1:15pm: According to an executive familiar with the international market, the Yankees, Tigers, and Marlins have been the clubs with the strongest interest in Cespedes, tweets Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports.
8:40am: Teams will be lining up to sign 26-year-old Cuban outfielder Yoenis Cespedes as soon as he is declared a free agent, though we still don't know exactly when that will happen. Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports spoke to a source (Twitter link) who indicated that the "time frame difficult to say," but it could happen during the "latter half (of the winter meetings) or after."
In yesterday's feature, ESPN's Jerry Crasnick says industry buzz is that it will take upwards of $50MM to sign Cespedes, if not more. Roughly two-thirds of the teams pursuing him believe he can remain in center field with the others expecting him to move to right. One executive compared Cespedes to Cameron Maybin, albeit with more power and less speed.
Is that really a good comparison for somebody that ask for that kind of money, and has never played an inning in the MLB?
I would say that executive isn’t too interested at his current price.
right now the entire roster of the WWE is filing to become MLB free agents.
Why do you keep saying that they expect him to play Center or Right? Cant he play Left too??
he could, but he has a great rightfielders arm and a centerfielders speed.
I more or less compared him to Andruw Jones when he was with Atlanta. Great power, speed, and glove.
WHEN DID YOU DO THAT
Just now.
whoa whoa whoa
Andruw Jones was unreal on atlanta. thats a huge comparison and I’m willing to bet he never becomes that good
red sox are looking for a right handed hitting right fielder i say this is the guy. they should bring back fellow dominican david ortiz to help recruit him.
Too bad Cespedes isn’t really Dominican.
Or Dominican, at all.
he’s going to be very soon
I see an ignorant Red Sox fan has infiltrated this site…
one ?
lol im really not that bad. honest mistake.
embarrassing…
get em, and Solar too
Its Solder.
You’re both wrong, it’s Soler.
ALL wrong! It is Zoltar!!
Man, that Princess was friggin’ *hot*. There I am, age six, and absolutely clear on my sexual orientation. Thank you, Sandy Frank!
If the Tigers get him and if I were the Orioles, I would inquire about Delmon Young.
PS I wonder how Aoki is doing or where he is with regards to his posting?
Dombrowski is big on him. Apparently he’s been watching him for “years.” We do need a 5th starter, so Young for Guthrie would be a nice starting point for a deal.
When are the Yankees not the favorites to land an exciting free agent?
Umm….
If the Yankees sign this guy say bye-bye to Swish.
Agreed.
There appears to be a very high probability to this. I like Swisher. I’m ok with his antics because he has played fantastic baseball, and he has great line-up and field flexibility. You can bat him 2-7 without an issue. However, let’s face it, this is a business and Swish may not be with the team for the long haul. Doing this would be wise on Cashman’s part and at the same time, Swisher has nice value right now and could produce, along with other pieces a good arm. You start working a package of Swisher, Nunez and Betances and you’re in Latos territory. Secretly, I think Cashman has two or three GM’s that already have the ground work laid out for several trades. He did it with Granderson.
I also think Cashman is up to something. He has clearly stated he is looking for pitching and said he has done some talking with other clubs but has yet to upgrade last year’s rotation. This leads me to believe the Yankees are up to something whether that is a Cespedes or a Darvish or maybe the blockbuster trade they are searching for I don’t know but the Yankees will probably acquire or sign a highly regarded player before the offseason is over.
Agreed: If the Yankees can pick up the cream of the non-pitching crop, they can trade those people *or* the people they’d be replacing. I don’t know this kid from Adam but as much as I love Swisher during the regular season, I’ll take what’s behind mystery door-number-two for the playoffs, and I think Cash is thinking the same thing.
You can’t sign Cespedes or Soler and then trade them.
why not? I think the the strategy for the Yanks will be to sign both Cespedes and Soler. Soler will immediately be ranked in the top 20 prospects and will be sough after as a project 40 HR power hitting outfielder with plus arm and plus speed. Cespedes is a projected 30-30 man ready to play now in the mlb. thus, bye bye swish package him along with Soler in a market where outfielders are a t premium with another prospect not named banuelos, betances or montero and voila! ya get a Matt Cain
Cashman is planning on trading Robby Cano for Chris Narveson……. In all seriousness though, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a Gio Gonzales/Latos trade at all, Cash has shocked me before, and he’ll do it again.
I’d LOVE to see the Yanks land Latos. Too many Yankee fans seem to dislike the idea, I have no idea why. Not sure how well we match up with the Pads though.
We’re a pretty poor matchup for Oakland in terms of prospects, and I wouldn’t pay the “ace” return price the A’s want for Gio. Though I would be interested in a deal involving Banuelos similar to the Granderson for Jackson trade of two years ago.
i’d like to see him with the tigers, but i can see the marlins getting a little crazy here
You mean you really wouldn’t like to see him with Yankees? Process of elimination.
i just think it’s unlikely. they need him the least
This is text book Cashman shrewdness. See my above comment for explanation.
Hey Century, as the most level headed Yankee fan on here (no insult to them, you are just an open minded guy) what do you think it’d take for a Burnett for Narveson deal? I know the Yanks would have to eat a bit of salary, but the dudes stuff is still electric, I just don’t think the pitching coach has figured out they need to pull his cranium from his rectum, and I think he’d dominate the NL. I don’t know if the Yanks would even be interested in a Narveson type, but I figured if you wanted durable, good stuff, more consistant and dump Burnett, it’d be the deal I’d want….
His stuff is no longer “electric”, it once was, but it has since eroded to just good. His FB velocity dropped to a career low 92.7 MPH last year, and his curve has been dropping in value since he left Toronto.
His problem isn’t pitching coaches, his problem is he is a two pitch pitcher and you can’t have both pitches “on” every starter. If one pitch isn’t there he doesn’t have enough to bounce back. Add the fact that his two pitches aren’t as good as they were when he was in Toronto, or even in 2009 with the Yankees (his last good season) and you get why he is what he is the past 2 seasons.
He would certainly be better in the NL, but he wouldn’t dominate.
They need pitching more than offense
They need nothing
No, they clearly need pitching. They can make the playoffs with what they have now, but they can’t win once they get there.
They were what 11th in era and top ten in fip and xfip? A team with 97 wins doesn’t need anything.
A team who’s number 2 is Ivan Nova and who’s number 3 is either Burnett, Freddy Garcia, or Hughes certainly needs pitching.
Freddy isn’t likely to repeat his performance from last year, Colon likely isn’t even to be back, Hughes isn’t likely to all of a sudden be back to the first half of 2010, and Burnett is likely to post yet another 5 ERA. They need pitching.
If Nova either regresses or gets hurt they have no pitcher better than a 3 or 4 in the rotation, that simply won’t cut it for winning in the playoffs. Like I said they can get to the playoffs with what they have, but they aren’t a WS caliber team right now.
Also it’s beyond silly to act like just because a team won 97 games LAST season doesn’t need to improve for NEXT season.
Garcia has put up the same exact xfip for two straight years so i dont know why he’d be a question mark. YA if a lot things go wrong they’d be in trouble that’s not saying a lot. Hughes cant get healthy next year? Noesi cant become a starter, despite having a higher ceiling than nova? Look at the rotation the cardinals won with, the yankees have more than enough to win.
Yes but he outpitched his xFIP and FIP by a considerable amount, something he isn’t likely to do again. There is a big difference in outpitching your FIP to the tune of 3.62 to 4.12. He’s very much a question mark in terms of can he give you the same amount of quality he did in 2011.
Even if Hughes is healthy he is an extreme question mark. He has NEVER had a full season pitching well in his entire career. Even in 2010 he pitched one really good first half and was awful in the second half, with a 4.9 ERA after the All-Star break in 15 games.
Noesi had a mid 4 ERA and a 1.5 WHIP out of the pen, not to mention he will have an innings cap to work with. There is no guarantee he can have a good year starting at all. Plus I haven’t read many scouts giving him a higher ceiling than Nova right now.
Outside of CC they have nothing but questions. A LOT would have to go really right for them to win a WS. More than went right last year in fact, which was already a very favorable season in terms of results.
If you want to bury your head in the sand and pretend like they are this infallible team go ahead, but you’re being stubborn and you’re wrong.
I also see the Marlins going all out for Cespedes. He’s everything the organization needs; an exciting, young, and latin athletic baseball player. This guy should really boost the club’s latin and general fanbase.
I don’t think the Marlins will get him for some reason. I feel like they want to attack the bigger FA’s. Hope I’m right because I would love to see the Tigers actually get involved in the international market for the first time in a while. But if the Tigers do not sign him, it’s for a good reason. Leggooo DD!
Agree, I see the Marlins bending down to their knees to what ever Reyes requests. Marlins will get Reyes and Buerhle
I’m not certain they’ll get Buehrle. I don’t think he’ll bend on wanting the no trade clause, we’ll have to see if the Marlins do. Not being able to trade him if things go bad is not really the Marlins way.
Hes a young Miguel tejeda in CF
Pre-steroids or post?
Lets see the birth certificate !
“The Yoenis Cespedes”
Cespedes makes sense in Detroit, and I’m obviously a little biased in saying that. Cespedes could play RF and the Tigers could move Boesch back to LF, where he was before the injury and Delmon Young acquisition. I’m still not sold on Ramon being the everyday option at second, so DD could use Young as a trade chip for a solid second baseman.
I wonder if the Yankees would consider signing both Soler and Cespedes…?
I read yesterday they were the favorites for Soler and the fact Soler needs at least a year and probably more in the minors wouldn’t preclude both. It’d be an interesting play for sure.
…as either a huge move for the team, or a huge antecedent to a huge trade for pitching.
Either/or honestly. If the Yanks signed Cespedes I would want to have him spend at least half a year in Scranton and hold onto Swisher as starting RF.
Soler goes to A or AA no matter what when he’s signed, he’s not all that close to being a major league player yet. Neither move demands a trade to be made.
If you find a trade in which Swisher is involved, that makes the team better, you can do it. But it doesn’t require it.
I pick the Tigers
Go get him Tigers
i was wondering, since he’s not a free agent yet, are teams still allowed to discuss contract terms in general like the dollars and years that they are willing to offer or is that considered tampering?