as an illegal immigrant. He tried to find someone to sign him there but no one did.

He then returned to Cuba, which had become open to former defectors returning with players like Yuniesky Betancourt, Erisbel Arruebaruena and Pavel Quesada all coming back, the former two after having played in the majors. He did an excellent job in limited time in 2019-2020, showing no rust by batting .408/.539/.708 with 9 homers, 33 runs, 31 RBI and 31 walks in just 18 games.

In 2020-2021, he kept up the onslaught - .320/.457/.692, 28 HR, 61 R, 82 RBI, 63 BB in 75 G. He easily won the home run title (8 ahead of Rafael Viñales), was 4th in total bases (between Santiago Torres and Dennis Laza), was second in RBI (two behind Avilés), led in slugging (86 ahead of Yaser González) and led in OPS (29 ahead of Cepeda). (There is some discrepancy between the top-10 leaderboards on the Cuban baseball federation site and the stats listed elsewhere on the site for this season). He won the Serie Nacional MVP, the first former defector to win. He was the first MVP from the long-time powerful Industriales to win since Javier Méndez 18 years prior. Oddly, he was not named the All-Star at 1B, which went to Viñales; Correa did win the Offensive All-Star honor there.

Following the Cuban season, he signed with the Mexico City Red Devils. He was 1 for 8 in two games before making his Cuban national team debut at age 34, in the Americas Olympic Qualifier. He debuted pinch-hitting for Roel Santos, down 6-3 in the 9th with a man on, and took Venezuela's Andrés Machado deep. He started the next two games at first base (Yordanis Samón moving from 1B to DH to replace the injured Alfredo Despaigne) but went 0 for 8 as Cuba was eliminated, the first time they would miss Olympic baseball when it was a medal event.