White Sox see five-tool potential in new signee
The White Sox took care of the present, and the future, on Friday.
They officially signed Liam Hendriks to a four-year contract, and the all-star closer is intent on helping the Sox get back to the playoffs this season and beyond.
"I'm not about the personal accolades," Hendriks said. "All I'm about is making sure that we put a winning team on the field and making sure, I keep calling it the road to a ring, we get that road to a ring started off on the right foot."
Later Friday, the White Sox announced they agreed to terms with Cuban outfielder Yoelqui Cespedes, which included a $2.05 million signing bonus.
Somewhere down the road, the Sox are expecting the 23-year-old Cespedes to help them make a push for a ring.
"Yoelqui (yo-EL-key) is a natural center fielder with the ability to play all three outfield spots," said Marco Paddy, the White Sox's director of international operations. "There's a lot of tools. The tool set is there. He can run, he can throw, very good, disciplined hitter with a good feel for the strike zone and he's shown tremendous power to all sides of the field.
"We're getting a guy that has the potential to have five tools in the major leagues and we're very excited about it."
The younger half-brother of major-league outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, Yoelqui played four seasons (2015-19) for Granma in the Cuban Serie Nacional. He hit .287/.351/.415 with 35 doubles, 10 triples, 12 home runs, 98 RBI, 114 runs scored and 14 stolen bases in 226 career games with Granma.
Like most players that weren't on major-league rosters or taxi squads last year, the right-handed Cespedes had to make the best of a difficult situation caused by COVID-19.
He has been training with Yoenis in Port St. Lucie, Fla., and at nearby Indian River Community College.
"My first goal was to gain some weight," the 5-foot-9, 200-pound Cespedes said through a translator. "I worked on that and then after that it was just trying to fix the little things like pitch recognition, baserunning and defense. It was just little things that I needed to focus on to get better."
Having missed the entire 2020 season, it is uncertain what Cespedes' path is going to be this year. Depending on what the minor leagues look like after being shuttered by the coronavirus, Cespedes is likely to start in Class A.
He is expected to advance through the system at a rapid pace.
"When you're talking about a player you never want to put a timetable on his arrival, but from a baseball standpoint he's very close," Paddy said. "He's advanced, he knows how to play the game. He's played, since he was 19 years old he's been on the Cuban national team with a lot of international experience, the World Classic in Tokyo and he's been to two Caribbean Series.
"So combined with his Cuban experience, he's very advanced. It's just a matter of him getting (work) and doing the things he needs to do to advance but he's very close to the major leagues."
Working with his brother Yoenis, who opted out of the 2020 season with the Mets and is currently a free agent, has helped Yoelqui get a feel for what's to come.
"He's been a very big help for me because he has already passed through these problems," Yoelqui said. "He knows what I'm going to face. The main advice he gave me is to work hard every day, work every day. You're going to have good days and bad days but you have to keep working. You can't rest, you can't quit, you just need to keep working and working hard. That's what I've been doing."