Yasel Puig Moves To Mexico

[Head shot for Yasel Puig used by ESPN]

Cuban defector and supposed baseball player, Yasel Puig, has established residency in Mexico. That sounds like one zany rafting adventure. Puig has his papers filed with MLB and the process in believed to be complete for his free agency quest. After fellow Cubans, Yoenis Cespedes and Jorge Soler, signed multi-year $30+ million deals, Puig is looking to get paid by July 2nd before the new CBA crushes his American dream of owning a backyard full of jungle cats (it's the Mike Tyson way).

The 21-year-old Puig is somewhere between the development of MLB ready Cespedes and Single-A appropriate Soler. I don't know what that means for his contract hopes but, damn, Cubans have cool sounding names.

I say Yoenis Cespedes three or four times a day in normal conversations. While I have no clue how Yasel Puig is pronounced, I'm going with how the gypos said "dog" in Snatch. Yasel Pige.

I don't necessarily care where Puig signs or how his name is actually pronounced, I just want more Cuban defectors in MLB.

Our Intern Saw Moneyball

Somehow, my intern received a pass to an early screening of Moneyball. Meanwhile, I'll watch it this weekend with the real movie-going public. I am a man of the people, after all. Also, I couldn't get a pass because nobody seems to know or care who I am. I will be demanding retribution in the future, jerks.

Anyway, this isn't about my sense of self-entitlement. I'll touch on that again during my review. Our intern, Filosofer, shared some quick thoughts about Moneyball and really enjoyed it. I'll have a much more detailed review after I see it. Fair warning, I was pessimistic before Keith Law dismantled it.

Without further ado, here are Filosofer's thoughts on the film based on the book written by Billy Beane about how he saved Oakland from certain doom at the hands of space robots using only math...


When Moneyball hits theaters Sept. 23, you might want to check it out.

If you’re a fan of sabermetrics (and, since you’re reading this blog…), how can you not love a movie about a book which focused on sabermetrics?

But the film doesn’t alienate non-sabermetricians. The statistics used in the game are actually fairly minimal. The ideas are there, but it’s essentially watered down to ‘walks are good.’ There’s a decent balance, though.

There was surprisingly little baseball shown in the film, but a lot of action within the front office that kept it interesting.

It would have been nice to keep a tally of how many chairs were harmed in the making of this film, though.

For as tense as some of the scenes can get, there were always comedic elements thrown in, and there was plenty of laughter throughout the two hours.

Fans of Aaron Sorkin’s Sports Night will almost certainly enjoy Moneyball, even though it’s not just Sorkin’s screenplay. There are definitely some similarities between the two, but the dialogue is noticeably different.

Sports Night’s dialogue was typically quick, witty and cyclical. Moneyball’s tends to be more direct. Although the first time Beane tries to get his scouts on board with sabermetrics is very Sports Night-esque.

Also, isn’t it ironic that Steven Soderbergh got fired for wanting to use unorthodox methods of filming for a movie about using unorthodox methods?

Now I just need to figure out who I want to dress up as for my opening night viewing.

Thanks, bud. Man, how before its time was Sport's Night? Loved that show. Stay tuned for more Moneyball madness.