Well this isn’t good news for the other four team in the NL East.
The one redeeming quality of the Marlins overspending this winter has been that all of the players they signed are currently in the midst of their prime, meaning they should degrade over time.
According to MLB Trade Rumors, teams are starting to state the Marlins may be an early favorite to sign Cespedes. As the article also points out there are other teams, like the White Sox, that have strong Cuban connections.
Cespedes, correctly so, has been painted as an amazing prospect, with a huge upside coming from a very competitive Cuban system. Early estimates have his contract ranging from 25 to 45 million, however this can easily inflate as there are a lot of teams that are interested in signing him.
So why are the Marlins such a threat?
The Marlins have made it known that they are interested in not only overspending for top talent, but for talent that will bring fans into the ball park. That is part of the reason why they signed Jose Reyes, it is a huge reason why they wanted Pujols, and it is why they did not want to overspend for Price Fielder. Signing Cespedes would bring an additional huge, market that already exists in Miami to the stadium.
For teams like the Mets, who are hoping that by 2014 when their prospects mature, the Marlins signing Cespedes would be bad news because his signing immediately counteracts the aging process of Jose Reyes and Hanley Ramirez.
We’ll see what happens…
