WASHINGTON – Hope is rising that Major League Baseball’s World Baseball Classic will prompt Cuban players to defect to America, as opponents of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro are readying aid to asylum-seekers in advance of the international tournament.

“I’m hoping that despite the manner in which these players will be watched over, that some of them do avail themselves of this opportunity, and I certainly encourage them,” Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican who has promised to help defecting players through the asylum process, said yesterday.

The preparations follow an announcement by the Treasury Department on Friday that it had reversed its December decision to deny Cuba the licenses required for participation in the tournament, sponsored by Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players’ Association.

The reversal begat disappointment this weekend among those who had lobbied against the Castro regime’s participation in the tournament, and who had pushed for the recently formed Cuban Professional Baseball Federation – a group of exiled Cuban ballplayers organized to represent a free Cuba on the baseball diamond – to take the place of the dictatorship’s team.

Yet it also left advocates for a free Cuba hopeful that members of the Castro-fielded team would flee the dictatorship while on American soil. Cuba will play the preliminary rounds of the tournament in Puerto Rico, and may play semi-final and final rounds in San Diego.

In addition to offering office resources to asylum-seekers, Mr. Diaz-Balart said yesterday that he will monitor the State Department to ensure that America does not grant visas to the Cuban state security officials who guard against defections, often outnumbering them, at international tournaments. According to a staffer familiar with the discussions, the State Department had stressed that it would “make certain that there were no state security operatives trying to pass themselves off as batboys.”

A New York based agent who follows Cuban baseball closely and has represented 15 Cuban players, Joe Kehoskie, said yesterday that one high profile member of the security staff is likely to be one of Mr. Castro’s sons, Antonio Castro Soto del Valle, whom Mr. Kehoskie described as “a mainstay in the Cuban baseball delegation for at least the last three to four years.” The younger Mr. Castro, Mr. Kehoskie said, is listed on team rosters as a trainer and remains in the dugout during games. According to the agent, Mr. Castro is “supposedly an orthopedic surgeon, but I’ve never seen him do anything but cheerlead and then take off to party after the players have been locked down.”

Members of Cuba’s federation will also receive a helping hand from their predecessors, the spokesman for the Cuban Professional Baseball Federation, Gus Dominguez, said. Mr. Dominguez, a Cuban exile who has represented 30 Cuban players, said yesterday that Cuban athletes “know they’ll have the help of all the players here.” Observers yesterday said it was likely that talented Cuban players would also be enticed to defect in Puerto Rico by a cadre of agents and scouts at the tournament.

While the Treasury’s latest licensing decision eliminated the principal obstacle to Cuba’s participation in the World Baseball Classic, it remains uncertain whether a team from Castro’s Cuba will compete. Mr. Diaz-Balart and others expressed concern yesterday over the $100 “per diem” payments that are supposed to go to Cuban players. If the payments go first to the regime and not the athletes, Mr. Diaz-Balart said, Major League Baseball could still be violating the embargo. A spokesman for the league, Richard Levin, said yesterday when asked about the payment distribution: “I’m not sure who it goes directly to,” adding that the league has declined to comment on specifics of the Treasury agreement.

Mr. Kehoskie expressed doubts that Mr. Castro even wanted to participate in the tournament, and said it was likely that the dictator had been exploiting the Treasury denial for anti-American propaganda. Moreover, the Classic, scheduled for March 3-20, conflicts with playoffs in Cuba’s national league. And the threat of defections presents a looming concern, Mr. Kehoskie said, making it unlikely that Mr. Castro would field his best players – young men with few family attachments to keep them on the island.

“It’s a lose-lose,” the agent said. If Mr. Castro fields a team of his best players, they’re likely to defect; if he fields mediocre players, which Mr. Kehoskie said he expected to be the case, the Cubans risk a fourth- or fifth-place finish in the tournament, disastrous for a regime that uses its baseball team for international and domestic propaganda. “Winning the silver medal is usually an embarrassment to them,” Mr. Kehoskie said.