Fantasy Profile: Yasiel Puig, OF, Los Angeles Dodgers

Welcome back to the 2015 Last Word on Fantasy Baseball Guide. Over the next several months we will be releasing player profiles, projections, position rankings, and a number of other articles that will help you dominate your fantasy league this season. Whether you play rotisserie or head-to-head; whether you have a standard draft, a snake or an auction league, and whether it’s keeper league or a one-year deal; we have all the fantasy information you need.

For the rest of our fantasy baseball profiles and articles, please check out our Fantasy Baseball Guide Page.

Fantasy Profile: Yasiel Puig, OF, Los Angeles Dodgers

LWOS Ranking 6, Captain’s Value: $20.40

Let us try an experiment, who is this player: 24 years old Outfielder, coming off a .296-16-92-69-11 season with an ADP of 23.9? And who is this player: 26 years old Outfielder, coming off a .291-13-73-56-30 season with an ADP of 37.5? Pretty similar stats lines yet the first player, Yasiel Puig, is going about a full round earlier than the second player, Starling Marte.

Fantasy owners love flash and Puig has provided that, however the big issue with Puig is that he has only provided that in two of his 10 Major League months.  One of those was his first month as a rookie with the Dodgers and this has influenced the opinion on Puig ever since. Since hitting .436 with 7 home runs in that first month, Puig has only put up one month of stats where he hit better than .214 with more than 3 HR – you read that correctly, only one month where he hit 4 or more HR while batting better than .214.

If you split out Puig’s rookie month June 2013 (.436/7) and May 2014 (.398/8), his remaining career numbers over a 162 game pace are: .273, 16 HR, 98 R, 58 RBI, 12 SB – are you prepared to spend a top 25 pick on those numbers? If you are, I will send you an invite to my league. There is obviously some upside to be had with Puig, but there was bigger upside to be had with early round “potential” in the past (Harper, Hosmer, Lawrie, etc.); do the prudent thing and let someone else overspend for Puig, grab your stud Starting Pitcher in Round 2, and wait for someone like Marte in Round 3 instead.

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