The Dodgers made the decision to option their mercurial outfielder to Triple-A Oklahoma City.
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The exchange is below, but Puig’s response (via Twitter of course) was magnanimous and even gracious to Rosenthal.
Puig may not have been traded, but the Dodgers did acquire another outfielder, who could potentially play right field, Josh Reddick, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Yasiel Puig followed the Los Angeles Dodgers wishes when he didnt show up to the stadium on Monday before the team departed on its road trip to Colorado, manager Dave Roberts told The Associated Press. He was not traded.
“Let me put it this way: I haven’t discussed with the baseball people anything about what we’re going to be doing in the hours and days to come”, Steinbrenner told Michael Kay on 98.7 FM ESPN Radio in New York, per the New York Times’ Tyler Kepner. He’s hitting just.260 in his last 81 games with just seven home runs and 34 runs batted in. He finished second in the NL rookie of the year voting to Miami’s Jose Fernandez.
But the attention has not always been positive. There has been no obvious tension in the clubhouse this season.
Puig was an All-Star in 2014 after a meteoric rise with the Dodgers, who signed the prospect to a seven-year, $42 million deal in June 2012.
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Through the weekend, the Dodgers had a.729 OPS from their right fielders, ranking 12th in the 15-team National League. At 36 years old, Hill is having the best season of his career with a 9-3 record and a 2.26 ERA. Do the Dodgers still have a place for Puig in the outfield? Whatever the case, now he’s in limbo – the Dodgers could keep him and hope he turns it around, on and off the field, down in the minors, for another run at the playoffs or next year. But Puig was never at the ballpark with his teammates. Instead, if the White Sox were thinking about moving a player, Dionar Navarro would have been a good choice (the same is true for the Twins and Kurt Suzuki and the A’s on Stephen Vogt). This Puig rumor is of the same stripe as any widely-reported trade or deal that eventually falls apart; it just seems spicier because it involves Puig and the Dodgers. He didn’t travel with the team and at this point, there is so much bad blood between the player and the organization that it’s hard to believe they will ever reconcile. It has not been an uncommon arrangement. Puig complied, and now he has 72 hours to report to the minors. Whatever happens between now and then should be interesting to see.
