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With Jose Abreu planning to join Major League Baseball after getting clearance from all of the possible places, he is going to become one of the winter’s or possibly spring’s hottest commodities. Of course, the big market teams like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox will probably kick the tires on him and immediately offer him a deal, but what should happen is that the Miami Marlins open its wallet and spend some money on this guy.
Due to the recent success of Yoenis Cespedes with the Oakland Athletics and Yasiel Puig with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Marlins should be salivating over this guy. Abreu played in the same league as both Puig and Cespedes and hit better than both of them, batting over .300 for three straight years and hitting more than 30 home runs in the same time frame.
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Miami could also play the location card with Abreu as well as Florida is only 90 miles away from Cuba and home to the largest percentage of Cubans in the country. Abreu has the potential to feel right at home if Miami does indeed go after him.
Since it has been said that Abreu is better than Puig and Cespedes, he is going to cost more. And since the Marlins have a small payroll and very low fan support in a brand new, state-of-the-art stadium, pursuing Abreu and giving him roughly $80 million may not be such a terrible idea in the scheme of things.
If Abreu is the real deal, Miami needs to go hard after him and bring back some fans to the ballpark.
Ryan Gaydos is a MLB columnist for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter, “like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google
