The Braves have agreed a deal, pending a physical, with the free agent outfielder Yasiel PuigMark Feinsand of MLB.com reports (via Twitter). The deal closes a long saga of free agents for Mercurial Puig, who is a familiar product to Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos (former Dodgers vice president of baseball operations). Puig is represented by the Beverly Hills Sports Council.
Puig, 29, was the most prominent name among unsigned free agents, having spent the entire offseason without accepting a deal and then endured a league-wide freeze on transactions during the pandemic that further slowed his path towards a team. He reportedly received offers from the Marlins and Orioles on the way, as well as some interest from the Korean Baseball Organization, but Puig never found an offer to his liking. It is doubtful he has the important multi-year contract he sought over the winter in this new deal with Atlanta, but he will join a club with obvious postseason aspirations.
The Braves, of course, just lost a notable open-field option last week as a veteran. Nick Markakis announced that he will not play in 2020. Puig will give the Braves another successful bat that offered a similar production to Markakis in 2019. While Atlanta’s garden was already largely established with Marcell Ozuna, Ender Inciarte and Ronald Acuña Jr., the addition of Puig will allow the Braves to rotate all their corner and open field options (which also include Adam Duvall) through left field, right field and DH keeping everyone cool. Acuña can also play in center field instead of Inciarte, so we will surely see days when Ozuna, Acuña and Puig are lined up left to right in garden, perhaps with Duvall as the designated hitter.
Puig split the 2019 season between the two Ohio clubs, opening the year with the Reds before being transferred to the Indians, while in the middle of a fight on the field, no less, in the box office hit of three teams he sent Trevor Bauer to Cincinnati While overall a solid bat, his offensive performance did not reflect his past standards. Puig appeared in 149 games and, in 611 plate appearances, hit .267 / .327 / .458 with 24 long balls, though only two after his trade with Cleveland. In a season that saw huge spikes in offensive production thanks to the ball’s altered composition, Puig’s lineup recorded the league average (101 wRC +, 100 OPS +). That aligns pretty similarly with Markakis (102 wRC +, 98 OPS +) but falls well below 2017-18, when Puig was roughly 20 percent better than an average league hitter.
However, given the age difference, there are more reasons to expect a rebound from Puig than it would have been from Markakis, 36. Adding Puig and Ozuna to an already strong core will not compensate for the loss of Josh DonaldsonBut it will give the Braves an unquestionably deep reserve of bats from which to draw to pursue a third consecutive National League East division title.
From a defensive point of view, Puig played a right-field average last year according to each of his saved defensive runs, maximum zone rating, and above-average starts. His glove work in the past has varied from passable to excellent in a given year, depending on one’s preferred metric. However, at a minimum, it’s reasonable to expect Puig to be at least an average bat and average corner defender, making him a good player for Atlanta.
The Braves initially announced 56 players in their 60-player pool for the 2020 season, though Markakis and the right-handed veteran Felix Hernández can be subtracted from that number after choosing to exit the season. Atlanta has had four players as well, including the cornerstone. Freddie Freeman, positive test for COVID-19. If any are placed on the IL as a result, they will not count against the group of players. Even without IL locations and after adding Bryce Ball For the player group recently, the Braves will have room in their 60-man group for Puig. The Braves also had a vacancy on their 40-man roster, so no corresponding move will be necessary to accommodate Puig’s presence on the roster.
