"Puig is 22 years old and he straight trucked the National League in his second professional season. Not second MLB season -- second professional season. It would be a shock if he did hit the cutoff man all the time, if he did always make the right choice on the bases, if he never misjudged how hard he hit a ball, if he sometimes overestimated his abilities to the detriment of his team. That he can be an above-average major-league player with those deficiencies isn't an indictment of the man, it's a tribute to him. A very small handful of players from the 2012 draft are in the major leagues; Puig is an age comp for many of them, and yet he hit .319/.391/.534 with acceptable plate discipline. He makes mistakes because he hasn't learned how to play baseball yet.
"Some people really don't like Yasiel Puig's style, so they trump up the legitimate charges and hope no one will notice how flimsy they really are. If the little things meant as much as Puig's detractors say they do, Miguel Cabrera would be a full-time DH who was pinch-run for 110 times a year, with MVP results to match. Also, Ben Zobrist would have a couple of MVP awards. Puig's baseball mistakes matter, and he should work to correct them, and if he doesn't in his whopping third year as a professional, then take him to task for it. But let's stop acting as if missing a cutoff man or overrunning a baseball are what we're really talking about when we talk about Puig."
