{"id":1806,"date":"2016-11-11T18:29:07","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T23:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=1806"},"modified":"2016-11-11T22:25:38","modified_gmt":"2016-11-12T03:25:38","slug":"blue-jays-sign-cuban-defector-lourdes-gurriel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2016\/11\/11\/blue-jays-sign-cuban-defector-lourdes-gurriel\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays sign Cuban defector Lourdes Gurriel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>First reported at <strong>MLB.com<\/strong>, <strong>Lourdes Gurriel<\/strong> signed a seven-year, $22 million deal with the <strong>Toronto Blue Jays<\/strong> on Friday. The 23-year-old shortstop defected along with his older brother, 32-year-old <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gourryu01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Yulieski Gurriel<\/a>,<\/strong> during the Caribbean Series in the Dominican Republic\u00a0in February. Yulieski Gurriel signed a five-year, $48 million deal with the Houston\u00a0in July. He hit three home runs and had 15 RBIs in 130 at-bats this season.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Source confirms: Lourdes Gurriel to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BlueJays?src=hash\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#BlueJays<\/a>, seven years, $22M. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JesseSanchezMLB\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@JesseSanchezMLB<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Joelsherman1\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@Joelsherman1<\/a> first.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Ken_Rosenthal\/status\/797141677681102849\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 11, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Blue Jays sign Cuban defector Lourdes Gurriel<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Lourdes Gurriel also played for the <strong>Havana Industriales<\/strong> before defecting, putting up a .321 batting average with eight homers and 32 RBIs in 43 games. He was declared a free agent in August and has held private workouts over the past few months.<\/p>\n<p>By waiting until after his 23rd birthday, he was no longer subject to MLB\u2019s bonus limits on international free agents.\u00a0This was specifically useful for the Blue Jays, as they would have been unable to sign him otherwise. They had been limited to $300K this year thanks to the signing of <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?results=guerrvl01,guerre002vla&amp;search=Vladimir+Guerrero&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vladimir Guerrero<\/a> Jr.<\/strong> during the 2015 signing period.<\/p>\n<p>While he played mostly shortstop in Cuba, his reputation defensively suggests he\u2019d be better off at either second, third or in center field.\u00a0Those spots are currently filled, implying Gourriel will likely need some minor league seasoning.\u00a0The expectation is that he will start the year in <strong>Double-A New Hampshire<\/strong>, helping to form a \u00a0very dynamic outfield with top prospect <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.cgi?id=alford000ant&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anthony Alford<\/a><\/strong>. Depending on how the Jays fill out the rest of the roster this season, Gourriel could move very quickly and really benefit the Major League club.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin: 10px 0; max-width: 550px;\"><a id=\"ld-3504-7889\" href=\"http:\/\/lockerdome.com\/6169841350483521\/9112744049813528\" data-width=\"100%\" data-height=\"auto\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Should the one game play-in Wild Card be expanded to a three game series?<\/a><span id=\"ld-3504-7889-equiv\"> in <a href=\"http:\/\/lockerdome.com\/6169841350483521\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LastWordOnSports&#8217;s Hangs<\/a> on <a href=\"http:\/\/lockerdome.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LockerDome<\/a><\/span><script>(function(d,s,id,elid) {window.ldInit = window.ldInit || []; ldInit.push(elid);if (d.getElementById(id)) return;var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];js=d.createElement(s); js.id=id;js.async=true;js.src=\"\/\/cdn2.lockerdome.com\/_js\/embed.js\";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}(document, \"script\", \"lockerdome-wjs\", \"ld-3504-7889\"));<\/script><\/div>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/462769990\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 53.535354% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/462769990?et=FeQLKctdQfhVWfTHp9jO1g&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=vXWvzimtvmitXWyaE6iGjeO54L2ZuS7Og084pW-bVCw=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"318\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First reported at MLB.com, Lourdes Gurriel signed a seven-year, $22 million deal with the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday. The 23-year-old shortstop defected along with his older brother, 32-year-old Yulieski Gurriel, during the Caribbean Series in the Dominican Republic\u00a0in February. Yulieski Gurriel signed a five-year, $48 million deal with the Houston\u00a0in July. He hit three [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":313,"featured_media":1815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,7],"tags":[490,68,638,69,36,640,639],"class_list":["post-1806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-bluejays","tag-anthony-alford","tag-baseball","tag-lourdes-gurriel","tag-mlb","tag-toronto-blue-jays","tag-vladimir-guerrero-jr","tag-yulieski-gurriel"],"modified_by":"Josh Greenberg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/313"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}