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According to reliable sources, the Oakland Athletics have swooped in to sign Cuban outfielder Yoenis Cespedes to a four-year, $36 million contract.
Feb 13, 2012 - According to Susan Slusser, the Oakland Athletics are about to sign Cuban outfielder/defector Yoenis Cespedes for four years and $36 million.
This might not be the Biggest Surprise of This Off-Season, but ... No. Strike that. This is the Biggest Surprise of The Off-Season. Among Cespedes' reported suitors were the Cubs, the Tigers, the Yankees, the Nationals, and the Marlins. Especially the Marlins. It made so much sense? On a clear day, Sarah Palin can see Cuba from Key West. The Marlins threw many millions this winter at Mark Buehrle, Heath Bell and Jose Reyes. Why not a few more million at a center fielder who might become a big star?
Yet somehow, the A's. The team that hasn't done anything this winter except trade good starting pitchers for ... well, now it's hard to remember. We just know the good starting pitchers are gone. We also know that Billy Beane seems to have placed a higher value on Cespedes' talents than all those other interested teams. Must be all those crazy numbers we saw in the movie. Except the crazy numbers really don't tell us anything at all about Cuban outfielder/defectors.
Might this be a move based purely on ... scouting?
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Comments
Aha!
Now we know what Beane’s plan has been all winter long.
Stealthy!
by GBSimons on Feb 13, 2012 12:46 PM EST reply actions
It's pure Moneyball
Pig-roasting is the latest undervalued skill …
Brain: "Pinky, are you pondering what i'm pondering?"
Pinky: "Yes, ... wait, ... no, ... never mind"
by jbg2772 on Feb 13, 2012 12:51 PM EST reply actions
If he pans out
Then $9M/yr is a huge bargain. It’s nothing out of the ordinary for a small-market team to go big on the foreign market (much like they used to in the draft, before that opportunity got closed off). I’m surprised that the A’s got him, just because all of the reports said “Marlins.” but I’m not surprised that a team LIKE the A’s got him (or that the A’s were aggressively pursuing him).
Beane also gave a record signing bonus to Ynoa a few years ago and won the rights to that Japanese pitcher (whom he never signed because his agent was nuts). Nothing new here to folks who have been paying attention (though, again, I didn’t see this coming specifically; just saying I’m not shocked, in hindsight).
So now we can stop talking about Manny, right?
by ahhall on Feb 13, 2012 1:39 PM EST reply actions
That Japanese pitcher.
His name is Hisashi Iwakuma. If you’re an A’s fan, you’ll probably see him a few times this year (unless his shoulder keeps him off the field) because he signed with the Mariners.
And his former agent (the one negotiating the contract with Oakland) is Don Nomura. He’s pretty well-known in his own right. If you’re at all interested in the Posting System or NPB-MLB relations, I would highly recommend The Samurai Way of Baseball by Robert Whiting. I would also recommend checking out Patrick Newman’s site, NPB Tracker, to help put a name to the Japanese players.
by SeanP on Feb 13, 2012 9:30 PM EST up reply actions
I don't know...
This report differs from the information I just learned on Wikipedia:
“On February 13, 2012 Cespedes agreed to a 4-year, $36 trillion contract with the New York Yankees.”
If that was written anytime before today, then it’s pretty amazing. It would mean that the prankster correctly guessed the date, and the terms of the deal (with one word different, I suppose!). Either way, it made me laugh, especially knowing that the team who signed him is basically the opposite of the Yankees in every way.
by ahhall on Feb 13, 2012 2:30 PM EST reply actions
Wow, his stock really went down.
by dsharp on Feb 13, 2012 3:03 PM EST reply actions
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