Yasiel Puig is not very popular among his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates, according to a new book.
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ESPN's Molly Knight wrote a book entitled, "The Best Team Money Can Buy" and it chronicles the Dodgers' issues with their polarizing teammate.
One story the book delves into is a problem with Puig and former teammate Hanley Ramirez, who now plays for the Boston Red Sox, and was trying to help Puig from falling further out of favor with the rest of the players on the club.
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"You guys tell me how you want me to play," Puig said last year in a team meeting, according to an excerpt from the book taken by Yahoo Sports.
"I just don't want your career to go the way my career went," Ramirez replied. "All my teammates hated me because of the way I played."
Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports also shed more details on the situation with the outfielder, including a few different incidents.
While some issues, like his habitual tardiness for games, have abated this year, according to sources, Puig's work ethic in batting practice and the weight room continue to bother some teammates. Much of the hostility stems from a general sense of entitlement shown by the 24-year-old. During spring training this year, as Knight writes and multiple sources confirmed to Yahoo Sports, Puig argued with teammates over who should be allowed on a plane ride that typically includes wives and girlfriends. The subject of someone from Puig's entourage joining the traveling crew came up, and sources told Yahoo Sports that Puig argued with pitcher Zack Greinke and nearly came to blows with infielder Justin Turner over the matter.
Greinke, the National League ERA leader and one of the game's best pitchers, was at the center of another memorable Puig moment related in Knight's book. In 2014, during the Dodgers' annual trip to Chicago, the team bus stopped downtown to allow rookies undergoing hazing to walk into a pizza place and emerge with food for the veterans. Some Dodgers players, not wanting to wait, skipped off the bus. When the bus was ready to leave, Puig was outside, looking for his luggage inside of the bay underneath the bus. After Puig ignored multiple requests to close the luggage bay, Greinke hopped off the bus, grabbed the suitcase in front of Puig and chucked it onto Michigan Avenue. Puig stepped toward Greinke and was restrained by reliever J.P. Howell.
Puig, 24, has been limited to 32 games this season due to injury and is hitting .294/.382/.471 on the campaign with three homers and 10 RBI.
The Dodgers have made the postseason in both of Puig's prior MLB seasons thus far, and it seems as though they're going to stick with him for the long haul.
Los Angeles seems poised to make the playoffs again this October as they've jumped out to a 43-35 record here in the first half and own a 1.5-game lead over the San Francisco Giants atop the National League West.
L.A. has won five of its last seven games and is in search of its third straight NL West crown, though it hasn't reached the World Series since winning it all in 1988 and has been eliminated by the St. Louis Cardinals the past two seasons.
Puig owns a career .304/.386/.499 slash line through 284 games with 38 homers and 121 RBI.
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