We can talk all we want about the offseason drawing to a close and spring training being just around the bend, but here’s how we really know it’s almost baseball season:
Ladies and gentlemen, our first Yasiel Puig controversy of 2015 has arrived!
Sort of, anyway. It’s a controversy to the extent that it’s going to be viewed that way in some circles. But in this one? Meh, not so much. If anything, this particular Puig controversy is the opposite of a controversy, whatever that is.
At any rate, let’s get to what the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ lightning-rod right fielder had to say. It seems Puig held court with some reporters on Friday and, courtesy of Roberto Baly of VinScullyIsMyHomeboy.com, one of the things he said was this:
Hardball Talk’s Craig Calcaterra introduced this tweet by writing, “This is gonna create some headlines.”
Well, we know there’s at least one now. And there will probably be more. It is the slow season, after all, and this is one of those Internet-friendly OH SNAP! moments.
The rivalry between the Dodgers and the Giants is no joke. They both entered the National League in 1883, and their rivalry traveled from New York to California in the 1950s and became an intradivisional affair when the NL West formed in 1969. Through it all, the Dodgers-Giants rivalry has produced enough fodder for a Wikipedia page that’s about as long as you’d expect it to be.
And, of course, there’s what the Giants have done lately. While the Dodgers are still working on winning their first World Series since 1988, the Giants’ championship run in 2014 was their third in five years.
In light of all that, shouldn’t Puig‘s eyes be on the Giants instead of the Cardinals? Don’t they matter just a little bit more?
Not necessarily, no.
There’s no question the Giants are on the Dodgers’ minds, as new general manager Farhan Zaidi acknowledged as much at his introductory presser in November. And, for all we know, the Dodgers are just as envious of the Giants as they are aware of them.
Feeling envious, however, is not the same thing as feeling inferior.
Puig‘s comments indicate he doesn’t feel the Dodgers are inferior to the Giants, and there’s another Dodger who recently came right out and said it. Remember when Adrian Gonzalez told this to Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register?
You can say he was just trying to rationalize the Dodgers’ season, but he had a point.
The Dodgers did indeed win the division over the Giants in 2014 and also did the same in 2013. A big reason they were able to this past year is because they won eight of the last 11 games the two teams played against one another.
So based on recent history, Puig‘s not quite out of his mind in not perceiving the Giants as a major threat. Over the Dodgers’ last 324 regular-season games, they really haven’t been.
And looking ahead to 2015, the projections see more of the same in store. Courtesy of Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs:
Both projections see the Dodgers winning their third straight NL West title, and handily at that. And knowing what they’re working with, that should be easy enough to believe.
The Dodgers may have lost Hanley Ramirez, Matt Kemp and Dee Gordon, but they still have plenty of quality bats. Throw in a rotation led by Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke, a hugely improved defense and a bullpen that should also be improved, and they don’t just deserve to be perceived as the top contender for the NL West. In my eyes, they’re baseball’s top World Series contender.
So while the Dodgers are playing catch-up with the Giants to a certain extent, the Giants are also a hurdle they’ve proved they can clear and should be able to clear once again. Rather than on them, their focus should be on a hurdle they haven’t cleared and still poses a threat.
You know, like the Cardinals.
The last two times the Dodgers have made the playoffs, the Cardinals have come along to knock them out. They did the job in the sixth game of the National League Championship Series in 2013, and in the fourth game of the National League Division Series in 2014.
It would be easy for Puig and the rest of the Dodgers to put those two defeats in the past if they knew they didn’t have to worry about seeing the Cardinals in October again, but they can’t do that.
The Cardinals are largely still the same team they were the last time the Dodgers saw them, but they now feature one of the game’s great right fielders in Jason Heyward. This is to say, they still have the look of a division winner, and both Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs expect them to be just that in 2015. Odds are the NL Central will be theirs again.
That puts them and the Dodgers on a collision course to meet in October once again. Because of that, they’re more of a threat to stand in the way of the Dodgers’ elusive championship than the Giants are.
Even without context, this alone would be strong enough justification for Puig‘s stance. But when you consider the context, you remember how many layers there are to the Cardinals-Dodgers rivalry.
One of those layers concerns Puig directly. The Cardinals have owned him the last two times they’ve faced him in the postseason, holding him to a .235 average and punching him out in 18 of 37 plate appearances. Thus have they made an otherwise above-average hitter look decidedly pedestrian.
It’s not just his number the Cardinals have had. They’ve also had Kershaw‘s, as they’ve treated him like a regular Barry Zito the last three times they’ve seen him in the postseason. Understandably, he was dazed and confused after his latest defeat. His teammates probably were, too.
Oh, and let’s also not forget the cultural war between these two teams.
In 2013, their postseason battle was a narrative of the respectful old-school types of St. Louis triumphing over a bunch of disrespectful modern loonies from Los Angeles. It was the spirit of Stan Musial stomping all over Mickey Mouse.
In 2014, it was much of the same. Only this time, Jon Heyman of CBS Sports looked at the Dodgers’ absurd payroll and spun a yarn about magic triumphing over money:
The $230 million (or is it $240 million with all the extras counted?) Dodgers slinked back to glitzy L.A. after a 3-2 defeat that completed the Cardinals’ NLDS win, three games to one. This will be four straight NLCS appearances for the Cardinals, who rank in the middle on payroll and haven’t had Albert Pujols for three of those four years now.
The Dodgers-Giants rivalry is one with a long history that now has a championship-envy twist. But it’s the Cardinals who have been the bigger rock in the Dodgers’ shoe over the last two seasons, and the rivalry between them has transcended the action on the field as only good rivalries can do.
So don’t take Puig‘s latest remark to be controversial. The Giants may have the championships the Dodgers crave, but it’s not them the Dodgers have to worry about. The Cardinals pose a bigger threat, and the last two years have made them the Bill to the Dodgers’ Uma Thurman. Revenge is in order.
Of course, Giants fans are welcome to disagree. Either that, or you guys can calm down and count to three.
I’m not sure what it is, but something about that number should have you feeling better.
Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.
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