This Puig Narrative Is Boring

Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

I know, I can’t believe it either, Yasiel.

Welp, not even the 3rd week of March and finally the polarization that Yasiel Puig brings is out. I’m sure you’ve read the Mark Saxon article that goes on to say how Yasiel Puig’s “antics” have led to Don Mattingly running low on patience with the young slugger. Scott had a great post explaining Puig’s season and whatnot in further detail. And yeah, I suppose I get it. No one is questioning how difficult it must be to coach and mentor Puig.

But wow. I underestimate the power of narrative sometimes.

I jokingly went on Twitter searching for “bench Puig” tweets. I wish I hadn’t.

It makes me sad that we can’t understand small sample sizes. Something done in one game game doesn’t show the validity of a narrative. It’s almost as if fans are equating a bad game to him being a bad player.

And let’s be honest, there’s an huge amount of hypocrisy in this argument that Puig is “costing the team with his silly baserunning mistakes”. It’s a shame.  Andre Ethier is a bonafide fan favorite in Los Angeles, the general consensus on him is he plays hard and does what’s needed for the team to win. But I’ll say this, no one has ever said to bench Andre Ethier for his baserunning mistakes. Not even in 2014, when, you know, he has actually committed similar egregious baserunning gaffes.

Oh, I got it, how about we just pinch hit for Clayton Kershaw every time he bats just so we prevent any possibility that he commits a blunder while on the bases?

Funny how Dre has gotten literally no bad narrative thrown at him while Puig has been crucified by Saxon, Steve Dilbeck, and the national media as a whole. Nope, Ethier is “aggressive, and a risk taker, and what he does helps the team”. I think the baserunning gaffes are fine, dodger fans whined and complained to no end last season wanting a more aggressive team,  now we have one. Same with Clayton.

And you know what the best thing about this is?! Puig hasn’t even been below league average in terms of fangraphs’s “baserunning” metric.

“SMALL SAMPLE SIZE, SMALL SAMPLE SIZE”! 1!1!

Well so are the amount of games played. We must be really bored if the narrative of “Yasiel Puig costing the Dodgers with his baserunning mistakes” is actually being said. You do realize he hasn’t cost the Dodgers at all (in case you haven’t noticed, they’re 2-0).

Look at this too, “they wouldn’t be afraid to make a statement by sending him down?”. This is incredible, Stern is saying that they’d actually send down their arguably the Dodgers 2nd best hitter? I’ll believe it when I see it.

Regardless, it’s mostly just the media looking to talk about something on the final boring Sunday until October, baseball (for good) is almost here, and Yasiel Puig is going to be great this season, enjoy him.