We’re only a few weeks away from the start of the season and we have a new ‘The Blue Jays have checked in on ________’ report.
According to Ken Davidoff of the New York Post, the Blue Jays (along with the Yankees, White Sox, Brewers, Tigers,, Padres, Rays, Reds, Marlins, Cubs, and Braves) attended Yoenis Cespedes’ showcase in Florida.
I could quote some of the scouts on site, except it would be more effective to express their general sentiments in a collective shrug, as many of them did, their shrugs meaning, “Yup, he’s still a physical wonder and somebody you can dream on.”
At the plate, working with recently dismissed Mets hitting coordinator and coach Ryan Ellis, Cespedes did some soft-toss work, and then he took batting practice against a left-handed pitcher. He pulled some shots over the left-field wall and went the other way to deposit some shots over the wall in right-center. La Potencia still can send the baseball on a long-distance trip.
Cespedes has sort of fallen off the grid over the past few years due to battles with various injuries. He opted out of the 2020 season and he played in just 119 games between 2017 and 2019 due to heel and ankle problems. In those games, Cespedes slashed a .282/.343/.525 line.
I would imagine this is just the Blue Jays doing their due diligence on Cespedes as he doesn’t really seem to be a fit for their roster. The team already has a jammed outfield with George Springer, Randal Grichuk, Teoscar Hernandez, and Lourdes Gurriel, and the Blue Jays aren’t a team who can really afford to have a reclamation project spending a bunch of time at the designated hitter spot.
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