C. Trent Rosecrans

crosecrans@enquirer.com

GOODYEAR, Ariz. — Raisel Iglesias doesn’t have his hair dyed blond. Other than that simple fact, the similarities between him and Vladimir Gutierrez are striking.

Both, of course, came from Cuba and signed with the Reds. Both were relievers in Cuba and were signed to start. Both are right-handed. Iglesias is 6-foot-2, 188 pounds. Guitierrez is listed at 6-0, 190 pounds, even if there doesn’t seem to be two inches or two pounds separating the two when they stand side-by-side. Gutierrez even sports pants cuffed high with his red socks showing, just as Iglesias does during the regular season (but not this spring).

The 21-year-old Gutierrez is grateful to have the 27-year-old Iglesias, a veteran of two big-league seasons, not only in camp with him, but as part of the same team, just as Iglesias was grateful having Aroldis Chapman and Brayan Pena welcome him to the Reds.

The two didn’t know each other in Cuba. Iglesias left the country in 2013, just as Gutierrez was starting his first season in Cuba’s Serie Nacional, where he’d win the league’s Rookie of the Year Award at age 18. This offseason Gutierrez visited Iglesias for a couple of weeks in Miami, where Iglesias has settled. The two worked out together, threw together and talked.

“It's really good to have more people that have the same culture that I have,” Iglesias said, according to translator Julio Morillo. “My goal right now is to try to teach [Gutierrez and Alfredo Rodriguez] them the same things Aroldis and Brayan taught me years before -- you've got to do this, here are your routines in order to help them be better.”

The other trappings of a team have been helpful for Gutierrez, especially a clubhouse in spring training that may only have one other Cuban, but plenty of players from across Latin America, as well as Americans who speak Spanish.

While teammates from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Columbia or Mexico must deal with cultural changes of their own, Cuban players must deal with so much more considering the decades-long sanctions between the United States and Cuba, as well as the difficult process of leaving the island. Because of that, players from Cuba often miss a year or more of competition. Gutierrez said he hasn’t thrown a competitive pitch since 2015.

With a laugh, he noted, “that was a long time ago,” according to Morillo.

Gutierrez said he was happy to be invited to major-league camp, to get a chance to work alongside Iglesias and the team’s big-league pitching staff and coaches, as well as the organization’s pitching coordinator Tony Fossas, himself a native of Cuba.

While he won’t face an opposing team until games start later this week, he will face Reds hitters in live batting practice on Tuesday.

It’s easy to draw parallels between the two Cuban right-handers, but Reds manager Bryan Price doesn’t exactly see them when he watches how they pitch.

Iglesias came to the Reds as a 25-year-old polished pitcher with four pitches and multiple arm angles — oh, and a 98-mph fastball.

“To me, that’s just really advanced pitching. He got here as a more advanced pitcher,” Price said. “Now, that being said, Gutierrez, that’s easy velocity. He doesn’t labor for anything. That’s easy velocity, it’s a quick arm. I anticipate him really making some nice strides for us over the course of the season.”

So far, Gutierrez has thrown in the bullpen and impressed Price.

“(He’s shown) a repeatable delivery and a delivery that provides him with strikes. He has feel for his pitches,” Price said. “It’s not just a young, wild arm. Most of us at his age were young, hard, wild throwers. He’s a young, polished, hard-thrower.”

Iglesias was initially a starter with the Reds, but shoulder issues pushed him to the bullpen, where he will be one of as many as four pitchers asked to record the final outs of the game this season. With no closer, Iglesias, Michael Lorenzen, Drew Storen and Tony Cingrani could all record saves. Gutierrez will start in the minor leagues as a starter.

“At this point in time, there’s no need to look at him in any other capacity, any other role, simply because he’s too young,” Price said. “I’m a big believer that young pitchers that are your top prospects should start until they define themselves as a reliever.”

Price, a long-time pitching coach, dismissed Iglesias’ shoulder issues as any type of harbinger of doom for Gutierrez.

“I think something like that is unique to the individual, not necessarily to the body type,” Price said. “Body type, height, there's nothing to me with Raisel or Gutierrez that would want me to put them in a box that suggests they can only do one thing because of body type.”