DODGERS The ♥PUIG♥ Thread

Yeah, but you think most everyone is on steroids.

 

^what you did there, I see

 

The Puig question: Can the Wild Horse be tamed?
Dodgers hope enigmatic outfielder utilizes tools and avoids sophomore jinx
By Ken Gurnick | MLB.com -- 3 hours ago


Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig can't wait to get to Australia for the start of the 2014 MLB season


GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Teammates are counting on Yasiel Puig, so the 20-pound soft underbelly (on what a year ago was a chiseled body) is viewed by many as a cautionary yellow flag.

Another is the two days off Puig took last week after fouling a batting-practice pitch off his right leg. And the fact that he's the last to arrive for practice more often than the first. Exhibition games are just starting, but the clubhouse can be an unforgiving place when a young player takes perceived liberties.

So coming off a jaw-dropping debut month that was followed by his share of struggles as last season wore on, Puig is being monitored carefully to see if he's another Mike Trout or another Joe Charboneau.

For those unfamiliar with Charboneau's tale, he was the American League Rookie of the Year in 1980, was back in the Minor Leagues in 1981 and out of the game by 1985. Just Google "baseball sophomore jinx" and you can read all about him.

"My theory on the sophomore thing is that it's a lack of concentration the following year," said Pat Corrales, the Dodgers' special advisor to the general manager. "This game isn't automatic, no matter how much ability you have. You have to work. That's why [Clayton] Kershaw is so good. He doesn't stop working."

Corrales managed against Charboneau and witnessed the infamous flameout.

"I don't think he applied himself after his rookie year," he said. "And his stuff off the field blew up. He was a talented player. But he was different."

So is Puig. He didn't play like a rookie last year, or act like one. After being rushed from Double-A, he was the loudest voice in the Major League clubhouse, the opposite of what's expected from rookies. He showed all five tools in abundance, set records his first month in the Major Leagues and lit a fire under a foundering team with an enthusiasm that bordered on recklessness.

But the outfielder's lack of Minor League seasoning showed in countless missed cutoffs and baserunning mistakes, then an inability to adjust to pitchers who exploited holes in his batting approach.

He's flamboyant and theatrical. But he's also immature. He's been removed from a game for lack of hustle and he showed up late for another. His speeding arrests and contempt for the media have overshadowed his charitable offseason work with young people.

Management has treated Puig more with kid gloves than iron fists since he signed a seven-year, $42 million contract. It's not easy to harness the Wild Horse, broadcaster Vin Scully's nickname for the 23-year-old Cuban.

If you wonder what opponents think of Puig, just know that in four months he was hit by pitches 11 times, more than Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente or Mickey Mantle were ever plunked in one season. Arizona's Paul Goldschmidt -- who led the league in homers, RBIs and slugging percentage last year -- was hit by only three pitches. Puig is either an unlucky magnet for pitches or a target.

"I think he'll be all right, because the third baseman [Juan Uribe] and shortstop [Hanley Ramirez] and first baseman [Adrian Gonzalez] talk to him a lot," said Corrales. "We've got accomplished players and we need to get them to teach the young players so we hand it down."

Ramirez was the National League Rookie of the Year in 2006. In contrast to Charboneau, Ramirez's second year was even better than his first.

"Everybody told me the pitchers would make adjustments the second year, but I never thought about that," Ramirez said. "You've got to be mentally strong, that's the key for Puig. For me, I learned to take more walks. You take what they give you and don't try to do too much."

Gonzalez said circumstances have forced Puig to learn his under a Major League spotlight what most players are allowed to learn in the Minor Leagues. As have many before him, he's doing it in a new country, learning a new language and culture.

"He's not just learning baseball, but life," said Gonzalez. "When I came up, I learned a lot from Sandy Alomar Jr. But I learned in the Minor Leagues and I learned from sitting on the bench. I will try to help Puig when I feel the time is right. You pick your battles. I'm not going to be in his face to where he thinks I don't like him. I'll help for his benefit as a player and a person and for the team's benefit."

The other side to the Puig story is how great he might become. Because of his tools, especially the bazooka arm in right field, Puig reminds some of Clemente, the late Hall of Famer.

"He's getting close to that level," said Dodgers coach Manny Mota, Clemente's teammate in Pittsburgh, "because of the intensity and passion that he plays the game."

Clemente was a 20-year-old rookie in 1955 after being taken from the Dodgers in the Rule 5 Draft. He didn't break out offensively until 1960, and even at his best had less power and basestealing potential than Puig.

With Puig's ceiling, he can be any kind of player. Manager Don Mattingly intends to lead him off in the batting order because of his dynamic tools, the makeup of the roster and the fact that Puig hasn't yet shown the patience needed to drive in runs.

Mattingly said he's less concerned with the trouble signs than most.

"Anything with Yasiel is a big deal, we understand that," said Mattingly. "We just want to see maturity and adjustments. He's an open book, he's excited all the time. You guys [media] have the last word and paint the picture. Last year, the media turned on him almost overnight, and I thought he got painted wrong and was misunderstood. You expect him to be Derek Jeter with the media. I felt he needed to be cut some slack."

Ken Gurnick is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

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Puig still adjusting to a new way of life in the US
Dodgers outfielder has gone from humble beginnings to having world at his feet
Richard Justice | MLB.com — 2 hours ago



Sure, Yasiel Puig is living life to the fullest, rushing through it all as if the whole thing is some kind of fantasy that could be taken away. Maybe that's exactly how he feels. Do you know where he came from? Have you seen the world through his eyes?

Before Puig fled to the United States, his life was unlike anything most of us can comprehend. It's a world of smothering, all-consuming gray poverty. It is a world in which simple things -- a bottle of aspirin, a fresh apple, a doctor -- are rare and precious treasures.

In our land of supermarkets and shiny new cars and department stores -- all of it within reach on some level -- Puig seems to be trying to experience it in large bites, all at once. At some point, he may slow down, may accept that this new world is now his world.

No player was more fascinating to watch last season. Swing hard, run hard, go, go, go. If Puig was on first base, he wanted to be at second base. He had the confidence, arrogance -- whatever you want to call it -- to believe no one was good enough to stop him. And so there he went, sprinting, sliding, jumping up, clapping his hands. Given the chance, he'd take off for third, too, sometimes regardless of the situation.

"You could smell it in the air. The wild horse had to run," Vin Scully said after watching Puig steal second and then promptly get thrown out at third in a sequence not unlike several others.

Puig played the outfield the same way -- crashing into walls, making rocket-like throws, all full speed ahead. He was that way at the plate -- swinging hard, swinging often. He clearly drives the Dodgers crazy with some of this stuff, but they'll tell you it was his energy and his drive and his sprint into this new world that got them going last season.



If Puig didn't always play things by the book, it might be because he never had a book. He has enormous talent, scary talent, the kind of talent that doesn't come along very often. Money, fame, success, possession have come almost overnight these past two years.

Puig's challenge in his second season will be to see the game as a teammate, to understand the things he can and can't do, both on the field and off. Whether he can discipline himself -- hit those cutoff men, kid -- may determine how good he's going to be. On the other hand, he's blessed with so many gifts that he may accomplish great things anyway.

Those of us lucky enough to see all the amazing talent and unbridled energy are rooting for him, because there haven't been many players who've made the world's most difficult game look utterly easy.

Fifteen years ago this spring, I watched a hundred or so Cuban parents endure an hour or more of a blazing Havana sun and a line that stretched several blocks long to get their kids small dishes of ice cream.

Two memories of that afternoon linger in my heart and mind all these years later. One was how the natives urged me to cut in front of them and experience the moment of delight they were about to experience. Another was how the children squealed happily as they slurped away at the watery ice cream. To you or me -- to your children or mine -- this moment is one we probably take for granted.

To those Cubans, it was a spectacular moment of happiness, one that required no small sacrifice, but one that they seemed to accept.

I was in Havana to cover a game between the Orioles and the Cuban national team. For me, a child of the Cold War, Havana was pretty much what you would have guessed: decaying fighter jets scattered about the airport, immaculately cared-for American cars from the 1950s on the streets, and people getting by without a lot of material possessions.

At the time, Havana's infrastructure was a mess, with roads almost impassable and homes that looked like they hadn't had a coat of paint in 50 or so years. One day as I left the hotel for a morning run, I came upon Sandy Alderson, then an MLB official and now the general manager of the New York Mets, coming back from his run.

"Watch the sidewalks," he said.

I laughed.

"No," he said, "keep your eye on the sidewalks."

Alderson meant that the sidewalks essentially had disintegrated, that they were even worse off than the streets. Those streets were symbolic of a country that had been transformed from one of the most beautiful on earth to devoid of so much.

When Livan Hernandez fled to the United States, he had trouble getting his mind around this new life: supermarkets with rows and rows of fruits and vegetables, drive-through fast-food restaurants, shiny cars, beautiful homes, medical care, on and on and on.

Hernandez had trouble adjusting. He wanted to experience it all. He'd been raised with so little that he ate and drank and spent, perhaps worried that this new world -- this world so different from his own -- would disappear overnight.



Maybe that's how Puig sees it, too. Maybe he's in a world he could never comprehend, and perhaps he's having trouble comprehending it still. Here's hoping he can slow himself down a bit, learn to say no, smooth out the rough edges and do the things his manager and coaches ask him to do.

Puig has taken us on a wild ride so far, a really amazing ride. Hopefully, this is just the beginning and the best is yet to come. As you watch him this season, don't forget how far he has come in so many ways. Don't forget to take a moment to see the world as he's probably seeing it. And don't forget how much more interesting baseball is with a Puig in it.

Richard Justice is a columnist for MLB.com. Read his blog, Justice4U. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

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