Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 167: Yasiel Puig’s Explosive Spring

Episode Date: March 26, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss Yasiel Puig’s spring hot streak, how perceptions of him have changed since his signing, and what the Dodgers will do with him now.

Good morning and welcome to episode 167 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectus. I am Ben Lindberg. Joining me is Sam Miller. Hello, Sam. Hi, Ben. So we were just discussing what to talk about. We are sort of still in the process of discussing what to talk about. in the process of discussing what to talk about, I was just reading Buster Olney's post from yesterday, if you're listening to this on Tuesday, on Yasiel Puig.

We agreed that that is how we would pronounce his name, although it is not necessarily how his name is pronounced. And Buster wrote about how Puig is forcing the Dodgers hand. That is the title of his blog post. And I wanted to talk a little bit about whether we think that is actually true, whether we think that the Dodgers are under any sort of pressure to do anything that they wouldn't have done with Puig before this spring. And then I also wanted to talk a little bit about the reaction when Puig was signed, which I think we may have talked about in the early days of the podcast, or at least at some point we mentioned it when we were maybe talking to Mike Petriello about the crazy spending Dodgers and how they were spending irresponsibly and spending way more money than they needed to be spending.

Yeah, to be crystal clear, I'm almost certain that we've both used that as an example of how dumb the Dodgers are. Yeah, I'm pretty sure we did. And when we did that, we were just kind of picking up on what other people who we read and trust were saying because we had not seen the player ourselves. And I guess that is kind of the problem or was kind of the problem that that most people had not seen the player uh and so there was this tendency to to write it off as as just the dodgers going crazy with all this newfound money and just wanting to spend it somewhere and just finding someone who was available and spending it all on him even if he wasn't necessarily worth it. So I was just reading Keith Law's post when the Dodgers signed Puig. The headline was Dodgers go overboard for Yaziel Puig.

That is June 28th, 2012. And he said, based on what I've heard about Puig, this is a bizarre overreaction to the upcoming international spending cap and a huge bet that despite a stiff swing and less athletic body than Soler, Puig's bet is good enough to justify an investment of this size. I've also heard that Puig was badly out of shape in his recent workouts in Mexico and that his throwing arm is not as strong as it was last seen in games. Mexico and that his throwing arm is not as strong as it was last seen in games. And unlike Soler or Suspitous, Puig barely has played in games outside of Cuba, so Major League scouts have not had much of an opportunity to evaluate him properly. I'm not sure what other team was willing to offer Puig anything close to what LA did. The Dodgers' peace dividend won't matter if they squander it on deals like this and

the Andre Ether extension. So I don't know what Keith has written about Puig recently. Maybe I can look it up as you talk. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I was going to look it up as you talk. Okay, all right. Well, if you can do that, then chime in. But I assume he has changed his tune, if not on the amount that the dodgers spent at least uh his

evaluation of the player now that he has likely seen him quite a bit and and talked to scout to have seen him quite a bit uh and so that was interesting i thought in that it this player became the the example that the go-to example of the Dodgers spending like this nouveau riche team that was just kind of drunk on their payroll and spending it on guys who didn't deserve it. And now I was just reading Buster Olney's blog post on Puig from yesterday. And he wrote, But his numbers before that were 527, 509, 855 with three homers and 55 at bats. And 57 plate appearances, which is impressive, although he has zero walks and 10 strikeouts, which is not a crazy strikeout rate.

It's a pretty good strikeout rate. That's a perfectly fine strikeout rate for someone with pretty good pretty good yeah that's a perfectly fine strikeout rate for someone with power but zero walks the zero walks thing is tricky too because you don't by the way I just I just sent you I see that and I right now is behind a paywall and I don't I'm not currently logged in so you're gonna have to read this is. This is Keith's scouting notes from March 7th. Yassiel Puig, another big Dodgers international signing, got three at-bats and played left field, striking out twice

and hitting a hard single left after fouling off a lot of pretty good pitches in his other plate appearance. His body looks good, a little trimmer than he was last summer, and he's running better as well. Probably not a coincidence. So not exactly a glowing report, but that was before he hit 500 for the next few weeks, I guess. So the walks thing is tricky because on the one hand, you don't want to kind of be that cliche of a stat head who goes, well, he's hitting 527, but his walk rate's pretty low. And it's spring training, and so I don't know that he, well, I mean, it's spring training, right? So who cares if he walks? The point is to get your swings in and all that. But on the other hand, I mean, as far as things that you can deduce in 57 or whatever plate appearances,

if you're not a trained scout, plate discipline is kind of like at the very, very top of those things. And, I mean, it certainly is. I mean, there is a point at which you would like to see virtually all players show some ability to take a walk. And there are extremely rare exceptions that you can, you know, be wrong about, like Vladimir Guerrero. But for the most part, you're very rarely going to go wrong saying that, you know, having extremely bad plate discipline is more likely to be a hindrance than a benefit, right? Yeah. So, I mean, that's certainly...

That is a comp that some people have made. They've kind of gone straight to the Guerrero comp. Has anybody gone straight to the Francour comp? Because in the worst way, that's natural too. I've heard only good comps. I've heard Bo jackson i've heard vlad guerrero i have not heard free swingers who do not hit so much i guess because we have not seen puig not hit yet well and frank or kind of similarly burst onto the scene. I think Francoeur was like Puig, a mid-40s prospect when he came up and became a

sort of superhero for a little while. But, you know, he kind of had fundamental problems with his game that probably scouts had identified before his hot debut and that, you know, showed up. I mean, that's not, just as people who compare him to an Olney's piece, there's sort of a vague comparison to Jose Canseco, and they're very careful to say, now we're not saying he's going to be Jose Canseco. Well, I'm not saying he's going to be Jeff Francoeur.

It's just that the things that make small samples really exciting also make them small samples. I mean, they shouldn't usually change your fundamental knowledge of a thing. And that's sort of what's interesting about this, is that there didn't seem to be a whole lot of doubt a few months ago about him.

I mean, he was a prospect. He was not going to be Bryce Harper. He was probably not even going to be Yonah Cespedes, kind of level hype. But he was a prospect, and that's what he is now, probably, right? Yeah, I mean, to be fair, I'm looking at his minor league stats, and that is also a pretty tiny sample.

He played nine games in rookie league and 14 games in High A. But in those 23 games and 95 plate appearances, he walked 12 times and struck out 15 times. And that is obviously pretty low-level competition. Especially the rookie ball. Especially he was insane in rookie ball, right? He had like a 2000 OPS or something. Yeah, 1500.

But I mean, so I don't know whether that says anything about his approach, the fact that he walked in rookie ball and walked in high A. I mean, I guess it says that he walked in rookie ball and walked in high A. I mean, I guess it says that he's not so incredibly free swinging that he will swing at everything, everywhere. Yeah, I mean, all you want is a guy who will sort of take what's given to him, and that's an example of taking what was given to him.

Okay, so then, so what does this, I guess maybe... He got intentionally walked in rookie ball, which feels weird, because those games are basically spring training. I mean, they're slightly more serious than spring training, but only a little, little bit. There's like seven or eight guys in the stands for those games. Like literally seven or eight guys in the stands for those games, like literally seven or eight guys in the stands for those games,

it's hard to imagine that some 19-year-old draft pick was ordered to intentionally walk him in a rookie ball game. I'm looking up the league intentional based on ball stats, and it looks like 21 walks were issued intentionally in the whole league so about 1 out of every 1500 1 out of every 1500 played appearances the leading team gave up

4 and then there were 5 teams that gave up 0 well this is a post I mean this has got to be a post now the 21 guys who got intentionally watched. Because of the 21, one is Puig, and the other 20 will never make it to high A. Yeah, that's interesting.

I wonder why that happens. Okay, so he's been incredible. There are things about his stats this spring that make you think he could use more time seeing pitches uh i mean i guess one of the one of the factors behind the reaction to his signing maybe was that it didn't seem like the dodgers really had a place for him um after after extending Ethier and having Kemp sign forever and then having Crawford for a while. Did they have Crawford? Puig didn't come before Crawford? Let me see when the...

He must have. Puig must have come before Crawford. Yeah, maybe. But even still, I mean, Kemp isn't necessarily a center fielder for the next nine years of his contract. Yes, yes, that's right. The Crawford trade was in August. So anyway, so that's where they are now. So what do you do with him? I mean, it's kind of hard to, I'm reading Buster's post. He says all the usual things that you would say about a player who has so little experience. You want him playing every day.

You want him working on various aspects of his game. Of course, one of those starters could get hurt, and that would open up a spot for him. But otherwise, it's kind of hard to see him having a spot now or having a spot early in the season or really having a spot at any point this season. Well, I mean, Crawford's been replacement level for the last two seasons. Yeah. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if he's got a short leash at this point because of Puig. he's got a short leash at this point because of Puig.

And, I mean, it's sort of surprising to see how the Dodgers are no longer really even speaking definitively about sending Puig down. Like, it seems like that's probably the plan. But there is a sort of hedge in what Don Manningly is saying. And, you know, it's not totally impossible. I mean, wasn't, I guess I don't, I mean, it wasn't quite the same situation, but wasn't Cespedes supposed to be in the minors? Yeah, definitely. When he was first signed, I think it was pretty much the consensus

that he would need time in the U.S. and that he would start the season in the minors. That was definitely a surprise. Yeah, so consider the Dodgers perspective. would need time in in the u.s and that he would start the season in the minors that was that was definitely a surprise yeah so consider the dodgers perspective i mean the dodgers right i mean just think about what we know about them they've spent all this money for to make these huge splashes they're really trying to create this incredible event sort of baseball team around this season and puig is fernando mania um I mean what stops them from just saying yes you know screw it we don't need to play Crawford and just playing Puig on opening day why I mean

you know why wouldn't they to be honest uh I guess I guess the only the only reason that they wouldn't is either a they're looking at him and going yeah you know he's hitting 527 but we don't think that's necessarily real. And he actually does need work, which would be rational. Or the other is that the risk of him struggling and then going back down and then you sort of like lose a little bit of control of his development in that process maybe is too risky. But, yeah, I mean, it seems to fit. But, yeah, I mean, it seems to fit. They expect something out of Crawford, even if they took him on in that trade sort of to get the other players in the deal.

You would think that they don't expect him to be replacement level, or that probably would have been too much to take on. Well, yeah, they don't necessarily expect him to be replacement level but they if they expect Puig to be better right now which probably a lot of people do I don't know if they do but probably a lot of people do then it seems perfectly in character for this Dodgers front office slash ownership group to say screw it and just go with it live for the day YOLO Puig. Go with it. Live for the day. YOLO, please. Cespedes last spring, by the way, hit.229,.308,.429. He did not set the world on fire. Well, I guess what I have learned from this is not to read too much into reports of players who have not yet been seen by scouts in this country yet

so that's that's my do you do you though do you think that the scouts didn't get a good look at him uh you don't think those scouts were reliable i mean a lot of scouts saw him obviously a ton of scouts and a ton of teams i don't't know. I mean, he barely played outside of Cuba, I think, which I guess was not the case with Cespedes. He played out of the country sometimes. So I don't know. I mean, the Dodgers must have seen him, I would think, quite a few times to have spent that amount of money on him,

or maybe not. Maybe that was why everyone thought it was so crazy. And perhaps it was still crazy, even if he ends up being worth the money. If there was no other team willing to spend any amount close to that, then maybe it was still kind of an overspend. Well, it's awfully hard to know ben but i will say that tonight i i i bid 12 on puig in a auction league and i i was awarded him okay is that your two-person league no it's a it's an auto no league that i uh have been in for a few years and that i still in all these years have not figured out how much players are supposed to cost. So I basically just go for a while and then I see if I have the player.

For $12. Who else goes for $12? Well, Mike Morse went for $17. Okay. That's all I remember. All right. Like maybe Danny Espinosa? okay that's all i remember all right uh like maybe like uh danny espinoza okay i guess well that's but it's a it's a keeper league this podcast got great all of a sudden yeah we talk about fantasy things things heat up all right we're done're done. We're done. Okay. We'll be back tomorrow and we will answer

your emails on Wednesday if you send them to us at podcast at baseball prospectus dot com.