USA Today’s Bob Nightengale says that teams asking the Dodgers about Yasiel Puig are being told that he is not available for trade. He adds an “at least for now” on to the end of that. Not sure if that’s his gloss of if he’s implying that the Dodgers would, in fact want to move him.
That tea leaf reading aside, this response doesn’t seem surprising to me even if the Dodgers do want to trade Puig. He’s coming off of a bad season filled with injuries. His stock could not be lower at the moment. Even if Dodgers brass has secretly decided that they want to part ways with the guy, it would make perfect sense to do so after he’s had some time to rebuild some value. The guy, when healthy, was an electrifying performer. If he put up a couple of months of nice production and good behavior, he’d be worth way, way more to potential suitors than he is now.
All of that said, it seems premature to even think about trading him. He’s under a team-friendly contract and is controlled by them through 2018. He’s only 25 years-old. If the Dodgers implode this year, sure, maybe consider it. If he has a materially negative impact on the club in ways that don’t kill his trade value, why not. But at the moment, he is second to probably only Adrian Gonzalez in terms of “bats the Dodgers really need to perform if they want to win the NL West” and if they dealt him their lineup would have a pretty big hole in it.