A Couple Cuban Players Interested in Yankees

It always seems that the Yankees have an upper hand when it comes to signing players in the international market for two reasons, money and fame, and those reasons are coming into play again with Cuban players Yadel Marti and Yasser Gomez.

In the past Hideki Irabu, Hideki Matsui, Orlando Hernandez and others said they wanted to play baseball and they wanted to do it specifically for the Yankees. Even Ichiro wanted to be a Yankee before the front office supposedly brushed him off as a weaker Brett Butler type.

Now a couple of Cuban-born players are coming to America, via the Dominican Republic, and they are open to joining any team, but have mentioned the Yankees by name.

MLB Trade Rumors had a brief description on the pair:

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“Marti, 29, is hailed as one of Cuba’s best pitchers. The righty was their ace in the 2006 World Baseball Classic, throwing 12.2 scoreless innings. Gomez, 28, is a speedy outfielder and career .331 hitter in Cuba. He hit .397 over a 66-game span in Cuba’s 2008 national series tournament.”

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Either could fill a role on the Yankees. Marti could compete for the role Andy Pettitte was expected to assume. As an import player it is unlikely he would earn much more than the $10 million Pettitte was offered. Then again this brings up the problem of blocking the youngsters.

Gomez is more interesting to me for his potential to play center field. This is an area the Yankees have been keeping track of all off-season. Recently they even reconsidered dealing for Mike Cameron again, this time swapping Nick Swisher.

So far there have been no reports of teams discussing deals with either player, we’ll keep you updated when it happens.