Oakland A’s Player of the Day: Yoenis Cespedes

Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Today’s Player of the Day is Yoenis Cespedes. We all know what happened, Cespedes had an amazing breakout season in 2012, only to regress in 2013. We were all disappointed. So what can we expect from him in 2014? Let’s have a look.

2013 Offense

Cespedes had some very disappointing numbers in 2013. He had a .240 average, .294 OBP, 127 hits, 74 runs, 80 RBI’s, 37 walks, and 137 strikeouts. All of those numbers are lower than his 2012 numbers, except the strikeouts, and that isn’t the stat you want to be higher. What makes it even worse is that in 2013 he had 529 at bats and in 2012 he had 487 at bats. That means that he was more productive in 2012 with fewer at bats than he was in 2013 with more at bats. The cool thing was that even with a bad .240 average, he still had more homeruns in 2013 than in 2012. Can you imagine how many he would hit if he was doing well?

2013 Defense

Cespedes was reliable in the outfield. He played in 108 games defensively for a total of 934 innings total. He had a total of 4 errors. He was reliable because he can do his job for the most part and gets all of the routine outs. He may have only played in 108 games, but he played as DH in a lot more and the injury he had was because of an awkward base running slide. For the most part Cespedes is good enough defensively to be out there on a daily basis.

2014 Offense

Predicting the performance for Cepsedes is a little tricky. Some might argue that Cespedes might have been just a one year wonder. I however, think that he will slowly get back to where he was and then get even further. I predict he’ll have a 30+ homerun season, have an average above .285, and an OBP over .320. Cespedes will get better in 2014, because Chili Davis has a lot more time to work with him to help adjust and hit the pitches he always strikes out on. It’s also a fresh clean slate for Cespedes to start off on especially coming off of an amazing performance in the ALDS. It’s just what Cespedes needs to return to form, and he has all of Spring Training to work on it as well. Cespedes will be back to form in 2014.

2014 Defense

There isn’t much to say on Cespedes’s defense except for the fact that Cespedes will be a lot like last year. He will get playing time in the outfield but will also spend quite a few games as the DH while Gentry gets some playing time in the outfield as well. It’ll be practically a repeat of last year for Cespedes on defense.

Overall we can expect the same great things we got from Cespedes that we saw in 2012 and in the ALDS this past October.