Warning: The music in the video is totally NSFW.
If you were sleeping, you missed it. Cuban-defector Yoenis Cespedes became an overnight sensation last night, after Kevin Goldstein linked to the above video and provided a massive breakdown of the outfielder’s talent. It’s a Baseball Prospectus column, but you do not need a subscription to read it. Shortly thereafter, Jeff Passan reported that MLB and the Office of Foreign Assets Control is expected to declare Cespedes eligible for free agency in the next few weeks, adding that the Yankees are “particularly hot” for him. It’s like high school all over again.
The video is over 20 minutes long but between the opening monologue and closing credits, it’s about 15 minutes of Cespedes actually strutting his stuff. It’s more of a promo for a Michael Bay flick than a traditional scouting video, highlighting the purported 26-year-old’s insane athletic ability and the opposite field power that allowed him to hit 33 homeruns last season, a new single-season record in Cuba. We get to see him catch fly balls behind his back, run through a series of vertical jumps that put Cody Ransom to shame, roast a pig, and showcase an 80 hot dog tool as he admires his majestic homers.
Cespedes has a little bit of Sidd Finch in him at this point, that “shiny new toy” and “too good to be true” syndrome. Goldstein calls him “arguably the best all-around player to come out of Cuba in a generation … a legitimate center fielder with plus power and speed and is in his prime.” I have no reason to doubt him, but we don’t have the whole picture from where we sit. We don’t know if he can handle high-end velocity, sit back on offspeed stuff, actually take a ball (something many Cuban hitters refuse to do), so on and so forth. I don’t mean to rain on the parade, the kid is exciting, but a little dose of reality is needed here.
Passan says Cespedes is looking for a contract in line with Aroldis Chapman’s, which means six years and about $30M. His agent, Andy Katz of the Wasserman Media Group (who also represents several other Cuban defectors, including Yunel Escobar and former Yankee Juan Miranda), has him working out for teams in the Dominican Republic. Adam Kilgore says the Nationals watched him recently while Juan C. Rodriguez reports that the Marlins are the early favorite to sign him. I suspect pretty much every team in the league will have interest in Cespedes at some point, just like the Chapman sweepstakes.
The Yankees are no stranger to the Cuban talent pool, paying millions of dollars to sign Miranda ($2M), Adrian Hernandez ($4M), Orlando Hernandez ($6.6M), and Jose Contreras ($32M) in the last 15 years alone. That doesn’t include the $54M they reportedly offered Chapman, though Brian Cashman shot that report down rather quickly. We’re going to hear a lot more of Cespedes in the coming weeks, I’m sure of it, and that’s a good thing because we really don’t know all that much about him. Money talks, and the offers he gets will tell us what teams think of him.
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