Puig! Puig! Puig!

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Okay, that’s overdone. Nonetheless, here’s some video of the young man performing his offseason workout.

Update: Puig has been arrested in Florida for reckless driving, going 110 mph on I-75 on the West-East section of the road known as Alligator Alley.

That can’t make the Dodgers very happy. Reckless driving endangers more than just the driver, it endangers others on the road. They need to get this kid’s driving habits under control before he hurts himself or someone else. He was charged with a similar infraction back in April of this year but the charges were dismissed.

69 thoughts on “Puig! Puig! Puig!”

  1. For your early NYE reading, consider this treatsie about the hamate bone in the hand that Dodger farmhand Kyle Farmer broke but rebounded from earlier than most. Hitters usually break the bone on a simple swing and miss.

    Farmer joins distinguished company, including David Ortiz, Gary Sheffleld, Evan Longoria, Nick Markakis, Dustin Pedroia, Troy Tulowitzki, Pablo Sandoval (twice), Ken Griffey Jr., Jim
    Thome, Gordon Beckham, Tony Gwynn Jr. and a number of others.

    Just think. After you read up on the hamate bone, you’re guaranteed to be the life of whatever party you attend later tonight as you mesmerize other guests with your new knowledge. Don’t worry if they mumble and move away as you expound. They just don’t appreciate your brilliance. Keep at it, and surely you’ll get everything that’s coming to you.

    http://www.thinkbluela.com/index.php/2013/12/29/hamate-bone-injury-what-is-it-and-is-it-preventable/

  5. Read the other day of a juiced-ball scandal in Japanese baseball this year.

    Which makes Tanaka’s ungodly stats this past season all the more impressive.

    • Verducci’s credibility is pretty good on this subject, too. Interesting. I think I’d pass on spending millions for a long-term contract for the guy.

  8. “Puig clocked at 110 mph” read the headline I saw.

    OK, so Superman has tried pitching at excels at that too, throwing faster than anyone ever has.

    How can this be a bad thing?
    ====================
    Actually, he’s probably just doing what he’s been told to do, thinking of his future. After baseball he plans to be a NASCAR driver and needs to practice occasionally.
    ===================
    [….takes tongue out of cheek, crawls back into woodwork]

    • I agree while suspecting the Officer who arrested Puig has also hit 100+ MPH on that stretch in his private vehicle.

  12. I’m here too. There hasn’t been much Dodgers “news” to report. Rumors about Tanaka abound, but you can find those anywhere. I don’t need to repeat them. 😉

    • I would be interested in knowing what players are doing to get ready for 2014. HIPPA aside, I would like to know more about Kemp’s foot and less about him being traded or who he might be dating.

      The bone he hurt was supposed to be a support bone that if he had continued to play on it could have ended his career. I think he had holes drilled into it to help it heal. It just seems like we could hear from somebody what the odds are for his injured bone to become 100% healed.

      Also, the Dodgers did not keep their head trainer and there were some comments that releasing her was due to all the hamstring injuries the Dodgers had. I would think the Dodgers would not want their players preparing for the season the way they prepared for the last few if they really think it was the training that led to the hamstring issues.

      I check in on the MLB network and do searches for Dodger news and all I get is who Kemp might be traded to and who he might b e dating and that his health is questionable. Can’t the MLB network ask a doctor what might be going on with his foot?

      Now, it is someone else’s turn to rant.

  13. I imagine the Dodgers are posturing and participating in gamesmanship regarding Tanaka. Maybe it has to do with the uncertainty of extending Kershaw’s contract or maybe they want to get other teams to overbid so they will have less money down the road to get Kershaw should he become a free agent.

    The Dodgers probably should try to win with their current players in 2014 or at least wait until just before the trading deadline before making trades so they and other teams better know what kind of players Kemp, Ethier, Crawford, Puig, and Pederson will be going forward.

    But for 2015 and maybe the second half of 2014, I would like the Dodgers to be comfortable with a younger team and a payroll under the luxury tax. . An outfield of Pederson, Kemp, and Puig would be young and be a nice mix of pre-prime and prime age players in the outfield.

    If the Dodgers do sign Tanaka I would hope they could trade Beckett and Billingsley. If Puig, Kemp, and Pederson looked like they help lead the Dodgers to a championship, then I would like Dodgers to retain some of the payroll of Beckett, Billingsley, Crawford, Ethier and include Lee, Reed, Stripling(sp) and trade them. I would also move Ramirez to first base and trade Gonzales to get the players and youth and speed, and up middle defense.

    So the young dodgers of mid 2014 to early 2016 might look like this:

    Kershaw
    Greinke
    Fernandez
    Tanaka
    Rhu

    OF Puig
    OF Pederson
    OF Kemp
    1B Ramirez
    3B Seager
    2B Guerrero / Kipnis
    SS Andrus
    C Ellis

    • Not sure why you think that the Dodgers might be gaming it when it comes to Tanaka. and then linking it to Keshaw in that way. I would imagine that apart from the Dodgers only the Yanks would be in a position to carry both, so that would leave a whole bunch of teams capable of bidding on Kershaw if he goes FA.
      My own thoughts on the Kershaw extension is that he is waiting until the dust settles with Tanaka and Price before establishing his own floor for dealing with the Dodgers.
      Your notion of balancing out the lineup with younger cheaper players from the farm fits Kasten’s MO and I hope that Doc and Cory pan out. I have to think that they will have a new catcher by 2016, however.

      • Just thinking the Yanks or another team might bid against themselves if the Dodgers are lurking instead of saying they are not interested after all they will pay Beckett $17.5MM next year.

        • I think the Dodgers are interested (as are clubs other than the Yanks), but are probably not willing to overpay as much as others and are prehaps hoping that there might be a West Coast discount.

          • Only because it is Miami can I dream of unloading quantity and some $$ to get Fernandez, that and Miami’s need to fill a new stadium. I would be okay with Puig for Fernandez if that would keep the Dodgers from inflating their payroll on Tanaka and Price.

    • I had your thought of using Ramirez at first base in 2012 when we first got him. I still like the idea but the Dodgers will not even think about trading Gonzalez until he becomes a complete liability. It would have been nice not to make that whole Boston trade, Crawford and Beckett, Gonzalez too for that matter, brought more financial and medical liability than any possible physical assets.

      • Right agree. The Dodgers had 2 major holes — third base and left field and the trade didn’t fill those 2 holes. Gonzalez isn’t a $ 50,000,000 a year improvement over Lonely.

        • OK, but let’s have a bit more persepctive here. Loney had a bounce back last year, but we haven’t had an OPS+ at 1st as high as Adrian’s 126 since way back in 2007 (Loney himself), and Loney was at 79 in 2012 when he was replaced. Leftfield was a hole that is now filled by Crawford. Obvioulsy he is not a $20 million player, but you can’t foist the $50 million on Adrian. Retaining Loney might have cost us $8 million, so the difference is around $12 million. Then you can add most of Beckett’s $15 million. Did we overspend, sure, but what were the options for a club suddenly flush with cash and needing to quickly turn around the franchise?

          • Bob, is that more perspective or just your perspective? Crawford has yet to show that he can stay healthy enough to say the Dodgers filled their left field hole with him and in trying to win in 2012 with a big trade, Crawford was a zero.

            As it turns out, Puig filled the outfield hole without that big trade.and Crawford is the extra outfielder that is the hardest to trade. The Dodgers did not know Kemp would crash into a fence in Denver or hurt his foot when they made that trade.

            The Dodgers could have had Loney at $6MM annually instead of Beckett at $17.5MM, Crawford at about $18MM, and Gonzalez at about $17MM for a difference of about $45MM annually. They would now have an outfield of Ethier, Puig, and Kemp with Pederson and Van Slyke as the 4th and 5th outfielder. Loney would be at first and Uribe at third.

            The difference between Loney at first and Gonzalez is $45,000,000 annually plus something like 20 RBI and 20 HR.

          • Just trying to look at what was known and assumed at the time the deal was done. Loney was on the way to -2.0 wins in 2012 and even you had lost faith in him. Beckett and Adrian were worth about 1.5 wins in 2012 for the Dodgers at a cost of $5-6 million in salaries. Crawford was not zero in 2013.

          • Crawford didn’t approach his normal numbers regular season.

            But he sure wasn’t zero postseason with what, 5 HR and the highlight catch tumbling into the stands.

            SSS postseason and all that, sure. He and Uribear sure did pick their spots for postseason highlights.

            If CC is 100% healthy–which, who knows–he shouldn’t have much problem topping what he did this year offensively. Whatever uniform he’s in.

          • One of my last comments on Loney before the trade was that the Dodgers should sign him to a 5 year contract. He wasn’t giving any evidence of being a 3, 4, or 5 hitter but he was not the weakest link on the team and I was at the time saying fix 3rd base and left field before fixing first base. Instead they fixed first and no matter how good Crawford is in the next few years, if Ethier and Puig also have good years, Crawford was just an additional cost of fixing first base.

          • At the time he was traded, WGJ had an OPS of 79, at a tradtionally hitter’s position. The only one lower among the starters was Dee at 56.

          • So you agree that the Dodgers sold low on Loney and bought high with Crawford by taking over Boston’s bad contract originally given when Crawford was at a high. “Got to know when to hold em and know when to fold em” to win at poker and signing, keeping, drafting, releasing players is a similar gamble.

          • Ha! You are a weiserman than I to think that our beloved WGJ would bounce back after 5 years of barely average hitting and be worthy of a five year contract. We obviously overspent, but we took advantage of suddenly havng more money than we knew what to do with, which is still the case.

  14. It would be nice if Dodger Thoughts commenters would get together here. This is such a clean format.

  15. Now that Uribe is back to anchor third base lets start working out Puig at third and see if he can make that transition.

  16. Other than the Dodgers hinting they will go after Tanaka to make other teams spend more on him and tie up their payrolls, I would just as well hear the Dodgers say they have enough starters with Bills and Beckett coming back and a few in the minors perhaps ready by July.

    • Doesn’t seem like a worthwhile strategy as none of its Division rivals seems to be in the running. It could happen, but only the Cubs in the NL are reported to be interested. That said, even if the Dodgers don’t want him (seems unlikely) or don’t land him, I imagine that they would try to sign one of the other FAs available and not rely on both Bills and Becket being able to come back

  17. What happened to all those rabid Dodger fans who were posting so many times a day during the season? They just turn it off in November? I can’t do that.

      • Mow the snow, you mean. For the U.S., it’s winter. Enjoy your summer. Just finished reading a book, 20,000 Thieves, by Eric Lambert. I have read it several times over the years. It is about Australian troops fighting in Egypt in the 1940s.

          • It does sound good. Here’s a description from an Aussie historian remonstrating with a colleague about her apparent switch to conservative political views in a letter dated 2000:

            By far the most popular piece of literature that came out of
            the Second World War, among men who actually fought in that war, was the wonderful novel about the Aussies at Tobruk, The Twenty Thousand
            Thieves, by the communist novelist, Eric Lambert, who himself fought at Tobruk.
            This was a constant best seller for several years in the late 1940s.
            The main feature of this novel was that, while in a general way it
            supported the righteousness of the war, it also celebrated the
            rebelliousness, indiscipline and plebian self identity of the soldiers,
            as the title of the book suggests.

            It’s not in my library. There’s a copy in the National Library of Australia and probably in used bookstores in that country; I know AbeBooks in the US can get copies.

    • Had to figure that Ned would be stocking up the pen with vets, with the yougins waiting in the wings. Not a bad idea given how Donnie goes through relievers. As one-year deals they are expendable, unlike when he panicked and signed League for three. Figure he might now go after a lefty that he can stick in AAA.

  21. With those bunny hop exercises can’t wait until he starts emulating Soriano when he catches fly balls.

    • You have more patience than I for these things, especially when it’s a cloudless day at the foot of Volcán Villarrica.