The United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has cleared Cuban outfielder Yasmani Tomas to sign, according to MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez. Tomas still requires a grant of costless agency from Major League Baseball before he can agree to a deal with a Major League club.
Scouts believe that the 24-year-old Cuban will project as a power-hitting corner outfielder with below-average speed. His 6-foot-1, 230-pound frame makes it easy for him to generate the power to hit monstrous homers. He may not be quite ready to contribute immediately in a Major League lineup, but the consensus seems to be that he is extremely close to being big league-ready and will begin in the upper levels of the minors -- likely Triple-A.
The right-handed hitting Tomas offers the promise of a unique combination of power and age for a market in which both are treasured assets. He will not be subject to international spending limits, given his age and experience, meaning that he will be a true costless agent when he receives his designation from the league.
Tomas had his breakthrough season during the 2011-2012 Serie Nacional regular season when he batted .301/.340/.580 with 16 homers in 240 plate appearances over 69 games. He followed that by hitting .289/.364/.538 while launching 15 homers, drawing 34 walks (ten intentional) and striking out 52 times in 324 plate appearances over 81 games played during the 2012-2013 Serie Nacional regular season. He ranked fifth in the league in slugging and sixth in home runs that season.
Tomas did show some swing-and-miss tendencies at the WBC in 2013. His swing possessed an uppercut stroke and he had trouble handling good breaking balls. When Cuba took a team to face the United States college national team in the United States last summer , the U.S. power arms were able to exploit some of those holes by beating him with good velocity up and in and getting him to swing through off-speed pitches in and out of the strike zone.
He finished this past Serie Nacional season hitting .290/.346/.450 while blasting six home runs, drawing 21 walks and striking out 46 times in 257 plate appearances.
Given the fact that Tomas is a Cuban-born player, he will always be compared to fellow countrymen who have signed high-dollar contracts in the Major Leagues already. Jose Abreu and Rusney Castillo both recently landed deals guaranteeing greater than $10 million a year over the next several years. Both players were considered to be a little more polished than Tomas, however both players were also older when they were still on the market. It's far too early to tell what teams will bid to acquire Tomas' services, but expect it to be somewhere around the figures that Yasiel Puig got from the Los Angeles Dodgers (seven years, $42 million) and Jorge Soler got from the Chicago Cubs (nine years, $30 million). Both Puig and Soler were young, high-upside outfielders when they were still on the market. Tomas may be a different type of player than the two, but it wouldn't be a huge surprise if he received a similar deal.