“He will miss that a lot,” Bracamonte said, interpreting for Gurriel, who plans to watch on television. “He spent 15 years with the national team in Cuba, and right now, it’s hard to swallow that he’s not there. He wants to support them, but it’s hard for him to not be able to communicate with them. They’re his friends. He wants to help with his experience in baseball, but he’s not going to be able to do that.”

Instead, Gurriel will continue his assimilation in a new country and the highest level of baseball. He and his wife are learning English with the help of an Astros instructor, and Gurriel recently surprised General Manager Jeff Luhnow by complimenting him on his young son.

“He looked at me and said, ‘Hey, that’s a cute baby you’ve got there!’ — and I was like, ‘Whoa! Let’s go for it,’ and we had a whole conversation in English,” said Luhnow, who was raised in Mexico City and speaks fluent Spanish. “He’s definitely making progress. He’s probably going to be shy around the media for a while, because he’s been a country hero for a long time and he doesn’t want to embarrass himself and make mistakes. But I told him around me he can certainly make as many mistakes as he wants.”

On the field, the Astros hope the learning curve is short. After winning the American League wild-card game at Yankee Stadium in 2015 — and nearly upending the eventual champion Kansas City Royals in a division series — they missed the playoffs by five games last season. The rotation is full of questions, but Luhnow added Beltran, Brian McCann, Josh Reddick and Nori Aoki to deepen an offense that should be among the game’s best.

The new players are known quantities, but Gurriel, a right-handed hitter, is still a bit of a mystery. The general expectation is that he could hit .300, with 15 to 20 home runs — and at his age, there is no time to waste in finding out.

“He’s a good hitter first, power second, but I think he can be a really effective offensive player,” said Manager A. J. Hinch, who expects Gurriel to start the season near the bottom of the order. “He’s more comfortable this spring than he was entirely last summer — just his ease, his interactions. There’s a bounce in his step.”

Gurriel is switching from third base to first this spring, and he said learning to throw to his right for a double play, instead of to his left, had been the biggest challenge. Luhnow is confident that Gurriel’s instincts and infield skills will make the transition a smooth one.