The Dodgers Are Trying To 'Give Away' Yasiel Puig, But Nobody Wants Him
Yasiel Puig’s fall from grace has been pretty frustrating to watch, and I’m not even a Dodgers fan. How the hell did he go from being one of the most exciting players in the game, to being a minor leaguer that nobody wants on their major league roster?
The Dodgers are trying to give away Puig, but no luck. Puig, with Triple A Oklahoma City, is considered toxic at the moment, but it takes only one team to want him. He doesn’t have too many allies in the Dodgers organization, but as one team official said recently, “At some point, the talent, the maturity is going to take hold. Someone will benefit from it. We hope it’s us, but it’s hard to envision it right now.”
A few baseball folks feel a rebuilding team such as the Braves could be a good fit.
That’s crazy to me that nobody would even take a flier on this guy, especially since it seems like the cost to acquire him is next to nothing, if the Dodgers are reportedly just trying to “give him away”. I mean, I get it. He’s a pain in the ass, and his motivation has been at an all-time low, and that’s been reflected in his numbers. But talent-wise? Ability-wise? You mean to tell me that there isn’t an organization that’s willing to try out the whole change of scenery thing?
This would make way more sense if Puig were mailing it in down in Triple-A, too, after the Dodgers demoted him following their acquisition of Josh Reddick at the trade deadline, but that’s not even the case. Since his demotion, which we saw a couple weeks ago that he’s taking really hard, Puig is hitting .418 with a 1.201 OPS, 2 doubles, a triple and 4 home runs in 17 games. Puig had 7 home runs in 81 games for the Dodgers this year before being sent down. So, that means that he was averaging a home run once every 39.6 at-bats with the Dodgers, and now he’s averaging a home run once every 13.75 at-bats with their Triple-A affiliate, the Oklahoma City Dodgers.
Beyond the fact that he’s tearing the cover off the ball since being demoted, he’s only owed $6.5 million in 2017, and $7.5 million in 2018. I find it really hard to believe that every organization in the game could weigh the good against the bad, and still decide not to bring Puig in. He’s not down in Triple-A because he sucks. He’s in Triple-A, because he lacked motivation, and didn’t care enough to perform at the highest level he possibly could. The Dodgers didn’t want to wait around anymore for him to give a shit about baseball, and nobody could blame them. I certainly don’t blame the Dodgers for demoting Puig — he absolutely needed the wakeup call — but you’ve gotta figure with the right manager, and/or the right teammates to motivate him, that’s a risk worth taking at the minimal cost that it would take to acquire him, in addition to the minimal cost that it would be to pay him once he’s yours. Low risk, high reward like you read about.
(h/t HBT)