Jose Abreu defects from Cuba

[joncarlos]

Should get a pretty big contract this off season.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/majors/cuban-star-jose-abreu-leaves-cuba/

Abreu is an intelligent hitter without a lot of effort in in his swing and the power to hit 30-plus homers in a season. He has an unorthodox setup with a double toe tap in his stride, and some scouts consider his bat speed only fair, which they believe makes it hard for him to catch up to good velocity on the inner third of the plate.

At the WBC, Abreu showed he could handle curveballs in the strike zone but he was prone to chasing sliders off the plate, although that was a question mark on both Cespedes and Yasiel Puig when they arrived from Cuba as well. He’s limited athletically, but any team that signs Abreu will be banking on his bat and tremendous power profiling in the middle of the lineup.

[Grinch]

Should get a pretty big contract this off season.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/major...u-leaves-cuba/

Will he start the year in MLB, the minors, or still unsigned (visa/residency/OFAC issues)?

[joncarlos]

Will he start the year in MLB, the minors, or still unsigned (visa/residency/OFAC issues)?

I'm guessing that it's early enough that he'll get signed before the season. But he might not get signed until spring training starts, so he could start out in the minors for 2 weeks or a month just to shake the rust off.

[Sour Masher]

Is there some website that keeps dibs on international players that I don't know about? In my league, there is one guy who gets them all. We are a savvy league, but he always seems to be a day or a week early on all defecting players. He has Darvish, Puig, now this guy. He picked up Abreu a couple of days ago, seemingly before the news of defection broke.

[Roto Rooter]

Every cuban that defects now is 26, how convenient!