Oakland Signs Yoenis Cespedes, Creates Outfield Surplus
In a bit of a stunner, the Oakland Athletics have become the latest #MysteryTeam to end up with a top free agent.
Source: Cespedes can be a free agent at end of his four-year, $36 million contract with #Athletics. #MLB
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) February 13, 2012
The Miami Marlins also made a run at Cespedes, but it appears they were only willing to offer him $36 million over the course of 6 seasons. This sort of scenario is obviously preferable for Cespedes; not only will he be paid $9 million per season over the next four years, he will then become a free agent instead of having to go through the standard six years of team control.
Many people assumed that Cespedes would receive more guaranteed money than this — some estimates had him approaching $60 million — so on the face of things, this looks like a good deal for the A’s. It’s obviously a risk, since it’s difficult to tell how Cuban players will translate to the majors, but the A’s only need him to be an average major-league player (2.0 WAR/year) for this to be a market-value deal. And if he doesn’t pan out, the A’s only have him under contract for four seasons and can move on easily enough.
Cespedes will likely be given a chance to contribute to the A’s right away, so what should we expect from him?
This is a quick-and-dirty look, but Clay Davenport’s translation of Cespedes’ Cuban stats look decent: .245/.311/.469 for a .780 OPS. That line would make Cespedes around 10-15 percent above average offensively. Given that the A’s already have Coco Crisp signed for the next three seasons, it seems likely that the A’s envision Cespedes as a corner outfielder. In other words, imagine a B.J. Upton or Adam Jones-type hitter playing average defense in left field.
But while it looks like the A’s are getting a decent deal on Cespedes, I’m curious how the A’s outfield depth will play out. At the moment, they have at least 4-5 outfielders that could start for them in 2012:
Coco Crisp – 2 year, $14 million with 2014 option
Yoenis Cespedes – 4 year, $36 million
Seth Smith – 1 year, $2.4 million (with two more seasons of team control)
Josh Reddick – five seasons of team control
Jonny Gomes – 1 year, $1 million
And that’s not even considering that they have prospects Collin Cowgill, Chris Carter, and Michael Taylor all sitting in the minors. I can understand not believing in Carter — it’s probable his contact issues make it difficult for him to ever succeed in the majors — but by signing Cespedes, the A’s seem to be showing little faith in Cowgill, Taylor, and Reddick — two of whom they acquired this off-season in trades.
It may be that the A’s didn’t anticipate Cespedes being available for such a good deal, so they adjusted their off-season strategy on the fly and decided he was worth the investment. There’s nothing wrong with that, and it’s always good to add talent if it comes at a reasonable price and fits in the budget. But the A’s are now stocked to overflowing with outfield talent, and I’m not sure how they can make it all fit without trading some away over the next year or so.
Piper was the editor-in-chief of DRaysBay and the keeper of the FanGraphs Library.
They love making moves that make zero sense. I’m starting to feel like Brad Pitt would make a better GM at this point than the real Billy Beane. There’s only so long you can hold onto past glory.
I’m guessing you find the world in general pretty puzzling.
What I see for the A’s right now is an extraordinary deep OF, three infield starters (Weeks, Sizemore, and Pennington) who combined for 5.4 WAR in 355 total games, and 4 lottery tickets/depth at 1B in Barton, Carter, Allen, and Kila.
Combine that with mostly young, under team control pitching.
All of this with an fairly low payroll. So, what has Beane done so wrong in forming this year’s team?
I’m an A’s fan and have honestly been blown away by what Beane has been able to accomplish this offseason. He completely rebuilt the farm system, taking it from bottom 5 to top 10, while simultaneously making the MLB squad better. That would be really hard to do even for the richest teams in the sport.
Mid-2011 was a low point for A’s fans, but just a few months later there is so much to be optimistic about. This team is unlikely to win any AL West pennants in the near future with those two juggernauts in the division, but they are going to surprise people over the next couple of years.
But Matt, whose fault was it that the farm was in the bottom 5 in the first place? He’s been the GM now for over a decade, so everything on that team is 100% of his making. Even though they do have a limited budget, they haven’t been above .500 since 2006. This off-season he has done well, but you can’t ignore the fact that the A’s have been less than spectacular for several years now.
Did you eat a lot of paint chips when you were a kid?
[laughs] Why?