The Rays signed Cuban first baseman/outfielder Leslie Anderson to a four-year, $3.75MM deal, tweets Jorge Ebro of El Nuevo Herald. ESPN's Jorge Arangure Jr. wrote in February that Anderson auditioned for nine clubs, and quoted two scouts who came away unimpressed. Morgan Campbell of the Toronto Star said half the teams in baseball attended, and called Anderson "a chiselled Adonis of a baseball prospect." One scouting report on the 27-year-old can be found at the blog Cuban Ball Players.
Anderson defected in September, and in January his agent Jaime Torres compared him to Alexei Ramirez.
This came out of left field. Great signing by the Rays. I wonder why he chose to sign with Tampa, because I doubt it was the money. A player with a brain?
Nice pick up. Rays will take East this year.
Negative, Yankees.
No they won’t..They basically have the same team as last year. Their bullpen’s stronger with the addition of Soriano, but it’s inevitable they’re going to trade Crawford or Pena, and that’s really going to have an effect because if they trade Pena, Longoria’s not going to see anything to hit..I think they’ll finish 2nd and still get in the playoffs.
Odd logic.. If they are in contention they’ll trade of their 2 stars and still make the playoffs. Hope so, I like the Rays.
Tha’s why they signed Blalok, in case they trade Pena.
Any fantasy implications here?
This is a pretty shrewd move. Anderson’s 27 and from the Cuban A team, where he .381 last season . If he can ready to translate those skills by midseason to even kind of productive numbers in big league play, the Rays will be in a position to cash in Carlos Pena for whatever they’re looking for at the trade deadline.
Don’t see how anyone can be impressed given how little we know about him.
I hate to break up the love fest here but when you have a couple of scouts that walk away from an ‘audition’ saying they werent impressed and you end up signing him for 3.75 over the next 4, i’m thinkin some of you may need to read between the lines. Besides, how many cuban defectors have translated in quality players? If you started counting on one hand you wouldnt run out of fingers
Jose Contrares
Alexei Ramirez
Kendry Morales
Yunel Escobar
Yuniesky Betancourt
Danys Báez
Orlando Hernandez
Livan Hernandez
Well you got 3 more than I anticipated, however there are probably 3 on that list that I would argue as being “quality”. regardless, the point i’m getting at is that legit cuban prospects are far and few between.
“Yuniesky Betancourt Livan Hernandez Danys Báez”
lol
Cuba is slippin.. overrated players defecting left and right.
When the cubs win a playoff game then you can run your mouth about how other teams are making bad transactions. long live steve bartman!!!!!
Wow, I was just making a logical statement. You dont know anything about this guy and you are all ready to say he could be the guy that steps up in Pena’s spot in order for you to trade him? Just WOW! Does the fact that 2 scouts that saw this guy walked away saying ‘he’s not MLB material’ tell you anything? I’m guessing you know better than they do, right?
BTW, when the yanks and sox change divisions your rays may become relevant. Until then, zip the lip!
Hes a TB troll. He got blasted months ago and has just returned. Don’t worry about him.
Well yes you were making a statement, a logical one, no. If you watched any of the WBC then you would know he’s a solid player. Plus i actually follow cuban baseball. yeah, he’s no carlos pena. i never said he was and i never said he was going to replace pena. but considering the circumstances i think its a good pick up. But 2 scouts walk away unimpressed and he’s garbage??? Your going to have to try harder then that buddy.
Yeah, the rays should get moved to the national central, so we can whoop up on your cubys like we do every year.
“If you watched any of the WBC then you would know he’s a solid player.”
I guess only Tampa had time to watch.
Never said he was garbage patner. Don’t twist my words.simply stating that he couldn’t hold pena’s jock with backhoe. That was directed to the folks that were implying that he would take penas spot if traded. The guy is a virtually unknown to most people except you ofcourse because the guy played well in the wbc, I mean he’s obviously a stud right? ……… the guys an unknown that was paid like an unknown and anyone talking like he’s going to contribute right away is being overly optimistic and jumping to conclusions
There is no way he’s playing right away, the Rays have many options ahead of him. He’ll probably start in AA see if he’s any good and then go from there. But I trust the Rays FO they always do a great job of scouting and they wouldn’t just waste $3.75 Million on someone they didn’t know well.
Exactly zero people in this thread have said he *would* replace Pena. Some folks (myself included) are saying *if* he lives up to his scouting reports, he might be able to play 1B every day. And *then* the Rays could look at dealing Pena, not because Anderson would be better (or even as good) but because Anderson at 1B + whatever they can haul in for Pena would make them a better team than Pena at 1B and Anderson on the bench or in the minors.
The other thing to keep in mind is: Anderson is 27, healthy, athletic, has a .320 career average and the Cuban equivalent of a Gold Glove, and is coming off a season where he hit .381. Scouts say he has the potential to produce like a young Darin Erstad, and with Anderson in his prime, that would be something to look for sooner rather than later.
So would a guy who could hit say, .295/.365/.435 with 15 HR, a dozen steals, and Gold Glove defense at 1B be a world beater? Nah. But he’d be good enough to justify dealing Pena at the deadline instead of letting him walk at the end of the year.
The guy doesn’t have to be Pujols to make trading Pena logical. He just has to be able to hold the job down so they can focus on adding value elsewhere.