Written by Dieter Kurtenbach at FoxSports.com
Yasiel Puig came into the Major Leagues like a tornado. He was a force of nature that demanded you get out of the way or face the consequences.
He was the real deal — the Cuban Mike Trout on the other side of Southern California — a true five-tool player who could hit for average, power, fly around in the outfield, steal bags, and throw dudes out in spectacular fashion.
When Puig came to the Majors in 2013, rampaging through the National League with 19 homers, a .319 average, and a .925 OPS in his first 104 games, it was impossible to believe those numbers were anything but a baseline. Puig was a revelation. There was no doubt he was going to be in the Dodgers’ outfield for the next decade.
Three years after that spectacular introduction, it’s hard to know exactly where things went wrong.
Those numbers that were presumed to be a baseline turned out to be the high-water mark, and over the last few years, Puig has produced more drama than runs.
We don’t know if this is the end of Puig’s time in Los Angeles, but it’s certainly the ending of chapter one of this story — the Dodgers will reportedly option Puig to the minors on Tuesday.
The Dodgers reportedly tried to move Puig in a trade before Monday’s trade deadline, but they didn’t find anything close to a fair offer. So instead, without a spot for him on the Major League roster, they’ll send him to Oklahoma City, the team’s Triple-A affiliate, where he’ll be asked to sort himself out and earn a call-up to the big leagues.
When Puig entered the game, he represented a new counter culture. Puig was a true unknown, and for an unknown to perform the way he did in a baseball landscape that demanded that everything be predicted made Puig one of the most polarizing figures in the game.
To many, he was everything that was “wrong” with the game.
To others, he was a cult hero.
That latter status, like his stats, faded as his career progressed.
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