Yasiel Puig and the Cardinals

I read a post the other day about some Yasiel Puig comments regarding the Cardinals. They made for interesting off-season reading. Yesterday, Dylan Hernandez had an article in the LA Times based on the same set of quotes. Here’s the link.

I find a few things interesting.

First, Puig is going to be a little bigger this year. He’s 255 or 260 right now according to him, and that’s a red flag. I’m sure he’ll lose some of it, but once you get huge, it’s really hard to come back. Miguel Cabrera is proof of that. Of course, if Puig hits like Cabrera, nobody will be complaining… .

Puig’s comments about the Cardinals make sense. All he knows in his short career is making the playoffs and losing to the Cardinals. His thought that they are the Dodgers’ main stumbling block is one I actually share. Had the Dodgers faced the Giants in the playoffs last season, I would have been way more confident than I was with them going against the Cardinals. Something about the matchup, the fact that both teams have beat each other in recent postseason history, and the way the playoffs are now structured make the Dodgers and Cardinals a kind of rivalry that the Dodgers and Giants just hasn’t been of late.

Here’s my favorite quote from Hernandez’ article:

“Puig had a particularly hard time against the Cardinals in the National League division series. Limited to three hits in 12 at-bats over the first three games, Puig started Game 4 on the bench. The Dodgers lost that game to end their season.”

The decision to sit Yasiel last season when he was “limited” to three hits in three games was a sneaky big one by manager Don Mattingly. I thought at the time, and I still believe, that it was insane to sit your best player in the biggest game. Puig took it like a champ — he hasn’t complained publicly or made waves — but that has to be the last time something like that can happen.

Perhaps the Cardinals were in Puig’s head, and Mattingly knew it. Perhaps they still are in his head. The only way to get them out of his head, though, is to let him play his way through it. Sitting him was the wrong move. But I digress.

I’m telling myself that this will be a really great year for Puig. He’s a year older, he’s actually saying all the right things right now (talking about playing disciplined defense even!), and his comfort level with being in the United States and in Los Angeles have to be at an all-time high.

Dodger fans should be optimistic that Yasiel Puig will continue his splendid play this year and they should cautious of others, including the team’s manager, trying to play-out the same old narratives about a player who can be expected to be right in the middle of his prime.