When the Chicago White Sox recently agreed to terms with center fielder Luis Robert -- the last Cuban “amateur” player to sign under the soft-cap era of international signing rules -- the signing brought to mind the many deals inked by Cuban players over the past few years. The results have been mixed at best, because for every Yoenis Cespedes, Jose Abreu and Yasiel Puig, there has been a Yasmany Tomas, a Rusney Castillo and Hector Olivera who fell well short of major league success.
Robert has been hyped to some absurd multiple of his actual tools, but he was still seen as a valuable commodity by numerous major league teams. For the White Sox, the price for Robert's potential was a reported $25 million. How he develops depends on a lot of factors, including the mechanics of his swing.
But the reality is that the majority of big-ticket Cuban position players haven’t worked out -- and very few have justified the initial outlay of cash.
Cespedes is probably the biggest success story to come from Cuba in recent years, signing a four-year, $36 million deal with Oakland and delivering 9.4 WAR over that deal and 19.2 across the seven-plus years since he signed.
Alexei Ramirez has a slightly higher WAR total than Cespedes, 20.3 over parts of nine seasons, but it’s over a longer span and his value was entirely a function of the fact that he could play shortstop, as he was near replacement level with the bat. Abreu has delivered fair value on his contract, as has Yasiel Puig, although both players fell off sharply after their debuts. (Yunel Escobar has the highest WAR total of any Cuban-born position player in recent years, but he was drafted rather than signed as a free agent.)
The Dodgers struck gold on Puig, a player no other team thought was worth half what they offered him, but also wasted $53 million on Alex Guerrero and Erisbel Arruebarrena.
Running through the other major deals:
Leonys Martin signed a $15.5 million deal with Texas and has averaged less than two wins above replacement a year, most of which came on defense.
Infielder Yuniesky Betancourt was below replacement level in over 1,100 games.
Dayan Viciedo stands at 0.5 WAR for the $10 million the White Sox gave him.
Yasmany Tomas, signed in one of Dave Stewart’s many follies, is also below replacement level.
Rusney Castillo gave the Red Sox 1.6 WAR for $72.5 million and was outrighted off their 40-man roster.
Hector Olivera was terrible on the field before his domestic violence incident effectively ended his career.
Jorge Soler has been injured often enough that he’s never had 500 plate appearances in any season in pro ball and stands at 0.5 WAR for his $30 million deal.
Marlins shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria? 2 WAR.
Jose Iglesias is an elite defender at short, but he’s only totaled up 5.9 WAR and has yet to crack 2.0 in any season.
Yuli Gurriel’s deal hasn’t worked out so far for Houston, but it’s early.
The same goes for Cincinnati’s Alfredo Rodriguez, now hitting .273/.322/.309 as a 23-year-old in high-A.
Henry Urrutia hit .337/.411/.501 in Cuba’s Seria Nacional, signed for $778,000 with Baltimore, but then didn’t hit in 94 big league plate appearances.
The Orioles tried the same trick with outfielder Dariel Alvarez, who hit so poorly that they converted him to the mound this spring, only to see him blow out his elbow before throwing in a regular-season game.
Yoan Moncada may prove to be one of the exceptions. He’s certainly among the best athletes we’ve seen come from Cuba, as opposed to the bulk of the players I’ve mentioned above. Other than Cespedes, those players are or were one-sided players -- great defenders who couldn’t hit, or sluggers who had positional or defensive questions.
But Moncada has real questions around his swing, and is still striking out in 27 percent of his plate appearances in Triple-A after posting high strikeout rates in the minors and his very brief MLB stint last year.
If scouts are saying Luis Robert’s hit tool isn’t better than Moncada’s, though, I would be concerned given the latter’s issues with contact and the general failure of Cuban hitting prospects to perform up to the expectations of their contracts.
So what do scouts say about Luis Robert? I’ve never seen him myself, but will once he’s assigned to a team. But talking to scouts, I found remarkably consistent answers -- even from those who said they were “off” him. Robert is athletic, a plus runner with above-average bat speed and raw power, but every single scout I asked offered major concerns about his swing and his ability to make contact against even average fastballs inside or up, because his dead-hands start results in no load and a swing that doesn’t involve his lower half. He’s got the speed and range for center, but I did get mixed reports on his arm ranging from average to below-average from his workouts for teams.
I think his contract is commensurate with what previous players have been paid for their skills, but when you look at past production on those deals and very real concerns about Robert’s present hit tool, the odds are that the White Sox won’t get adequate return on this investment.
The one team that I might argue was actually hurt by Robert signing with the White Sox is the Cardinals, who were very heavily involved in this bidding and had the best rationale for overpaying for the player, assuming that they did believe he was a $20 million-plus talent. The Cardinals have no avenue remaining to spend in the amateur talent market this year. They lost their top three draft picks next month, one for signing Dexter Fowler and two for the hacking scandal, and the upcoming international free agency period that starts on July 2 takes place under the hard caps of the new CBA.
The Cardinals are in excellent shape overall -- although, in a bit of irony, they have a struggling Cuban-born position player prospect of their own, 22-year-old Randy Arozarena (.256/.308/.410 in high-A). But missing out on Robert likely means they won’t have any way to boost their system this year.