On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Dodgers officially demoted Yasiel Puig to the minors, sending the struggling Cuban outfielder to Triple-A Oklahoma City after failing to trade him before Monday’s non-waiver trade deadline.
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Earlier this evening, Ken Rosenthal reported that Puig was told he’d either be traded or sent to the minors, and so he “stormed off” from the stadium and did not board the team plane. There were numerous rumors that they were going to trade Yasiel Puig, and if not they were going to send him down to the minors. He is batting. 260 in 81 games, with seven home runs. The Los Angeles Dodgers could not have been more happy about the results Puig gave them. It was made official on Tuesday by Dodger General Manager FARHAN ZAIDI. 305 in his first two big-league seasons, but slipped to.
And though the move wasn’t a surprise – the team said it would either trade him or demote him, Puig’s agent said – the timing is at least curious, given his recent resurgence. New Dodgers manager Dave Roberts promised a fresh start for Puig, but that didn’t last too long before Puig got hurt again, failed to hustle on a few plays, and looked even worse for the first couple months of the season.
Even some Dodgers fans who once adored his effusive personality and considerable talent have begun to sour on Puig, who missed 17 games in June and five in July with hamstring woes. He smashed 19 home runs and drove in 42 runs all while batting.
With Puig out of the lineup, the team has inserted Reddick in right field. 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).
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Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times confirmed Puig didn’t take the team’s charter flight to Denver for a three-game series with the Colorado Rockies after the Dodgers acquired fellow outfielder Josh Reddick and starting pitcher Rich Hill from the Oakland Athletics in exchange for three pitching prospects. The hashtags, #puigyourfriend and #seeyousoon, were both classic Puig: magnetic and optimistic amid a shitstorm of negativity brewing around him. The 25-year-old outfielder, only a couple of seasons removed from back-to-back excellent campaigns in 2014 snd 2015, has seen his playing time dry up in advance of his expected demotion.
