• Submitted by: lena campos
• Sports
• 09 / 22 / 2013

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Cuban Slugger Brings Promise and Risk to the Plate Dariel Abreu hit a grand slam against China that was positively jaw-dropping. Abreu, a powerfully built right-handed hitter, loaded up on his back leg, waited on a curveball and hit a towering drive halfway up the outfield stands. Thirty major league front offices were surely paying attention.


Abreu is expected to sign a lucrative contract though it is unclear if he can successfully adapt to the majors like the Athletics’ Yoenis Cespedes.

It is possible that when Abreu does sign, his deal will be the richest of any Cuban defector, topping the Dodgers’ Yasiel Puig’s $42 million.

Last month, Abreu defected from Cuba, the latest player to leave the nation to pursue a major league career. Yasiel Puig’s electric summer in Los Angeles for the Dodgers and Yoenis Cespedes’s success with the Oakland Athletics the past two seasons have helped to fuel the hype surrounding Abreu’s imminent arrival in the majors. It is possible that when Abreu does sign, his deal will be the richest of any Cuban defector, topping Puig’s $42 million.

“There is more and more interest in the Cuban players all the time,” said the agent Jaime Torres, who represents Puig. “Look how well they are doing.”

Still, Abreu is a player who has spent his career hidden from most major league scouts and has essentially been competing against hard-to-evaluate opponents. He could be the next great Cuban star, or merely the beneficiary of a bull market for Cuban players. There is little certainty either way.

Abreu, 26, stands 6 feet 3 inches and weighs 250 pounds. He is a first baseman with ample power, but also a sharp batting eye and the ability to hit for a high average. The numbers he put up in Cuba’s Serie Nacional are staggering.

In the 2009-10 season, Abreu rose to stardom when he hit .399 with 30 home runs, 76 runs batted in and a .555 on-base percentage. The next year he had one of the best seasons in the history of the Cuban league, batting .453 with 33 home runs and 93 R.B.I. in only 66 games (he missed 23 with bursitis in his shoulder).

His past two seasons have been similarly prodigious. At the World Baseball Classic this year, he was 9 for 25 with 3 home runs in 6 games.

Abreu is often called a four-tool player, missing only the speed of his countrymen Puig and Cespedes. Scouts have compared him to Ryan Howard because of his size and easy power. Peter Bjarkman, who covers the Cuban league for baseballdecuba.com, said Abreu had the look of a young Mark McGwire.

Adding to his value, Abreu will be part of a relatively thin free-agent class in the major leagues. So far, the San Francisco Giants have expressed interest, as have the Boston Red Sox, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Baltimore Orioles. The Mets, still looking for an impact hitter at first base, would also make an intriguing landing spot.

Ike Davis, once thought to be the Mets’ first baseman of the future, spent time at Class AAA Las Vegas this season and was recently shelved with an oblique injury. Neither of his replacements, Lucas Duda and Josh Satin, inspires much confidence as a long-term solution. Abreu could be a quick — albeit expensive — fix should General Manager Sandy Alderson decide he is up for a somewhat risky bidding war.

But Abreu is hardly a guarantee at the major league level. An international scout for one major league team said that Alfredo Despaigne and Frederich Cepeda, outfielders on the Cuban national team, were more dangerous hitters.

An international scout for another team said that major league clubs could not afford to make a mistake when spending big on a first baseman, since it is a traditional power position filled by players who bat in the middle of the lineup. In other words, the scout said, the same money that could be used to sign Abreu might be better spent in the acquisition of one of the many established first basemen “you already know can hit big league pitching.”

Neither scout wanted to be quoted by name discussing a player his team might end up bidding on.

Bjarkman noted that Abreu’s prodigious numbers came in a league that is leaking talent, as more and more players leave the country. Some pitchers in Cuba, he said, throw between 80 and 85 miles per hour, which is almost akin to batting practice in the majors.

“His numbers in the Cuban league are great, but they came against some very mediocre pitching,” Bjarkman said. “For the national team, he dropped off a bit. If there is a question, it’s whether he can adjust as quickly to the better pitching as the Cuban players who have been so good in the majors.”

Sigfredo Barros, a baseball writer for the Cuban newspaper Granma, said: “Sometimes it can be very hard to tell with the Cuban players. Not everyone can be Puig.”

Right now, Abreu is working to establish residency in Haiti so he can legally work in the United States. If he came directly he could work immediately, but he would have been subject to the amateur draft and deprived of his lucrative free agency.

In addition, Major League Baseball’s new interpretation of regulations from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control means Abreu will face a longer wait before he is cleared. In the past, Cuban defectors needed only to prove permanent residency in a country outside Cuba. Now baseball requires players to petition the Foreign Assets office, a process that can take several months.

Praver Shapiro Sports Management, which has handled other Cubans like pitcher Livan Hernandez, will represent Abreu. Last summer, the agency negotiated a nine-year, $30 million contract for another Cuban client, Jorge Soler, who signed with the Chicago Cubs.

Abreu is expected to have a showcase for scouts in the Dominican Republic this month, at which point the hype will probably grow. Where it leads remains to be seen.

Source. New York Times