The Yoenis Cespedes Video That Everybody's Talking About

I don't know how or why this video was made, and I don't care.  This is "Yoenis Cepedes: The Showcase," a video put together to demonstrate the talents possessed by the aforementioned Cepedes, the latest mystery Cuban defector who is blowing up the baseball world and blogosphere right now.  I don't know how long this video will stay up, but check it out if you have the time.



If this does get taken down, or you just don't have the time to spend the whole 20 minutes watching the thing, all you need to know is that it's the best promotional video in the history of promotion.  And here's why.  This 20-minute video features:

- A "Star Wars"-style intro with bottom-to-top scrolling word descriptions of Cespedes.

- A slow motion home run montage set to "Sailing" by Christopher Cross.

- A patented Barry Bonds "stand and walk down the line" home run trot by Cespedes.

- "Indiana Jones"-style red line map traveling showing his movements from Cuba to the DR to the US.

- A workout montage soundtrack that includes "Ignant Shit" by Drake, "Look At Me Now" by Chris Brown, "The Whistle Song" by Juelz Santana, and "On To The Next One" by Jay-Z.

- An impressive series of 45" standing box jumps complete with a Usain Bolt pose and multiple crosses and chest pounds.

- A behind-the-back catch on a pop fly hit to him in the outfield as a demonstration of defensive skill.

- Some kind of standing sit-up exercise designed to showcase "core power" that ends with Cespedes repeatedly shoving his junk in the dude holding his feet's face.

- Some of the worst weight lifting form I've seen since Frank tried to teach Sweet Dee how to dead lift on "Always Sunny."

- A shout out to his mom, a former Olympic softball pitcher, with canned cheering and applause added in.

- And a finale that shows Cespedes and some other dudes roasting a whole pig on a spit.

Now the video doesn't do much to showcase Cespedes' overall baseball skill set (unless the behind-the-back catches qualify as Gold Glove worthy), but I don't give a crap.  Here's what we know about this kid.  He's 26, he's an outfielder, he played for Cuba in the most recent World Baseball Classic, he set his Cuban league record with 33 HR in a season, he's looking for an Aroldis Champan-like contract, and he's got the coolest group of handlers and PR people in the history of the world.

Seriously, I need whoever put this video together to do something like that for me.  I'm talking slo-mo shots of me banging out emails at my desk while "Types 100 Words Per Minute" flashes across the screen with "Swagga Like Us" playing in the background, highlights of me holding office doors open for women with an arm full of papers, stats of how many cups of coffee I drink per day, and shots of me crushing beers on my couch while "No Core Strength... But Tremendous Alcohol Tolerance" scrolls the bottom of the screen.

I don't know if this kid is legit or not.  I don't know if the Yankees have any kind of serious plans to pursue him or not.  But I do know that this video is one of the most enjoyable 20 minutes I've spent watching YouTube in a long time.

(Box jump swag)

(There's a more detailed write-up on the video and Cespedes by Kevin Goldstein here at Baseball Prospectus)

**UPDATE- 12:44PM- According to Ben Badler, the Yankees held a private workout for Cespedes yesterday.  Interesting... **