According to Jerry Crasnick of ESPN, free-agent designated hitter/first baseman Kendrys Morales is seeking a multi-year deal with “substantial” money that is in the range of the deal that the Oakland Athletics gave to designated hitter/first baseman Billy Butler, in which Butler signed a three-year, $30 million deal earlier this offseason.
Scott Boras is seeking “multiple years and substantial dollars” for Kendrys Morales, said an official with one AL club.
— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) December 8, 2014
To follow up on earlier Kendrys Morales tweet, one AL exec said he’s looking for 2-3 years at “Billy Butler money.”
— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) December 9, 2014
Morales, a 31-year-old import from the island nation of Cuba, stuck around on the open market until the weekend of the amateur draft. He is starting to look like he will be a free-agent for a while, just like last year. However, this time around he was unable to be offered a qualifying offer, due to the amount of time it took to get him signed, meaning he does not have draft compensation loss attached to him this time around.
Morales, who is represented by Scott Boras of the Boras Corporation, played in only 98 games during the 2014 campaign, as he had to wait until June to sign a one-year deal, with a pro-rated contract, with the Minnesota Twins. Morales was traded away after only six weeks with the team to the Seattle Mariners, the team that he had played for in 2013. Never finding any type of consistency as a hitter, as he hit just .218/.274/.338 with eight home runs and 42 runs batted in, while accumulating a 75 OPS+, which is 39 points lower than his career 114 OPS+ over 401 plate appearances
Leave a Reply