My guess is Gordon is itching to sign and the more imminent the threat of the White Sox is the sooner the Royals pony up the dough. The Sox are just the desperate guy at the bar at 3:45 AM, not an attractive thing to be but you're always surprised how well it works.
He could very well have signed and be pending a physical. A lot of teams hold out on announcing signings until that's done to avoid guys being dumped back onto the market with the failed physical red flag. Keeps front offices in the good graces of agents and players.
Can you remember the last time the Sox signed a FA and it was pending a physical? I don't bother to look.
Actually with the addition of Lawrie the Sox have more than a couple players (Avi amongst them, oddly) who are pretty good at seeing a lot of pitches. I know thats not the exact same thing as working a count, but it's not like the Sox need to be looking for tougher outs as much as just straight up mashers.
Also Cespedes has reverse splits and would fit in the lineup as if he were a LHH.
Maybe the Sox wanted Cespedes all along and are just using Alex Gordon and, earlier in the offseason, Justin Upton to drive his price down. With all three of them out there plus Fowler, Parra etc. it's a buyers market.
Well if even if he's cheap and on a 1 year deal he still gets innings. If he's terrible it's not like the Sox get those innings back.
Playing time is still an investment people.
Does anyone really want Latos? Maybe if he's extremely cheap but I think the odds of turning around pitching in the AL for the first time is pretty low.
I was not being entirely serious.
Even though the unwillingness by teams to jump into big money contracts may make the big money contract a viable way to build a team again. Prices are going down.
I think Gordon and Cespedes bring a lot of intangibles to the lineup, just in different ways. Cespedes as power hitting destroyer of world's and Gordon as a guy who keeps rally's going. Both are winners and I'd be fine with either one but would prefer Cespedes. Upton is a bum who draws a few walks for bad teams.