The Pirates are one of several teams interested in Cuban outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, Tim Brown reports. Cespedes is a top talent who, at age 26, could make a big-league team out of Spring Training. The Pirates have had a presence at workouts in the Dominican scheduled by his agent.
↵Cespedes has recently gotten a fair amount of attention for his bizarre 20-minute workout video, which has since been disappeared from YouTube. But he's a very well regarded prospect in his own right, and he could command a contract bigger than the $30 million deal Aroldis Chapman got from the Reds.
↵Big-market teams like the Yankees and Phillies are in on Cespedes too, and the Marlins, weirdly, actually seem to have the upper hand so far, so the Pirates will have to open their pocketbooks if they want to land him. In the past few years, the Bucs have shown a willingness to do exactly that for young players, but rarely do unproven talents cost $30 million, so we'll have to see if the Pirates have the desire to be serious players here.
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