Lindbergh: Yasiel Puig and adjusting to the adjustments
From SABR member Ben Lindbergh at Baseball Prospectus on August 12, 2013:
In week one, we knew that Yasiel Puig could hit a baseball well over 400 feet, that he could cover the outside part of the plate, that he could throw from the warning track in right field to first base on the fly. We also knew that it would take a while to find out what he was. His obvious tools and talent were only part of the picture. His weaknesses were just as important, but they took more time to get a feel for. Tim Hudson spoke for all of us when he said, “We’ll see how he does six or eight weeks into the season, see what kind of adjustments people make to him and he makes to them.”
It’s now been nine weeks since Hudson said “we’ll see,” and 10 weeks since Puig made his major-league debut. We’ve watched pitchers adjust to Puig, and Puig adjust to pitchers. And while we’re still in small-sample territory, we can start to say with more certainty what kind of player Puig will be.
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Puig played his 60th game on Sunday. If we divide his season into three 20-game, 80-plus-plate-appearance chunks—which is somewhat arbitrary, but still works well for the purposes of this piece—we get a hype-generating hot streak followed by a slump and then a big rebound.
Read the full article here: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=21501
Originally published: August 12, 2013. Last Updated: August 12, 2013.