WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: POOL A

March 5, 2026

Miguel Amaya

Hiram Bithorn Stadium

Team Panama

Workout Day Press Conference

Q. Tell me about your expectations for tomorrow, a new World Classic for Panama, and the chance to move on to the second round.

MIGUEL AMAYA: Really we're all excited and happy to be able to be here. It's a great tournament for this team. It's a young team with a lot of desire and really anxious to go out to play in the field and have our country in high esteem.

We really want start this competition tomorrow.

Q. From everyone who talked to us, we've been seeing that it looks like you're one of the leaders on the team. The guys trust what you can contribute to the team. Basically, that permission by the Cubs so you can be with the Panamanian team.

MIGUEL AMAYA: Yes, on this team we're all leaders. Those of us who are in the field or out, everybody can be a leader, a hero in the moment. As I told you, we're all together, 100 percent. Everybody wants to put in a great result to give Panama a good name.

Q. Yesterday I was talking with your parents. They're really excited, and they've been with you throughout your whole career in baseball, Little League. It's not the first time you've represented Panama. You've done it in lower leagues. To start with the national team, what does it mean to you? What message do you send to Panama and most importantly to the people who have seen you grow up?

MIGUEL AMAYA: Truly I'm thankful to my parents. From day one I've been playing this beautiful sport, they've been with me at all stages. Ever since I was 9 years old up until nowadays playing for the World Classic. It fills me with pride to represent them, to represent my province, to represent my country.

Here we are to give everything we've got to fill them with pride, a lot of pride.

Q. How big is the World Baseball Classic for Panama as a sport? In Panama, there's so much talk about it. What do you think will be key tomorrow to try to beat a Cuban team that we know very little of maybe on this side of the planet?

MIGUEL AMAYA: Truly ever since I'm aware of it, baseball has been big in Panama. We've had a lot of victories in this sport. I can't name names right now, but whoever knows about baseball knows who they are.

We're really thirsty and we really want to go out to the field. The team is ready to compete, score runs, to defend, and the pitchers are ready to attack the batters and compete and just ready for anything tomorrow with Cuba.

Q. What do you make of the two games that were played with the Yankees and Detroit in Florida? At the end it was 2-1. To achieve an objective, you need to get to the plate more and need to be more productive against Cuba?

MIGUEL AMAYA: That's correct, answering your question with hitting as well as with respect to all of the opponents that we're going to have in this tournament, I don't think there's a better staff than those that we faced on those two teams. We faced a Cy Young caliber pitcher, Max Fried, we faced Flaherty the next day against Detroit, who's a pitcher who's been in the playoffs.

It was the first time the whole group was together was when we started to join all the unity, the chemistry of the team, and these were teams that were very helpful to minimize and make adjustments with details, fine tuning for tomorrow.

Q. I want to ask you what have you thought about -- I mean, you've had injuries in the season, but from then, did you ever think that you'd be in the Panamanian selection knowing that you went through highs and lows? What did you think of wearing that jersey, that dream that every kid wants to grow up and play in a World Classic? What does that mean to you?

MIGUEL AMAYA: Well, the main thing, what's done is done, but that's in the past. It was something at the time that worried me a lot, mostly because of my career and such, and also facing the World Baseball Classic now, we are 100 percent ready to compete.

To me it is an honor and a privilege to be able to have these six letters on my chest. It makes me really happy to be with this group of people representing a whole country. I'm super, super excited because I know that we are going to give people something to talk about.