Power hitting outfielder Yasmani Tomas leaves Cuba

[GeorgiaPeach]

Bump...KGM1?

 

If I remember, i'll get you the article.

[TheHurl]

Does anyone have the write-up by Ben Badler and post it, please and thanks.

 

http://www.baseballamerica.com/international/baseball-americas-complete-guide-yasmany-tomas/

 

Yasmany Tomas has a lot of things going for him. He’s young (24 in November) but ready or near-ready for the big leagues, he has premium power, is exempt from the international bonus pools and won’t cost a team any draft picks or prospects in return. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Jose Abreu, Yasiel Puig and Yoenis Cespedes have been terrific, or that Jorge Soler looks like he will be too, or that Rusney Castillo, who some teams thought was a fourth outfielder when he was still in Cuba, just signed what’s essentially a six-year, $72.5 million contract with the Red Sox. The appetite of owners to get involved in the Cuban market has never been greater.

 

So what should we expect from Tomas? I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen Tomas play quite a bit in the last year that he was on the field before he defected. I saw Tomas play in two international competitions and in Serie Nacional games in Cuba over the span of roughly 14 months from March 2013 through April 2014. I have seen 65 plate appearances from Tomas in total during that stretch, including 29 plate appearances from February through April while he played for Industriales in Cuba this year. Based on that, and from talking with several scouts who have seen him both at international tournaments and more recently in the Dominican Republic, here’s Baseball America’s guide to Yasmany Tomas.

 

Background

 

Tomas is with Javier Rodriguez, a prominent Dominican trainer who also had Cuban infielder Alexander Guerrero last year when he signed with the Dodgers for four years, $28 million, and his agent is Jay Alou. Tomas has residency in Haiti and a specific license from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), although he is still waiting for MLB to declare him a free agent. He’s in the Dominican Republic training and working out for teams.

 

Tomas debuted in Serie Nacional in the 2008-09 season as an 18-year-old, though he played sparingly his first two years. Tomas missed the 2010-11 season for undisclosed reasons, but he had a breakout season in 2011-12, batting .301/.340/.580 with 16 homers, 10 walks and 44 strikeouts in 226 plate appearances. He followed that up in 2012-13 by hitting .289/.364/.538 (fifth in the league in slugging) with 15 home runs, 34 walks (10 intentional) and 52 strikeouts in 324 plate appearances. Tomas’ final season in Cuba was relatively disappointing. He hit .290/.346/.450 in 257 plate appearances with six home runs, 21 walks and 46 strikeouts in 65 games. Tomas also suffered a left wrist injury in February when he crashed into an outfield wall.

 

After that, Tomas lost regular playing time through the end of the season, which for Industriales ended in April in the semifinals of the playoffs. While the wrist injury might explain some of his struggles in the second half of the season, Tomas also hit just .258/.324/.411 in 170 trips to the plate in the first half. Yet Castillo also had a down year in his final season in Cuba, which didn’t prevent the Red Sox from giving him record money for a Cuban defector.

 

Power

 

Power is the calling card for Tomas, a strong man with big lift in his swing. It’s 70 raw power on the 20-80 scale, with a chance to hit 25-plus home runs over a full season, possibly more depending on contact frequency in game situations. The power is evident in batting practice, where he generates loft and over-the-fence power from his pull side over to right-center field. When Cuba took batting practice in Japan at the WBC last year, the only players on the team with more raw power than Tomas were Abreu and Alfredo Despaigne (who both have 80 power), and that includes Yulieski Gourriel.

 

Hitting

 

Tomas’ value will mostly boil down to how much contact he can make against major league pitching. That’s true for most players—if you can’t hit, you’re probably not going to play anywhere—but with Tomas, the gap in what teams project from him his big enough that it’s the difference between a fringy big leaguer and a potential star. Tomas was terrific in the WBC, but he has not performed well in his last two international competitions where scouts were able to watch him in person.

 

At the World Port Tournament in the Netherlands in July 2013, Tomas went 5-for-20 with no extra-base hits. Later that month in a friendship series in the United States against the U.S. college national team, Tomas looked overmatched, going 3-for-18 with seven strikeouts.

 

There are things that Tomas does well with his swing, but there are also elements of his stroke and his hitting approach that are worrisome. Tomas can hit towering home runs but it comes from an uppercut swing, which can be fine for a power hitter but also creates a swing plane with holes. That leads to swing-and-miss tendencies even in the strike zone, and Tomas’ penchant for chasing pitches off the plate only exacerbates that problem. The power arms on the U.S. college national team gave Tomas all sorts of trouble with mid-90s velocity, especially high and tight.

 

He has also shown—against Team USA, in the WBC and in Cuba—that he’s susceptible to swinging through offspeed pitches, both in the zone and off the plate. You can see those concerns in the video below, with the obvious caveat that I’m cherry-picking Tomas when he’s taking his worst swings, and I could do this for any hitter, but it shows the issues we’ve talked about:

 

 

 

Even though Tomas comes up with some empty hacks, it’s not a long swing. He does a good job of staying inside the ball and he’s shown he can drive pitches to the opposite field. He has a strong finish to his swing and uses his wrists well. So while Tomas doesn’t project as a perennial .300 hitter, there are enough things he does well at the plate that give him the opportunity for his tremendous raw power to carry him.

 

“I think his average suffers because of the path of the swing and because of his discipline—the swing and miss, the chasing out of the zone,” said one scout. “But he’s going to run into his power enough to give you 25 home runs. You’re probably looking at .260 and 25-30 home runs.”

 

Speed

 

Tomas is a big man. Listed in Cuba at 6-foot-1, 230 pounds, Tomas has always had a heavy build with a thick, strong lower half that jumps out immediately. Tomas got even heavier last year, pushing close to 250 pounds by the end of the 2013-14 season with a larger waistline than he had shown last summer when he was in the United States. Since he left Cuba, Tomas has dropped some of that excess baggage.

 

He’s still a large human being, but Tomas runs surprisingly well for his size. In Cuba, there were times Tomas was clocked going home to first as fast as 4.4 to even 4.35 seconds, which indicates 40 to 45 speed. That’s not a burner, but that’s better than you would expect from looking at someone with his physique. Like Alexander Guerrero, who also trained with Rodriguez, Tomas may have even improved his speed a tick since leaving Cuba, as he ran the 60-yard dash in 6.9 seconds twice in his open showcase at the Giants’ Dominican academy on Sept. 21, a time that indicates average speed. Once Tomas signs, however, he will probably settle in as a fringy to below-average runner.

 

“The body, obviously, that concerns you,” said a second scout. “But a lot of people mix athleticism with body type. You can be athletic without being lanky and wiry. I think he’s athletic for his size. He’s deceptive in that sense. You don’t think he’s going to move a certain way, but he can move.”

 

Stolen bases were never a big part of his game in Cuba. He stole 15 bases in 30 career attempts, including a career-high of six steals (with six caught stealing) last season in Cuba. I also saw him make some ill-advised baserunning decisions during games in Cuba last season, so I wouldn’t expect Tomas to provide any value on the basepaths.

 

Defense/Arm

 

Tomas has the defensive attributes to fit in either corner outfield spot. He has some infield background, having played a bit of third base and first base early in his career, and he probably could play first base in the big leagues, but his value is highest in the outfield.

 

Figuring out just how good Tomas’ defensive skills are in right field is tricky. With Rusney Castillo, Guillermo Heredia or Victor Mesa, those are three Cuban center fielders where their range, reads and instincts immediately jump out, which makes it easier to get a handle on their defense. With Tomas, there are times when he can make impressive plays, and he’s not afraid to dive for balls. Then there are other times where he makes scouts scratch their heads. Watching Tomas in a showcase environment isn’t going to tell scouts too much about his outfield instincts, either. So while I don’t have the most confident read on Tomas’ defensive ability, I don’t think he’ll be at either the extreme of a Gold Glove winner or be a liability in an outfield corner, as long as he keeps his body in check and doesn’t end up looking like Delmon Young in his Tigers days.

 

Tomas’ best defensive tool is his arm, which is plus. Unlike Latin American teenagers in a showcase setting, Tomas doesn’t always air it out on all his throws just to show off his arm strength, so some evaluators might not have seen a 60 arm, but that’s what he’s shown at his best. He’s also been adept at gunning down baserunners in Cuba, with nine assists in 54 games in right field last season. The year before, believe it or not, Tomas played primarily center field (which is more a function of the lack of speed in his team’s outfield than anything else) and recorded 13 assists in 64 games in center and added another assist in 11 games in right field. It’s not a Cespedes rocket arm, but Tomas is going to catch his share of runners on the basepaths if opponents test him.

 

MLB Readiness

 

While Cespedes, Abreu and Castillo left Cuba in their mid-20s and arrived as immediate big leaguers, it’s more open to debate where Tomas should begin his career. Based on his age and how he looked this past season in Cuba, it’s possible that the best thing for Tomas would be to start in Triple-A with the goal of joining a major league team within a couple of months, which wouldn’t be unreasonable for a 24-year-old.

 

But the most likely scenario is that Tomas goes straight to the big leagues. He’s expected to command a huge contract. The team that signs him is likely to not only have a higher evaluation on him relative to the industry consensus, but also have an immediate need for Tomas on their major league team. Given all those factors, I would bet on seeing Tomas in a major league lineup on Opening Day.

 

Overall

 

The line between a replacement-level player and an above-average one can be thin. J.D. Martinez, thanks to a spike in power, went from a minor league free agent who couldn’t make the Astros to a dangerous .315/.358/.553 masher with the Tigers. With Tomas, teams are looking at arguably the riskiest Cuban player yet to hit the open market.

 

A team that falls in love with Tomas could see him as reminiscent of Marlins outfielder Marcell Ozuna, who’s also listed at 6-foot-1, 230 pounds and was born exactly two days before Tomas. Ozuna hit .269/.317/.455 with 23 homers, a 6.7 percent walk rate and a 26.8 percent strikeout rate in 612 plate appearances. Like Ozuna, Tomas’ best tools are his power and arm strength, with an aggressive hitting approach and good amount of whiffs. By Wins Above Replacement, Ozuna was worth between 3.7 WAR (FanGraphs) and 4.5 WAR (Baseball-Reference.com), though Ozuna did it as a slightly above-average defensive center fielder, while Tomas is going to have to play a corner. Ozuna’s swing is a little cleaner and less uphill than Tomas’ but a rosy outlook for Tomas would project him as a similar offensive performer in right field.

 

The risk, though, is that some scouts worry that Tomas’ contact and approach issues might impede him from getting to his power often enough and eat away at his ability to get on base at an acceptable rate. When he struggles, he looks more like White Sox left fielder Dayan Viciedo, another heavyset righthanded hitter. Two years ago, Viciedo hit 25 home runs, but with a .255/.300/.444 line in a hitter-friendly park. Viciedo’s inability to make adjustments to cut down on his swing-and-miss rate or improve his walk rate have resulted in his offensive performance declining since then.

 

Wladimir Balentien is another big-bodied, big power, big arm, big strikeout, free-swinging righthanded hitter who never was able to put it together against major league pitching. That said, I think it’s fair to wonder whether Balentien, who’s MLB time consists of 559 plate appearances mostly between his age 23-24 seasons, would have been able to figure it out in his mid-to-late 20s had he stayed in the U.S. rather than signing to play in Japan when he was 26, especially given that he set the single-season record in Nippon Professional Baseball last year with 60 home runs.

 

A more middle-ground expectation would peg Tomas along the lines of what Phillies outfielder Marlon Byrd produced this season. Byrd is 37, so while it’s unusual to compare a player to someone who’s 14 years older, they’re physically comparable (Byrd’s a 6-foot, 245-pound righthanded-hitting corner outfielder) and the shape of their offensive performance could be similar too. Byrd hit .264/.312/.445 in 154 games with 25 home runs, a 5.5 percent walk rate and 29 percent strikeout rate in 2014. With around average defense for a right fielder, he was worth around 2.5 WAR.

 

The year before, when Byrd had a breakout season as a 34-year-old, he was a 4-to-5 win player who hit .291/.335/.511 with 24 homers. His walk rates were about the same, though his strikeout rate jumped from 24.9 percent last year to 28.9 percent in 2014, and after a huge spike in his isolated power to .220 in 2013, Byrd dropped to .181 this season, which drove much of the difference between his ’13 and ’14 seasons.

 

To a team that believes in him, those two seasons could illustrate a solid midpoint and upside projection for Tomas, who entering his age-24 season has room for growth rather than the decline teams typically project for major league free agents in their late-20s and early-30s. If a team places a premium on power and sees Tomas as a middle-of-the-order bat, it’s not hard to see why he’s expected to sign a record contract for a Cuban player.

[kgm1]

Does anyone have the write-up by Ben Badler and post it, please and thanks.

 

http://www.baseballamerica.com/international/baseball-americas-complete-guide-yasmany-tomas/

 

Here it is Jay

 

 

Yasmany Tomas has a lot of things going for him. He’s young (24 in November) but ready or near-ready for the big leagues, he has premium power, is exempt from the international bonus pools and won’t cost a team any draft picks or prospects in return. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Jose Abreu, Yasiel Puig and Yoenis Cespedes have been terrific, or that Jorge Soler looks like he will be too, or that Rusney Castillo, who some teams thought was a fourth outfielder when he was still in Cuba, just signed what’s essentially a six-year, $72.5 million contract with the Red Sox. The appetite of owners to get involved in the Cuban market has never been greater.

 

So what should we expect from Tomas? I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen Tomas play quite a bit in the last year that he was on the field before he defected. I saw Tomas play in two international competitions and in Serie Nacional games in Cuba over the span of roughly 14 months from March 2013 through April 2014. I have seen 65 plate appearances from Tomas in total during that stretch, including 29 plate appearances from February through April while he played for Industriales in Cuba this year. Based on that, and from talking with several scouts who have seen him both at international tournaments and more recently in the Dominican Republic, here’s Baseball America’s guide to Yasmany Tomas.

 

Background

 

Tomas is with Javier Rodriguez, a prominent Dominican trainer who also had Cuban infielder Alexander Guerrero last year when he signed with the Dodgers for four years, $28 million, and his agent is Jay Alou. Tomas has residency in Haiti and a specific license from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), although he is still waiting for MLB to declare him a free agent. He’s in the Dominican Republic training and working out for teams.

 

Tomas debuted in Serie Nacional in the 2008-09 season as an 18-year-old, though he played sparingly his first two years. Tomas missed the 2010-11 season for undisclosed reasons, but he had a breakout season in 2011-12, batting .301/.340/.580 with 16 homers, 10 walks and 44 strikeouts in 226 plate appearances. He followed that up in 2012-13 by hitting .289/.364/.538 (fifth in the league in slugging) with 15 home runs, 34 walks (10 intentional) and 52 strikeouts in 324 plate appearances. Tomas’ final season in Cuba was relatively disappointing. He hit .290/.346/.450 in 257 plate appearances with six home runs, 21 walks and 46 strikeouts in 65 games. Tomas also suffered a left wrist injury in February when he crashed into an outfield wall.

 

After that, Tomas lost regular playing time through the end of the season, which for Industriales ended in April in the semifinals of the playoffs. While the wrist injury might explain some of his struggles in the second half of the season, Tomas also hit just .258/.324/.411 in 170 trips to the plate in the first half. Yet Castillo also had a down year in his final season in Cuba, which didn’t prevent the Red Sox from giving him record money for a Cuban defector.

 

Power

 

Power is the calling card for Tomas, a strong man with big lift in his swing. It’s 70 raw power on the 20-80 scale, with a chance to hit 25-plus home runs over a full season, possibly more depending on contact frequency in game situations. The power is evident in batting practice, where he generates loft and over-the-fence power from his pull side over to right-center field. When Cuba took batting practice in Japan at the WBC last year, the only players on the team with more raw power than Tomas were Abreu and Alfredo Despaigne (who both have 80 power), and that includes Yulieski Gourriel.

 

Hitting

 

Tomas’ value will mostly boil down to how much contact he can make against major league pitching. That’s true for most players—if you can’t hit, you’re probably not going to play anywhere—but with Tomas, the gap in what teams project from him his big enough that it’s the difference between a fringy big leaguer and a potential star. Tomas was terrific in the WBC, but he has not performed well in his last two international competitions where scouts were able to watch him in person.

 

At the World Port Tournament in the Netherlands in July 2013, Tomas went 5-for-20 with no extra-base hits. Later that month in a friendship series in the United States against the U.S. college national team, Tomas looked overmatched, going 3-for-18 with seven strikeouts.

 

There are things that Tomas does well with his swing, but there are also elements of his stroke and his hitting approach that are worrisome. Tomas can hit towering home runs but it comes from an uppercut swing, which can be fine for a power hitter but also creates a swing plane with holes. That leads to swing-and-miss tendencies even in the strike zone, and Tomas’ penchant for chasing pitches off the plate only exacerbates that problem. The power arms on the U.S. college national team gave Tomas all sorts of trouble with mid-90s velocity, especially high and tight.

 

He has also shown—against Team USA, in the WBC and in Cuba—that he’s susceptible to swinging through offspeed pitches, both in the zone and off the plate. You can see those concerns in the video below, with the obvious caveat that I’m cherry-picking Tomas when he’s taking his worst swings, and I could do this for any hitter, but it shows the issues we’ve talked about:

[kgm1]

Even though Tomas comes up with some empty hacks, it’s not a long swing. He does a good job of staying inside the ball and he’s shown he can drive pitches to the opposite field. He has a strong finish to his swing and uses his wrists well. So while Tomas doesn’t project as a perennial .300 hitter, there are enough things he does well at the plate that give him the opportunity for his tremendous raw power to carry him.

 

“I think his average suffers because of the path of the swing and because of his discipline—the swing and miss, the chasing out of the zone,” said one scout. “But he’s going to run into his power enough to give you 25 home runs. You’re probably looking at .260 and 25-30 home runs.”

 

Speed

 

Tomas is a big man. Listed in Cuba at 6-foot-1, 230 pounds, Tomas has always had a heavy build with a thick, strong lower half that jumps out immediately. Tomas got even heavier last year, pushing close to 250 pounds by the end of the 2013-14 season with a larger waistline than he had shown last summer when he was in the United States. Since he left Cuba, Tomas has dropped some of that excess baggage.

 

He’s still a large human being, but Tomas runs surprisingly well for his size. In Cuba, there were times Tomas was clocked going home to first as fast as 4.4 to even 4.35 seconds, which indicates 40 to 45 speed. That’s not a burner, but that’s better than you would expect from looking at someone with his physique. Like Alexander Guerrero, who also trained with Rodriguez, Tomas may have even improved his speed a tick since leaving Cuba, as he ran the 60-yard dash in 6.9 seconds twice in his open showcase at the Giants’ Dominican academy on Sept. 21, a time that indicates average speed. Once Tomas signs, however, he will probably settle in as a fringy to below-average runner.

 

“The body, obviously, that concerns you,” said a second scout. “But a lot of people mix athleticism with body type. You can be athletic without being lanky and wiry. I think he’s athletic for his size. He’s deceptive in that sense. You don’t think he’s going to move a certain way, but he can move.”

 

Stolen bases were never a big part of his game in Cuba. He stole 15 bases in 30 career attempts, including a career-high of six steals (with six caught stealing) last season in Cuba. I also saw him make some ill-advised baserunning decisions during games in Cuba last season, so I wouldn’t expect Tomas to provide any value on the basepaths.

 

Defense/Arm

 

Tomas has the defensive attributes to fit in either corner outfield spot. He has some infield background, having played a bit of third base and first base early in his career, and he probably could play first base in the big leagues, but his value is highest in the outfield.

 

Figuring out just how good Tomas’ defensive skills are in right field is tricky. With Rusney Castillo, Guillermo Heredia or Victor Mesa, those are three Cuban center fielders where their range, reads and instincts immediately jump out, which makes it easier to get a handle on their defense. With Tomas, there are times when he can make impressive plays, and he’s not afraid to dive for balls. Then there are other times where he makes scouts scratch their heads. Watching Tomas in a showcase environment isn’t going to tell scouts too much about his outfield instincts, either. So while I don’t have the most confident read on Tomas’ defensive ability, I don’t think he’ll be at either the extreme of a Gold Glove winner or be a liability in an outfield corner, as long as he keeps his body in check and doesn’t end up looking like Delmon Young in his Tigers days.

 

Tomas’ best defensive tool is his arm, which is plus. Unlike Latin American teenagers in a showcase setting, Tomas doesn’t always air it out on all his throws just to show off his arm strength, so some evaluators might not have seen a 60 arm, but that’s what he’s shown at his best. He’s also been adept at gunning down baserunners in Cuba, with nine assists in 54 games in right field last season. The year before, believe it or not, Tomas played primarily center field (which is more a function of the lack of speed in his team’s outfield than anything else) and recorded 13 assists in 64 games in center and added another assist in 11 games in right field. It’s not a Cespedes rocket arm, but Tomas is going to catch his share of runners on the basepaths if opponents test him.

 

MLB Readiness

 

While Cespedes, Abreu and Castillo left Cuba in their mid-20s and arrived as immediate big leaguers, it’s more open to debate where Tomas should begin his career. Based on his age and how he looked this past season in Cuba, it’s possible that the best thing for Tomas would be to start in Triple-A with the goal of joining a major league team within a couple of months, which wouldn’t be unreasonable for a 24-year-old.

 

But the most likely scenario is that Tomas goes straight to the big leagues. He’s expected to command a huge contract. The team that signs him is likely to not only have a higher evaluation on him relative to the industry consensus, but also have an immediate need for Tomas on their major league team. Given all those factors, I would bet on seeing Tomas in a major league lineup on Opening Day.

 

Overall

 

The line between a replacement-level player and an above-average one can be thin. J.D. Martinez, thanks to a spike in power, went from a minor league free agent who couldn’t make the Astros to a dangerous .315/.358/.553 masher with the Tigers. With Tomas, teams are looking at arguably the riskiest Cuban player yet to hit the open market.

 

A team that falls in love with Tomas could see him as reminiscent of Marlins outfielder Marcell Ozuna, who’s also listed at 6-foot-1, 230 pounds and was born exactly two days before Tomas. Ozuna hit .269/.317/.455 with 23 homers, a 6.7 percent walk rate and a 26.8 percent strikeout rate in 612 plate appearances. Like Ozuna, Tomas’ best tools are his power and arm strength, with an aggressive hitting approach and good amount of whiffs. By Wins Above Replacement, Ozuna was worth between 3.7 WAR (FanGraphs) and 4.5 WAR (Baseball-Reference.com), though Ozuna did it as a slightly above-average defensive center fielder, while Tomas is going to have to play a corner. Ozuna’s swing is a little cleaner and less uphill than Tomas’ but a rosy outlook for Tomas would project him as a similar offensive performer in right field.

 

The risk, though, is that some scouts worry that Tomas’ contact and approach issues might impede him from getting to his power often enough and eat away at his ability to get on base at an acceptable rate. When he struggles, he looks more like White Sox left fielder Dayan Viciedo, another heavyset righthanded hitter. Two years ago, Viciedo hit 25 home runs, but with a .255/.300/.444 line in a hitter-friendly park. Viciedo’s inability to make adjustments to cut down on his swing-and-miss rate or improve his walk rate have resulted in his offensive performance declining since then.

 

Wladimir Balentien is another big-bodied, big power, big arm, big strikeout, free-swinging righthanded hitter who never was able to put it together against major league pitching. That said, I think it’s fair to wonder whether Balentien, who’s MLB time consists of 559 plate appearances mostly between his age 23-24 seasons, would have been able to figure it out in his mid-to-late 20s had he stayed in the U.S. rather than signing to play in Japan when he was 26, especially given that he set the single-season record in Nippon Professional Baseball last year with 60 home runs.

 

A more middle-ground expectation would peg Tomas along the lines of what Phillies outfielder Marlon Byrd produced this season. Byrd is 37, so while it’s unusual to compare a player to someone who’s 14 years older, they’re physically comparable (Byrd’s a 6-foot, 245-pound righthanded-hitting corner outfielder) and the shape of their offensive performance could be similar too. Byrd hit .264/.312/.445 in 154 games with 25 home runs, a 5.5 percent walk rate and 29 percent strikeout rate in 2014. With around average defense for a right fielder, he was worth around 2.5 WAR.

 

The year before, when Byrd had a breakout season as a 34-year-old, he was a 4-to-5 win player who hit .291/.335/.511 with 24 homers. His walk rates were about the same, though his strikeout rate jumped from 24.9 percent last year to 28.9 percent in 2014, and after a huge spike in his isolated power to .220 in 2013, Byrd dropped to .181 this season, which drove much of the difference between his ’13 and ’14 seasons.

 

To a team that believes in him, those two seasons could illustrate a solid midpoint and upside projection for Tomas, who entering his age-24 season has room for growth rather than the decline teams typically project for major league free agents in their late-20s and early-30s. If a team places a premium on power and sees Tomas as a middle-of-the-order bat, it’s not hard to see why he’s expected to sign a record contract for a Cuban player.

[Angrioter]

Andy Martino of the New York Daily News hears from "people involved in the process" that the Phillies are "strong contenders" for Cuban outfielder Yasmany Tomas.

 

The Phillies appear to have strong interest in Tomas, as general manager Ruben Amaro, Jr. flew to the Dominican Republic to personally scout Tomas. While the Padres and Dodgers have been mentioned as possibilities, Martino hears that they are "far less likely" as potential landing spots. The Tigers have also been added to the list of potential suitors, which includes the Twins, Giants, and Rangers, among others. The Mets and Yankees are not expected to be players for the 23-year-old outfielder, who could end up with a $100 million contract.

[Angrioter]

Cuban slugger Yasmany Tomas will celebrate his 24th birthday on Friday, and it will surely be a happy one given the lucrative contract on the horizon. Yesterday, agent Jay Alou explained the Phillies’ standing in the Tomas derby, telling reporters including Jim Salisbury of CSNPhilly.com, “There are several teams that I could say are frontrunners, but yes (the Phillies are one of them).” Surprisingly, the Phillies have yet to make a formal offer, but Alou says, “It will all get going soon.”

 

How about the $100MM figure that has been bandied about for Tomas? “I don’t know where that came from, but he’d be happy and I’d be happy,” says Alou. In my September profile of Tomas, I posited a seven-year, $105MM contract. More recently, Jon Heyman of CBS Sports went with eight years and $100MM, an agent who spoke to Heyman said seven years and $93MM, and a GM said eight years, $100MM. Eight years is an interesting call, because that would mean Tomas would be giving up a potential valuable free agent season. Seven would be more aligned with typical MLB service time for a top prospect, who can put in just shy of seven years before reaching free agency if called up a few weeks into the season.

 

Yesterday, Jorge Arangure Jr. had an excellent profile of Tomas for Vice Sports. In it, Arangure said Tomas will likely choose a team from the Phillies, Yankees, Red Sox, Mariners, and Padres, who have all scouted the player several times. Tomas’ Dominican-based trainer Raul Javier, asked when the player would sign, replied, “Very soon.”

[xposbrad]

I just saw he was under 30 years old, and won't cost prospects, not sure he fits in AA's plans then. We need him to be like 7 years older and signed on another team for AA to have interest, PASS.

[Angrioter]

ChrisCotillo

Yasmany Tomas appears close to signing with an unidentified team, per @jorgearangure

[TDotttt2005]

Yankees i bet.

[Angrioter]

Yankees i bet.

 

Or Phillies or Texas

[xposbrad]

Or Phillies or Texas

 

Won't your jaw drop when you see the Jays are the one who signed him

[TDotttt2005]

Won't your jaw drop when you see the Jays are the one who signed him

 

Yeah, still havent picked my jaw up off the floor from when I found out we won the Darvish posting.

 

#ohwait

[Angrioter]

Won't your jaw drop when you see the Jays are the one who signed him

 

You're so funny.

 

AA hates Cubans.

[Sammy225]

You're so funny.

 

AA hates Cubans.

 

But by god he loves his Dominicans!

[Angrioter]

But by god he loves his Dominicans!

 

'cause Dominicans >> Cubans

[Sammy225]

'cause Dominicans >> Cubans

 

Ya but you guys make s*** cigars

[Angrioter]

Ya but you guys make s*** cigars

 

But the beers and hookers brotha!

[Sammy225]

Next year when i am in the Dominican i want some hookers on the house then.

[Angrioter]

Next year when i am in the Dominican i want some hookers on the house then.

 

Just comunicate with me.

 

HookersCheaps.com or DominicanPimpBigDick.com. do

[Angrioter]

This guy could be the Jays LF. Never know!!