White Cleat Beat
Fansided

Oakland Athletics Should Absolutely Not Target Yoenis Cespedes

By Katrina Hamrick

facebooktwitterreddit

The Oakland Athletics would be foolish to sign Yoenis Cespedes.

That’s right. Everyone’s favorite free agent target would be nothing but a mistake waiting to happen for the A’s, and despite the fact that Cespedes is talented and terrific and an all-around superstar, there’s one thing standing in the way of him coming to the Athletics: money.

The A’s are a small market team. Yes, the story is that their owners are billionaires and just don’t spend money, etcetera, etcetera. But regardless of how one feels about the necessity of the club’s budget restrictions, they do exist. There is a very firm “definitely not the Dodgers” mindset in the Athletics’ front office.

And maybe that’s for the best – after all, making trades like a big-market team and losing sight of the future in 2014 is what cost them their remaining two years of Cespedes in the first place. They traded away their big slugger, as well as shortstop prospect Addison Russell, in a moment of “win now at any cost”, and look where it got them – eliminated in the Wild Card Game, and last place in the American League a year later. Cespedes is playing in the World Series and Russell’s team made it to the ALCS, while the A’s hung out at home and planned how to rebuild from the spending spree that caused their downfall.

The fact that the Oakland Athletics just can’t spend big money means that they don’t have a built-in recovery plan if a huge signing or trade doesn’t turn out. There are countless examples of small market teams that do this, but let’s use former Athletics outfielder Nick Swisher as the example.

More from Oakland A's News

The Cleveland Indians are a similar small market team, with a limit budget despite having wealthy owners who probably could spend more if they ever felt like throwing their money away on players who may or may not work out. In the winter of 2012, the Tribe made a big splash on the free agent market by signing Swisher. “Merry Christmas to us,” the fans congratulated themselves, as they commended the owners for opening their wallets and spending a big chunk of cash in a way that they hadn’t done in past seasons.

The Tribe also signed outfielder Michael Bourn, and promptly eliminated their ability to spend big in the following seasons. Because the two of them took up such a large percentage of the payroll, all hope for the team rested on them playing as well as they were being paid. There was no margin for error.

But both struggled, batting injuries and ineffectiveness, and never lived up to so much as one big season, let alone their entire contracts. And what could Cleveland do about it? Nothing, really, until they traded the pair for another terrible contract in Atlanta Braves first baseman Chris Johnson.

Why would the A’s foolishly put themselves in that situation? Cespedes is set to make more money than anyone could ever know what to do with. He’s not signing another four year, $36 million deal. He’s already done that, and he’s proven himself, and now he’s ready to cash in. If his deal is a penny less than $100 million, he should fire his agent. If it’s over $150 million, that wouldn’t be a surprise either.

While Cespedes’s current shoulder injury may cause teams to look into his history and notice the trend of minor ailments that have plagued him, it’s not going to knock years or dollars off his free agent deal in any significant way. There’s just too much power in that bat, too much speed on the basepaths, and too much arm strength in the outfield. Someone will pay top dollar. But it shouldn’t be the A’s.

More from White Cleat Beat

How many mega-contracts actually work out, to the point where a team feels that they were worth the cost for all six, or seven, or even ten years? Are the Los Angeles Angels excited to have Albert Pujols into his mid 40s? Remember when the Yankees tried to squirrel their way out of Alex Rodriguez’s contract?

Or how about the Angels (again) pawning Josh Hamilton off on the Texas Rangers, to the point where they’re still paying him $15 million a year to play against them? Robinson Cano and the Mariners? Justin Verlander and the Tigers? Even Miguel Cabrera has fallen off – granted, he’s still a superstar – since signing his big deal.

Cespedes is by no means not worth the money. But for the A’s, it’s more than just a matter of paying the man. It’s a matter of accepting the risk that if it doesn’t work out, for whatever reason, then they have just signed away the better part of a decade on this one player.

While at the moment it seems like there’s nothing that could go wrong, there’s plenty at risk. Cespedes could continue to pile up minor injuries – hamstrings, sore knees and wrists, shoulders – and start to miss significant chunks of time. He could suffer a more serious injury, and lose his power or his speed. Or, he could just slack off once he’s signed a deal that guarantees him a fortune regardless of production. Sometimes, the work ethic of a player is not as strong as what the fans hope, and while that may or may not be the case with Cespedes, the A’s can’t afford to take that chance. The same fans that raved over the Swisher and Bourn signings in Cleveland bashed the front office for signing two players who didn’t perform – because no one could foresee that it would go wrong at the time of the signings, but in hindsight, the deals were terrible.

In theory, it would be a great signing. Both his bat and his glove are excellent. But in practice, only a wealthy team like the Dodgers or Yankees can afford to gamble that much money and that many years on the chance that Cespedes could turn out to be a big bust. They can simply buy better players and bench him if he becomes a problem.

The A’s are a young team, looking to win within a couple of years with all of the top prospects they acquired in 2015. Taking a six or seven year, $100-$150 million risk on Yoenis Cespedes is something they just can’t afford to do.

Next: Prospect Profile: Dylan Covey