Yoenis Cespedes *Signs with Oakland*

[Mogriffjr]

:joker:

Andruw was hitting world series home runs at 19. This guy is flailing in the Dominican League at 26. Don't ever compare this bum to Da God.

:jonesy:

well I just meant his swing, I didn't say he's some prodigy type player like AJ was...andrew has/had a hole in his swing as well.

 

[NAHSTE]

MLBTR says Cubs are the leading suitors.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/...tml?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

[Slateman]

Ben Badler @BenBadler

The Aguilas announced that Yoenis Cespedes won't play again this season. Went 5-for-35 (.143), no walks, 10 Ks.


Yea, so I was wrong. Cespedes sucks

 

[Chrispy]

Way to lose a ton of money and make urself look awful.

 

[NAHSTE]

Marlins reportedly offered him around $40 million over six years after he toured the ballpark the other day. If it is indeed 40, it tops Aroldis Chapman for the highest contract paid to a Cuban import. Chapman was in his early 20s, left handed, and throws unreal gas ... Cespedes is a toolsy 26 year old who is maybe going to hang in center, but might end up in a corner. Is he really worth that much?

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/marlins-make-offer-to-cespedes/

 

[ThomasTomasz]

Marlins reportedly offered him around $40 million over six years after he toured the ballpark the other day. If it is indeed 40, it tops Aroldis Chapman for the highest contract paid to a Cuban import. Chapman was in his early 20s, left handed, and throws unreal gas ... Cespedes is a toolsy 26 year old who is maybe going to hang in center, but might end up in a corner. Is he really worth that much?

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/marlins-make-offer-to-cespedes/

If that is the case, I don't want the Orioles to spend it. Maybe for $25 million, but then more teams would be in on it and the Orioles would be in the back of the line. I also can't see the team spending that much on one player who hasn't even played ball here yet.

What is he doing right now? Is he still shut down?

 

[Rudi]

He's 26? That means he's probably more closer to 30.

 

[Slateman]

Buster Olney @Buster_ESPN Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
Sources: Oakland has agreed to terms with Yoenis Cespedes, 4 years, $36 million

Wow ... out of no where

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/02/athletics-agree-to-sign-yoenis-cespedes.html

 

[FirstTimer]

LOL. Oakland giving Anaheim the finger.

"Fuck you! We can come out of nowhere and make a big free agent signing too!"

 

[Chrispy]

9 mill a year for a guy that hasn't even played a single inning, wow

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

I'm not a scout, I don't know if he's going to be any good or not, but I always like when other teams get in the mix and make a splash like this, so good for Oakland, who I am always beating up on for not even trying. I'm glad they snuck in there and stole him from the Cubs and Marlins.

 

[FirstTimer]

I'm not a scout, I don't know if he's going to be any good or not, but I always like when other teams get in the mix and make a splash like this, so good for Oakland, who I am always beating up on for not even trying. I'm glad they snuck in there and stole him from the Cubs and Marlins.

Apparently it turned out the Cubs weren't real players. I guess they have been looking harder at Soler anyways.

 

[NAHSTE]

Apparently, 26-year olds with A-ball equivalent experience are the new market inefficiency.

 

[Woy]

After the success of Moneyball, Billy Beane is trying to recreate Major League for this season.

 

[Goober]

This is definitely out of left field. You could have given me 20 guesses, to try and guess where he signs, and I wouldn't have guessed Oakland.

 

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

I'm not a scout, I don't know if he's going to be any good or not, but I always like when other teams get in the mix and make a splash like this, so good for Oakland, who I am always beating up on for not even trying. I'm glad they snuck in there and stole him from the Cubs and Marlins.

From what I hear, the Marlins scouts and personnel people were split on the guy. Some loved his potential, some thought he was a big time project.

We'll see. He got a nice chunk of change.

I forget who said it in this thread, but I like the comparison of his potential to that of BJ Upton right now. If you love BJ Upton, that's fine...but he's the type where you're like "damn, he's leaving a lot of potential on the table."

I guess for $36M, its not the worst deal in the world, despite it being the highest for a Cuban defector.

 

[Slateman]

A's have a lot of outfielders now.

Might they be willing to deal one?

 

[ThomasTomasz]

I'm not a scout, I don't know if he's going to be any good or not, but I always like when other teams get in the mix and make a splash like this, so good for Oakland, who I am always beating up on for not even trying. I'm glad they snuck in there and stole him from the Cubs and Marlins.

Yet they wouldn't put money out there to keep Cahill and Gonzalez. Yeah, they are trying but for a small market team to blow that kind of money when they just let two pitchers get away is asinine. Billy Beane deserves to be fired after today.

 

[ThomasTomasz]

"It stinks to be an American in this way:Annual salary paid out for Cespedes is almost at the level of 10-round draft cap under new MLB rules"

And this is another reason why MLB needs to look at some serious overhaul of international free agents. They need to institute some sort of draft, or combine the two. At least with Cespedes, the team signing him didn't have to give up a posting fee.

 

[NAHSTE]

Yet they wouldn't put money out there to keep Cahill and Gonzalez. Yeah, they are trying but for a small market team to blow that kind of money when they just let two pitchers get away is asinine. Billy Beane deserves to be fired after today.

Gonzalez isn't that good though and he got a good haul out of it.

Here's a reasonable take by KLaw. Kind of highlights the best case scenario but keeps things pretty tempered:

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/blog...land-need-yoenis-cespedes-produce-immediately

The Oakland Athletics surprised everyone by signing Yoenis Cespedes to a reported four-year, $36 million deal when they hadn't been publicly linked to the Cuban outfielder before the news leaked out Monday morning. For their investment, they're getting a tooled-up hitter in his prime years by age but whose inexperience has led to some questions about how soon he'll have an impact.

Just grading out Cespedes on tools, he looks like a monster. His chiseled body wouldn't look out of place in an NFL backfield, but he isn't so jacked up that he's unable to move well. He'll show plus-plus raw power, and on a straight track, he's about a 65 runner (on the 20-80 scouting scale), although it'll play below that when running the bases. He's probably too big for center but should have plus range in right and has plenty of arm for it. His bat path isn't great, but he does have tremendous bat speed with a pull-oriented approach that, when he squares something up, produces enormous power. It's not hard to see him hitting 30 homers in the majors if he can hit enough to get to that power.

Cespedes hasn't faced a lot of good pitching and has faced very little pitching of any sort since defecting, so he'll probably be best served spending a few weeks or even months in the upper minors to shake off the rust and get used to facing better-quality off-speed stuff. The pull-happy approach leaves him very vulnerable on the outer half, and that kind of effort makes it hard to stay on the ball unless you've got superb hand-eye coordination. He also showed in his brief stint in the Dominican Winter League that he struggled to pick up spin out of the pitcher's hand, so adjusting to breaking balls probably will be the biggest obstacle between him and major league impact.

The other question on Cespedes is his age. Even assuming he's actually 26 -- the ages of Cuban ballplayers are difficult to verify -- that puts him right in his peak years, and by the time this contract is up, he'll be 30 and entering a decline phase. Yet some of those peak years will be spent making up for lost development time, so the A's probably will have to get most of their return on this deal in the final two to three years. That fits their organizational philosophy of building toward 2014-15, but it also will increase the risk that they don't get sufficient bang for their buck.