The Los Angeles Dodgers found no takers for Yasiel Puig by Monday’s trade deadline. So they opted to make him go to the minors.
The bad news prompted the Dodgers to tell Puig not to show up for work or Puig to storm out of Chavez Ravine, depending upon who tells the story—and when they told it.
Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports initially reported that the Cuban angrily departed Dodger Stadium when given the bad news. But Puig’s agent, and his team, maintain he never went to the stadium in the first place. In either case, he never got on the plane to go to Colorado, where the Dodgers play the Rockies tonight. This seems the doing of the Dodgers rather than their right fielder.
“I’m told he never went to the park,” Puig’s agent Andy Katz explained on Monday. “The club informed me and the player understood clearly that they were making every to trade him and that if they were unable to come to terms with another club on a trade — and successful in acquiring another outfielder — that he likely would be demoted. My understanding is that transaction will happen tomorrow.”
Rosenthal, one of the top baseball writers in America, backtracked on his original reporting.
Puig, who took Los Angeles by storm when he batted .319 in his rookie season, struggles three years later. He bats .260 with just seven home runs and 34 RBI. The acquisition of Josh Reddick from the A’s on Monday made the oft-injured outfielder expendable.
Media portrayals from his rookie season depicted Puig as the personification of the American Dream. Three years later, the man living a fantasy faces every big-league player’s fear.