The Wasserman agency announced Wednesday that it has “terminated” its relationship with Yasiel Puig. The news, obviously, comes as a surprise given that Puig is a fairly high-profile client that stands to receive a raise on his $7.5MM salary next winter, via arbitration, before reaching free agency as a 28-year-old upon conclusion of the 2019 season. J.P. Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group tweets that, at present, it does not seem that Puig has an agent representing him.
It’s not clear what exactly prompted the decision to cut ties with Puig, though SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo tweets that the issue related to Puig’s behavior. He further adds that it’s unlikely the Dodgers will take any sort of action. Andy McCullough of the L.A. Times tweets a similar sentiment.
Puig, 27, turned in a strong bounceback effort in 2017 after a lackluster 2016 season. In 570 plate appearances for the NL Champion Dodgers, Puig slashed .263/.346/.487 with a career-high 28 homers and 15 stolen bases. Defensive Runs Saved (+18) and Ultimate Zone Rating (+12.1) pegged him as one of the game’s best defenders in right field as well.
For all the promise he shows on the field, Puig’s off-field behavior has been a constant topic throughout his big league career. Since coming to the Majors in 2013, there have been stories about his clubhouse clashes with teammates, a bar fight in Miami back in 2015, and Snapchat videos of Puig partying with Triple-A teammates just days after being optioned to the minors in 2016 (videos that Puig himself posted) — among other issues.
Of course, it should be noted that Puig drew praise throughout his strong rebound campaign in 2017 not only for his play on the field but for his improved maturity off the field and in the clubhouse. Veterans Chase Utley and Kenley Jansen were among the teammates to join manager Dave Roberts in publicly praising Puig’s improved attitude and clubhouse demeanor (via Bill Plunkett of the O.C. Register).
As it stands, Puig figures to once again be the team’s primary right fielder in 2018. Trade talk surrounding Puig died down in 2017 after his rebound season, though the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier did report earlier this offseason that the Red Sox declined a proposal that would’ve sent Puig to Boston in exchange for Jackie Bradley.
Next attitude player to get himself silent banned from MLB. This guy is just out of his mind and has no clue.
Has the LAD ever contemplated getting a full time “keeper” for him and forcing Puig to listen to said keeper, like Tampa bay did to Elijah Dukes a year before getting rid of that troublemaker?
Hey you kids get off of my lawn…
I remember when Gary Sheffield came up with the Brewers in the late 80’s and was such a problem child that MIL signed Dave Parker specifically to be his mentor. Sheffield eventually got his head on straight but not before bouncing through a few organizations.
Dave Parker is a curious choice to mentor a young player…
Keith Richards or Hunter S. Thompson weren’t available, I guess.
Well said!
This comes across as very uptight. Him partying late is no good for either player or team but most of his other antics seemed related to maturity. You have to give the guy benefit of the doubt when he just did a year with no troubles with production at the plate. Not to mention, no real known issues with narcotics. The chances are pretty good he’s gonna have some sorta incident sooner or later just cause its who he is, but he also showed his intentions are good. I’d put him in right for my Orioles
That could work. The reds and rangers did that with Josh Hamilton. They got him a retired detective who roomed with him on the road, went to AA meetings with him. Lived with him at home. Went to dinner with him. Went shopping with him. Probably slept in a chair against Hamilton’s bedroom door at night to make sure he couldn’t sneak out.
Guys like puig almost seem like it’s not totally their fault. You cant yank a 20 year old kid out of 3rd world abject poverty, hand him $50,000,000 dollars and A “see you Monday for your first game- figure it out dummy!!!” Guys like puig deserve to have a lifeline and need someone to guide him along the way. Most 20 year old American guys make stupid choices and poor decisions on far less than $50M.
Come on Yas, we need you to turn it up a notch in ‘18
There are so many conflicting reports on when Puigs free agent year is.
He has four years of MLB service right now. His seven-year contract with the Dodgers is up at the end of this season, but he won’t have six years of service time, meaning he’ll be arbitration eligible for the final year he needs to get to the six-year prerequisite for free agency.
Nothing in his contract says he’ll be released at the end of the deal even if he falls shy of six years service.
Thank you for clearing it up.
With that being the case the Dodgers can non-tender him after the season…..if he lasts that long before being traded or released.
He’s not going to be non-tendered or released.
Can a player just ride out a contract without an agent? I would think there would be a line to pluck him from agent free agency.
I hear Jason Wood is sizing up a shower stall for him at this very moment.
LOL
Spencer Strasmore
I can’t ever recall an agent severing ties with a major league client. Whatever happened must have been pretty ugly. Puig would be a great fit for Jerry Maguire.
He probably nailed half the agency’s wives
Yea, I’m sure that’s it…
I have no inside info. Let me be upfront, this is total speculation.
But I would bet a significant amount of money an allegation involving Puig and a woman is going to be coming out really, really soon.
#metoo
A Sano-like accusation was my best guess, as well.
But, who knows, maybe they find out that he was going to hire a new agent and they hated working for him the whole time and wanted to kick him out the door first.
We have no idea.
Oh, that’s an intriguing speculation. If so, I think the agency should drop the player.
Or maybe just the wrong person’s wife. You have to think it’s something ridiculous like that if it isn’t something that made the news and/or has him punished by the team.
Something the agency sees, that’s not out yet, says he’s screwed up big time—stay tuned.
So is this the beginning of a bigger story developing with Puig?
That’s my guess I’m guessing he did something real bad that is going to come out soon and they wanted to get ahead of it
Puig better hope all parties involved keep their mouth shut (especially himself) because if it’s half as bad as most of us are imagining the Dodgers will get him out of LA without hesitation. Puig pretty much has 2 strikes on him at this point.
More than that, he just swung at strike three in the dirt, now he’s sprinting for first. Will LA hose him?
Puig has hosed himself. The organization has had its fill of his drama, so I could see them trying to trade him to any team for a prospect who’s a sure fire failure. The probability of finding a taker is shrinking by the minute, though.
I think there’s a lot going on about how he arrived to Mexico and then the U.S. that no one wants to tackle, at least any reporter. Wouldn’t be surprised if he was found dead with an Ace of Spades near him. Just speculating on what the SI article said years ago about him. It was the first and only source that even hinted at that that I am aware of.
to the 3 that downvoted a comment that probably has more validity than any other. Phuh Cough.
Agency fires client. Interesting. Wonder how often that happens.
Man bites dog story?
Happened in the NFL today as well didn’t it? That coach from NE…his agent fired him as well. I know different sport, but still.
Their loss. Is he “Johnny Manziel” bad? No
This is the tip of the iceburg
Chris Cotillo tweet 12 min ago….”To clarify: Puig demonstrated “behavior the agency could not accept.”
Banged an agent’s wife.
Just a rumor, if he were the boss of that joint, he’d be trending on Twitter #metoo. Apparently, even though they’re releasing him, doing him a big favor on the way out the door.
Welcome to Scott Boras land Puig!!!
It’s a perfect match. Puig is a total hellion, and Boras is the devil himself.
I’ll never understand the vitriol for Boras. He busts his ass for his clients, he helps a lot of families from Middle America to Latin America understand the professional baseball lifestyle. He provides great facilities for his clients to work out in, see the best doctors, get the best food. Yeah he gets lippy at winter meetings but that hardly makes him the devil. He’s done more for the players union than Tony Clark ever has but yet he’s the devil.
weird. there are so many plants in these MLBTR comments sections, you’d think this was a greenhouse.
He’s the personification of all that is evil about capitalism.
I imagine a reputable agency such as Wasserman never leaves money on the table. So, (pure speculation) leads me to believe that there is a major story on the brew. This type of action is very uncommon. Hopefully for Puig it is not a jail-able offense that has placed him at this point in his life. Just when it appeared as though this guy grew up, his agency fires him. Timing is everything in life!
Puig will be released. Braves need to trade Markakis to the Dodgers now.
And the dodgers hang up the phone in wait they don’t even answer lol.
Think the Dodgers would be cool with Markakis for Kershaw?
Nope
Turns out Puig is actually 42
Athlete-celebrity gossip-news is the worst part of being a sports fan
Can only imagine what he did this time. Players fire agents all the time. The other way around and with free agency not far off? No. Must be some serious stuff.
Hmm…I’m sure dodger fans are hoping he is having a very bad falling out with his agent and that it’s not a situation the agency is trying to separate themselves from.
Funny thing about those issues is that they’ve all been thoroughly reported on and have proven, in the end, to not be much of an issue.
Yeah like the bar fight that wasn’t a real issue at all yet always gets brought up. Or how dare he have fun in AAA after he gets sent down for no reason?
I keep hearing about Puig’s bad reputation but other than that creepy tongue wagging thing, I can’t think of any actual examples of why he has this reputation.
What has he done?
Well a majority of it was when he was in that toxic clubhouse, the major flare ups with Donnie and Kemp. He didn’t take his craft seriously showed up late to work, didn’t put in the work. Beyond that the repostings have been somewhat spotty. The bar incident which was reported, but appeared to be somewhat unsubstantiated. There are some interesting rumors flying around as though it not a major deal. As though it has more to do with a moral code with Wasserman than an actual situation.
Granted I don’t put to much stock in rumors, but I’m guessing if it were truly serious he’d be reprimanded by the Dodgers.
Puig also got sent down by Roberts got a while in Roberts first year.
Yes he did. Although that was more so about production.
Blue_Painted_Dreams_LA…..There was the situation where he “pulled himself” from a game…he said he was too hurt to play but that very same night he was out on the town going from club to club with paparazzi photos to prove it. That did not sit well. If memory serves it wasn’t very long after another speeding ticket in the 100mph range with either his mother or grandmother in the car.
Well that also. Although I thought the not taking his craft seriously kind of covered those instances. But if we’re going into detail he was also criticized about his rehab in the final year under Donnie. His actual health was questioned and whether he was adhering to his rehab. Then I guess you have his AAA stint in 16, and the party bus. It’s been a lot of growing pains raised from immaturity and bad optics. The question has never been the talent, but always whether he’s grown up enough. If we’re hindsight 20/20 he definitely wasn’t ready for the mlb in 13. They let so much slide because they were in dire need of talent.
Shouldn’t it be the other way around. Puig fired them? It would make more sense since he hired them in the first place.
Well, if the end of Puig’s Major League career is on the near horizon, he at least has a book deal to fall back on: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Screwing Yourself
Braves would trade Nick Markakis for Yasiel Puig plus work out the details.
Braves would never knowingly take in someone with the personality of Puig. Bad luck with Hector O. Can’t see that one coming. Granted, there’s a new regime in town, but Yunel Escobar was sent packing for basically showboating and lolly-gagging.
You know you’re a screw up when your agent leaves behind big money to get away from you.
Or maybe he was in the process of hiring a new agent and they wanted to get out ahead of it. The possibilities are endless.
Have to love the jump to conclusions. The ranges from Puig must have done something really really really awful to the idea that Puig was shopping around for agents, knowing he had arb and FA coming around, and Wasserman tried to get ahead of it. Can we let this play out, before we absolutely burry the guy? In this day and age, I’m guessing if something seriously occurred there’d probably be a leak or at least the Dodgers would try to get out ahead of it. I’m not the biggest Puig guy nor do I think he’s a long fixture, but man…
This times a million, the speculation on here is ludiccrous. He could have shown up drunk to a meeting at the agency offices for the nth time, something like that.
As for it must be something big because an agency would never give up a client and his fees…don’t people realize agencies don’t just try to get as many clients as possible and highly-contracted clients as possible? They are as selective as the players. Now they don’t want to dump players normally because they will get a bad rep if they do it too often but every agency would probably like to dump one or two guys. If a guy needs to be babysat by multiple staff members and gets in a lot of messes and gets bad PR that the agency has to manage he could easily become (to borrow from Gary Cohen) a net negative.
whatever helps you sleep at night
Which is the whole thing. Wasserman made their money on Puig, right or wrong. Beyond that, Puig is more of a future investment. If he’s shopping or he broke a moral agreement, or he did something terrible how much is he really worth? 600K, 750K, 800K? Is that more than they’ve put in? I don’t get the assumption that by dumping him they must have know something.
“…it’s unlikely the Dodgers will take any sort of action.”
Pardoning my ignorance, but honest question – what sort of action could the Dodgers take?
Place him on the restricted list. But the Dodgers would need to have a good reason to do so.
Where are all the folks that were arguing the Dodgers would have won a JBJ-Puig trade??
Right here. This has nothing to do with his performance on the field at all.
Whose fone rang and got this info? We here are two three parts removed. As always. ‘Puig please dont lick your bat. Looks gophy’.
I’m sure given Puig’s harrowing trip out of Cuba, there’s probably some PTSD that could account for his erratic, devil may care attitude. I’m sure that’s the case for a lot of players who grow up in hostile environments.
If the Dodgers have been willing to stick it out with him for this long, they should probably consider offering him mandatory therapy so he can get his shit together. They need to find other ways to remedy his behavior, other than the tutelage of clubhouse veterans.
Maybe Yasiel Puig’s agent was “just being Yasiel Puig’s agent”.
This is the equivalent of a lawyer saying “I don’t like my client enough to make money off them”
Rumors in LA are that we was making side marketing deals without giving his a agency a cut or bringing them in. If true this is more about business ethics and money than anything illegal.
Send him to Toronto so he can freeze his ass off or something that should adjust his attitude. This guy is a head case that only a nother country can fix .Go away already !!!
If sending people outside borders was the only way to fix them being nutters, the US of A might not have many folk left.