Nope. Yasiel Puig Is Not Getting Dealt

Not going anywhere

Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

I’m just going to leave this here

Done laughing? Good because this atrocity has been talked about! Yes sparking posts regarding a Puig trade. Some prominent twitter faces are engaging these rumors humorously and skeptically.

Lets start out with this. Ofman is probably hearing something because he has some connection to a source. I don’t think he’s completely making this “Puig trade” talk up. Could it be that he’s reading into the organization is unhappy with him too much because he’s immature at times? Maybe. I don’t know, but the probability is that it’s not totally baseless. More interestingly, Eric Stephen of truebluela.com tweeted this out the day the Dodgers were eliminated:

Now that Dee Gordon idea would be interesting, it’s also a post for another time and one I’ll absolutely explore, but combine Yasiel Puig, organizational turmoil regarding the exit this postseason, plus the fact that Yasiel Puig has tendencies to upset the organization, and a trade doesn’t seem all that unrealistic given that they have 5 outfielders for 3 spots next season.

But lets remember that Yasiel Puig has been unfairly put in the spotlight for what he does wrong far too many times, and not necessarily for what he has done right. Lets look at his 2014 season: he batted .296/.382/.480, improved his walk percentage over 2% points, decreased his strikeout percentage over 3% points, if WAR is your thing, he put up 5.1 fWAR and 5.4 bWAR in his age 23 season.

You’re going to have to find a team with incredible resources to make a deal with This is code for the “Cubs”, the “Red Sox”, the “Marlins” (Giancarlo Stanton pretty much).

So shorten up the argument, the key to a Yasiel Puig deal lies in the ability for an organization to be willing to get a generational type talent while giving up 3 incredible prospects, at least. If we’re talking about the Red Sox, those names include top 40 prospect Mookie Betts, 22 year old shortstop Xander Bogaerts, catcher Blake Swihart. If you want to talk about the Cubs, this includes at least consensus top 3 prospect Kris Bryant, growing ace Jake Arrieta, and one of Jorge Soler, or Albert Almora. If you’re talking about the Marlins, the only fair return would be Giancarlo Stanton.

The price tag, if it exists will be steep, and I have my doubts of any team wanting to pay it.

It’s as simple as this, teams who want Puig -or in other words, the other 29 teams in major league baseball-, know that they’d be trying to get a talent that has given Mike Trout a run for his money as the “best player in baseball” for spurts in his career.. The Dodgers willingly invested 42 million dollars into a complete unknown because they saw something the other 29 teams did not, and were spot on in their evaluation. Puig has given the Dodgers every reason in the world to feel good about an investment they made that was largely viewed as a “look at us we’re spending money!” deal at the time. I have a difficult time seeing a scenario in which the Dodgers give up and decide to trade Puig, the best Dodger outfielder of this generation. Should the Dodgers listen on everybody? It’d irresponsible not to, but then again I feel that the only appropriate package for Puig would be an MVP candidate (Giancarlo Stanton). Don’t expect Puig to get traded this offseason, or anytime soon.