Player Profile: Yoenis Cespedes

Yoenis Cespedes is the first WPW has seen with an STX glove.

Before I get started, I just want to say sorry for not having posted for the last few days.  I was in Boston visiting old friends, and I just didn’t have any time to get to it.  Trust me, I’m committed to this, and the posts will keep coming, so keep checking back.

Researching Yoenis Cespedes’ glove brought us to a company called STX, who has a website that is not functional.  The older website for the company seems to be working, and they ONLY make custom gloves.  It looks like you can customize a glove all the way down to the colors of the pinky and thumb, but there’s no visual guide, so unless you’re a master of color pallets, it might be tough.  You might also have some luck calling one of their “Dealers” and asking for Cespedes’ model.  Here’s a picture of his old Cuban national team glove…

Cuban Style.

In regards to Cespedes’ game glove, it looks just like the one in the feature photo, except the web piece is green.  It is a little curious seeing his Cuban number, 51, on a green/yellow glove he clearly made for the A’s.  Maybe he didn’t know Dallas Braden wore #51?  Perhaps he learned an important lesson from A-Rod, not to mess with Braden’s mound OR his number, for that matter.  Either way, if you’re into flashy, colorful, highly customizable gloves, this STX company might be a nice option.

Cespedes’ sunglasses are also A’s colors—a custom pair of the Oakley Flak Jacket.  You’ll have to head to the Oakley Custom Builder, since I can’t share the pair I built.  Here are the specs I used to create a clone of Cespedes’ sunglasses:

• Frame: Team Dark Green
• Lens: Fire Iridium XLJ
• Icon: Satin Silver/Gold
• Earsock: Gold

Cespedes also wears a couple different titanium necklaces, though we could only be certain of the Phiten Classic in the picture above.  The other one is very similar to the three rope necklaces we found online, but not exactly the same, so I didn’t want to steer you wrong (any ideas, folks?).

Here are the links:

STX Custom Gloves (again, I think it’d be best to give a dealer a call, maybe grab a catalog, since the custom builder has no visual aid)

Oakley Custom Sunglasses Builder

Oakley Flak Jacket (Google Shopping for Oakley’s regular options)

Phiten Classic Necklace

Phiten Classic Necklace w/MLB logos (A’s on page 4 when I searched)

Yoenis Cespedes, wearing Cutters, has treated Oakland to some tape-measure shots early in 2012.

America’s first Youtube sensation turned MLB star (Bryce is still in AAA, people), Yoenis Cespedes blasted his way onto the scene with a 464-foot moonshot off Jason Vargas on April 6th.  Cespedes’, who stops and stares at his homeruns before leaving the box, is what your dad might call a showboat, but we at WPW dig the flash (it makes our job more fun).  If you haven’t already, take a few minutes to skip through Cespedes’ Hollywood-inspired recruiting video.

The hard work seems to be paying off—not only in the form of Cespedes’ 4 year, 36 million dollar deal—but also in Yoenis’ frighteningly explosive physical tools.

Cespedes wears Cutters C-Tack Pro batting gloves, one of their rare MLB appearances (though they always seem to have a few guys).  The “tack” part seems especially important for Yoenis, considering the ferocious hacks he takes…

Cespedes has been seen wearing a few different versions of the Cutters, including a white/green, a green/black, and the ones you see below.

These colorways could not be found online, but the C-Tack Pro model is abundantly available.

Cespedes’ bat is somewhat of a mystery, mainly because we did not recognize his bat’s logo.  Instead of backing off from posting, I figured maybe I could get the WPW readers involved.  If anybody knows the below logo, tweet me @whatproswear or comment here and let me know so I can fix it and I’ll shout you out.  Based on the evidence we could find, Cespedes had been swinging a black barrel/dark brown handle MaxBat in spring, but at some point switched over to the below model/brand.

Mystery Bat.

UPDATE 4/13/12: I knew you guys would come through… The bat above, thanks to WPW reader Jack Alexander, is a Chandler brand maple.  From what we learned, the brand is only 2 and a half years old, and is used not only by Cespedes but by Josh Hamilton, Shane Victorino, Raul Ibanez, Jesus Montero and according to Jack (who helped us out), Mike Napoli among others.  The Chandler website looks to be under construction, but we did find them available at Valle Baseball.  We will let you know as soon as we hear back.  They retail at $175 a pop (we found them for sale @ $139), the most expensive wood bat on the market—but it seems like some great hitters swear by them.

Cespedes is not just a power hitter, though.  He’s shown some serious speed early on (just watching him haul down to first on a groundout is impressive), and he was a base stealer in Cuba as well.  Cespedes runs like a fullback in a custom pair of Nike Huarache LWP90 cleats, which are available, just not in his colors.

We were even able to catch what brand of elbow guard Cespedes wears.  It is a Benik E-401, which, although you’ve probably never heard of it, sounds like its pretty popular among Big Leaguers.  Here’s an article dating all the way back to 2003, which mentions Edgar Martinez, Derek Jeter, and Randy Johnson as Benik users.  The E-401 is available online in Cespedes’ dark green color.

Here are the links:

Cutters C Tack Pro Batting Gloves

MaxBat (This is the brand of bat that Cespedes was swinging in Spring Training)

Chandler Bat (only a 33/31 available)

Nike Air Huarache LWP90

Benik E-401