Yasiel Puig said he has reason to remain positive about playing for a new team, but the free-agent slugger does not share that same attitude when it comes to this year’s Major League Baseball season.
Puig, who split last year between the two Ohio-based teams, told El Nuevo Herald that the Miami Marlins were one of several teams to make him an offer.
The outfielder said, via a translator, that he rejected the Marlins’ offer in part because he wanted “a little more to play in front of my Cubans, close to my homeland.”
Photo: Charles LeClaire-USA Today
The 29-year-old did not elaborate on any other interested teams and his optimism dipped when discussing the potential of the season beginning this year.
“Everyone knows I don’t have a team right now, but that doesn’t worry me. We are in a time of pandemic, which is much worse than if Yasiel Puig does not have a team,” he said. “Someday I will sign. I don’t know which team, but it’s not a time to think about baseball.”
“We hope to play in 2021. I don’t think there will be baseball in 2020, but if there is, we will be on some team,” he said. “I have to stay positive. If the coronavirus has not made me negative, nothing will make me negative.”
Puig batted .252 with 22 homers and 61 RBIs in 100 games with the Cincinnati Reds last season, before being sent to the Cleveland Indians as part of a three-team trade on July 31. He hit .297 with two homers and 23 RBIs in 49 games.
Puig starred on the Cuba national team before being transported out of the nation in 2010.
He initially ventured to Mexico and then negotiated a seven-year, US$42 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers in June 2012.
He is a career .277 hitter with 132 homers and 415 RBIs in seven seasons.
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