It’s trade rumor season, in case you haven’t noticed. The Dodgers have too much depth on their 40-man roster, too many top-100 prospects, and too many needs at the major league level not to make a trade before the July 31 deadline. Or so the prevailing wisdom goes.
Against this backdrop, it qualifies as news that Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com is reporting that the Dodgers are open to trading Yasiel Puig. The right fielder is sporting a .700 OPS entering tonight’s game against the Washington Nationals, which would be the lowest of his career over a full season. Since he returned from the disabled list with a hamstring injury on June 21, Puig’s OPS is a more respectable .831.
Will that sway the Dodgers to ask Puig for more of the same, or to move him while his trade value is somewhat high? Puig is owed a total of $17.248 million over the next two seasons (a base salary of $14 million, plus his signing bonus). That ought to make Puig a realistic target for most of the 30 teams, at least financially.
Rosenthal mentions Cincinnati Reds right fielder Jay Bruce and Oakland A’s right fielder Josh Reddick as possible trade targets. Both the Reds and the A’s have fallen out of contention in their divisions.
Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi said as recently as February that the team was not looking to trade Puig.