Heading into the 2018 Winter Meetings, Los Angeles Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman has multiple needs to address and a variety of options to do it.
Among the needs are a catcher, second baseman and pitching. Los Angeles has the flexibility to either look to the free agent market to sure up those positions or do it via trades.
Friedman recently said the Dodgers have a ‘surplus’ of outfielders, some of which could potentially be involved in trades this winter.
One of those is Yasiel Puig, who has been with the Dodgers since 2013 but has seemed to come up in trade speculation with plenty of frequency.
This offseason the rumors seem to be a bit more legitimate though as it was recently reported that Puig has lost trust in management over his lack of playing time in 2018 and is open to being traded.
If the Dodgers do look to trade Puig, one potential suitor is the New York Mets as according to Mike Puma of the New York Post, they are expected to inquire on him:
The Mets are expected to at least inquire about Yasiel Puig, whom the Dodgers have on the trade block, but it’s also possible the Mets, if they didn’t acquire Pollock, would gamble on Juan Lagares, who has struggled to remain on the field the last three seasons.
Puig has also been linked to the Cleveland Indians, who are looking to deal Corey Kluber or Trevor Bauer in return for some outfield help.
It is unclear what the Mets would offer the Dodgers for Puig, although there have been some rumors that they are open to trading Noah Syndergaard. If that were to happen, then there would be other players and/or prospects involved going back to New York along with Puig.
Puig is in the final year of his contract with the Dodgers and is eligible for arbitration. He is projected to earn over $11 million this upcoming season.
