As many of you know already, over these next few days I will be profiling some of the international free agents that figure to have an impact on the MLB in the next year or so. These guys are some of the best international players from all sorts of different places that are thinking about making the jump to Major League Baseball. Some of these guys you may have heard of, and others maybe not. There will be many different types of players that I will be looking at, but they all have one thing in common, they are the best of the rest throughout the world. Today will be Odrisamer Despaigne, a recently defected Cuban pitcher.
Odrisamer Despaigne is a 26 year old, right-handed pitcher from Cuba. He stands at about 6 feet tall and around 200 pounds. He recently defected from Cuba when in Europe with Team Cuba, and will soon be a major league, unrestricted free agent. Despaigne originally entered the Cuban Serie Nacional as a reliever, but was quickly turned into a starter. He has found some success as a starter in Cuba, and has steadily improved his game over the years. He has a somewhat funky pitching style, as he utilizes a big leg kick and then throws his pitches from many different angles. He has a fastball that usually rides in the low to mid 90s, but he utilizes different arm angles most effectively when he throws breaking balls. He has a few different kinds of breaking balls that he uses including a normal curve, a 12/6 curve, and a slider. He will also mix in a change up, which is reportedly major league ready. With a strong repertoire of pitches, Despaigne looks to be ready for the jump, so lets now look at his Cuban stats to see just how he may fare.
Despaigne entered the Cuban Serie Nacional in 2005-2006, and was used as a closer for most of his first 3 seasons. He finished those first three years with an ERA of 3.68 as well as 28 saves. He also finished fourth in the league in saves his 3rd year with 10. He was then transitioned to starter during the 2008-2009 season and struggled a bit. He finished the year with an ERA 4.83 with a WHIP north of 1.50. The good this about Despaigne's Cuban career was that he continued to improve over each new year, with his ERA below 3.30 over his last two years, and his walk rate also falling a bit. There are some red flags with him though, and they are not all that encouraging. The first is that he hasn't has a K/9 over 6.6 in any of the past 3 years, which is not particularly good, especially not in a lesser league. This might mean less if he had strong control of his pitches, but his BB/9 numbers were also not all that spectacular, having only dropped below 3.5 only once over his 5 years as a starter. The Serie Nacional is known as a hitter's league, and Despaigne pitched a ton of innings, probably more that he should have at points, but still the numbers aren't all that encouraging. I do think he will be signed by a major league team though, and he should be given a chance to be a starter. If he can prove that he indeed has good control of his pitches, and he doesn't walk too many, I believe he can be a very successful middle of the rotation starter. If not, I view his floor as a middle relief pitcher in the majors, as he has the pitches to be successful somewhere in the MLB. He should have a new home this spring and could very well be pitching in the majors sooner rather than later this summer. Only time will tell how effective he can be.