Dodgers owner on Puig: 'I wouldn't give up on him now'
Yasiel Puig's popularity in the Los Angeles Dodgers' clubhouse has waned in recent months amid his diminished production, his showy antics and questionable work ethic even prompting one anonymous teammate to say getting rid of him "would be addition by subtraction."
Still, certain people within the organization - important people, at that - remain confident in the polarizing 24-year-old.
"I wouldn't give up on him now," Mark Walter, the team's controlling owner, told Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times.
Walter insisted his faith in Puig - whose 115 OPS+ through 43 games this season represents a career low - is fueled by his on-field performance and not his effect on ticket sales.
Though the energetic Cuban can, at times, grate on his teammates, Puig's accomplishments at such a young age verge on historically excellent. Only 36 other players, in fact, have logged at least 1,000 plate appearances with an OPS+ above 140 and an isolated power greater than .190 before their age-25 season.
If, however, the front office determines that trading Puig is best for the club, Walter won't stand in the way.
"It'd be dumb for me to hire them and tell them what to do," he said.