Puig in 2013, Ichiro in 2001

Puig in 2013, Ichiro in 2001

If baseball is magic, as I’ve said many times, then Yasiel Puig was baseball in 2013.

If the Los Angeles Dodgers were looking for a savior, then they nearly found one in Puig. He made baseball exciting in a way that it hadn’t been in L.A., or most other places, in years. Before the 22-year old Cuban immigrant took his first at-bat in Dodger Blue, Don Mattingly compared the 6’3 250lb outfielder to Bo Jackson.

Maybe no baseball player of the 1980s had a more electric combination of speed, power, and sheer athleticism. Maybe no baseball player of the 1980s hit balls further or missed them completely more often, with a career strikeout rate of 32%.

He put together one of those magical, unreal, rookie years that sort of warps the definition. He didn’t play like a rookie. He played like his hair was on fire. He played fast, hard, and out-of-control.

It was nothing like the rookie year that one Ichiro Suzuki put together back in 2001. Ichiro came over from Japan a fully-formed player. He was exactly the player he was supposed to be, and he produced consistently from day one for the Mariners, to the tune of a .350 / .381 / .457 line (plus 56 steals), and highlight reel plays from right field, courtesy of elite athleticism and elite speed.

Puig’s 2013 wasn’t anything like that year. He was a wildcard, a madman on the base paths and in the field. His hyper-aggressive approach behind the plate led him to strike out at a rate (22.5%) more than triple Ichiro’s 7.3%.

So, what’s the point of this comparison? The two players couldn’t be more different in many ways.  The reason for the comparison is that no rookie outfield since Ichiro came in and so completely and unexpectedly upset the applecart as did Puig in 2013.

Mike Trout had a bananas-level rookie year two years prior in 2011, but he was closer to being a known quantity. The Angels knew what they had in Trout.

No one knew what the Dodgers had, least of all the Dodgers. Maybe they still don’t.

In 2001, Ichiro produced 7.95 WAR/162—surprisingly little of which was dWAR (0.9), given his reputation for spectacular plays.

In 2013, Puig cranked out 7.63 WAR/162, at an age 5 years Ichiro’s junior, and he did it with a line that wasn’t as dissimilar as you’d expect: .319 / .391 / .534. Puig didn’t run as much as Ichiro (only 11 stolen bases), but he hit the ball harder and further. While he didn’t play measurably great defense, he gunned people down at the plate, much as Ichiro had done 12 years before.

And like Ichiro in 2001, Puig made impossible things seem routine, like scoring from second on a groundout or an error,  or doubling up men at first from deep right field.

The Dodgers had been struggling up until they called up Puig in June. He gave them a jolt of energy which helped carry them to the postseason. He hit .473 in the NLDS against the Atlanta Braves, and looked like the pressure of the playoffs meant nothing to him. This was, of course, before the Dodgers ran into the well-oiled St. Louis Cardinals in the League Championship Series.

Puig hit only .227 against the Cardinals and suffered an ignominious dressing down by Carlos Beltran after excessively celebrating a homerun-that-whoops-didn’t-get-out-of-the-ballpark, and for a moment, as he had done at times all season, Puig crashed back to Earth like the 22-year old boy that he still was.

The Dodgers washed out that year in six games. Puig’s journey toward, and his battle with, superstardom, however, was only getting started.