Cespedes to Oakland

[justD]

According to Jim Duquette verbally on MLB Radio (Sirius/XM), he's read a tweet by Susan Slusser stating Oakland A's sign Cespedes for 4 years, $36 million.

Edit:

Susan Slusser @susanslusser

#Athletics about to sign Cespedes for for four years, $36 million.

and

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/02/athletics-agree-to-sign-yoenis-cespedes.html

[Lucky Jim]

According to Jim Duquette verbally on MLB Radio (Sirius/XM), he's read a tweet by Susan Schlosberg (sp?) stating Oakland A's sign Cespedes for 4 years, $36 million.

That seems a huge gamble on his MLB-readiness. Even a minor hiccup and you're looking at $12m a year.

[Brendan25]

The team I probably least likely would have expected to sign Cespedes

[TonySoprano]

So goes the last hope for the one or two people left who expected the Orioles to make a splash this offseason. At least Cespedes signed with a big market team...err... oops

[LookinUp]

That seems a huge gamble on his MLB-readiness. Even a minor hiccup and you're looking at $12m a year.

Definitely a big risk/reward type of guy. It's hard to imagine the A's make out anywhere near as bad with this contract as the Yankees do with ARod, or the Tigers do with Fielder, or the Angels do with Pujols.

MLB owners have seemingly thrown risk out the window, which means they have plenty of money, which makes you wonder why the O's do not...

[Slappy]

I won't weep over Cespedes. He could be great, or he could be winter league awful. It's a big gamble to make on a ML deal.

[Kinvan]

Don't you just love how teams like the Marlins and the A's are offering contracts, and the O's had plans to go down there again this week to "check" him out again? So by current calculations a week after he signs the O's will be ready to offer a contract that will be off by both years and dollars.

Typical

[jincargo]

Unexpected move for Billy Beane. Interesting.

[Owen21]

Well, a much darker horse has rode into town.

Time to explore the soler system.

[BrunoCherrytown]

I wouldn't want to tarnish our offseason of Dumpster Diving (except for Chen) by watching the O's sign a potential impact talent.

Next up: Soler to the Cubs.

But we got our New Zealand softball player!

[TonySoprano]

Unexpected move for Billy Beane. Interesting.

Billy Beane = dark horse or was that George Harrison?

It was George, after all

[glenn__davis]

I'm not usually one to poo-poo other teams' signings, but this is one I really did not want the O's to get in on.

Certainly an eyebrow-raising move coming from Oakland, though.

[luismatos4prez]

It would have been fun to get him. I wasn't expecting anything though and I'm not broken up about it either.

Small-mid market teams shouldn't be throwing away 4/36 contracts on anything less than a sure thing. Oakland must be pretty damn confident in Cespedes.

[Sports Guy]

Meanwhile, the Orioles are still hoping to have that meeting in 5 days or whatever!

[Sports Guy]

I would prefer Soler myself but have no confidence that this team will do anything remotely what it takes to get him here.