Yasiel Puig was jacked from the moment he joined the MLB. Then he got even more jacked, adding roughly 25 pounds of (mostly) muscle to his frame over his first two seasons. Although an outfielder built like a superhero sounds great in theory, the Los Angeles Dodgers believe Puig was a bit too jacked in 2015.
According to a recent article from ESPN, the organization believed that Puig’s bulkiness contributed to his injury problems last season, when the Cuban sensation played in only 79 games. Most of the time he missed was due to persistent hamstring injuries.
“So much of it was never a weight issue in the classic sense; it was just how big, just how strong he had gotten,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman told ESPN. “If he’s playing in the NFL every week, it would be great. The fact that there are 162 games in the regular season and then you have the post-season, with so few off days, our theory was that it contributed to some of the soft-tissue injuries.”
For once, it looks like the Dodgers and Puig are on the same page. Puig has been training hard to slim down and transform his body so that he might hold up better throughout the 162-game grind.
Puig has already lost between 15 and 20 pounds, putting his current weight at roughly 240. Even more impressive, he’s managed to lower his body fat percentage from 11 percent to 7 percent. For comparison, Bryce Harper was at about 8 percent when he appeared on the cover of last year’s ESPN Body issue.
Yasiel Puig recently measured at 7% body fat, person close to him said. Was at 11% last year.
— Dylan Hernandez (@dylanohernandez) January 30, 2016
Puig is still only 25 years old, and he is tremendously talented. If he can manage to stay healthy for a full season, he could help the Dodgers reach new heights. We will be interested to see if his shredded, leaner body helps him remain more durable on the diamond in 2016.
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Yasiel Puig was jacked from the moment he joined the MLB. Then he got even more jacked, adding roughly 25 pounds of (mostly) muscle to his frame over his first two seasons. Although an outfielder built like a superhero sounds great in theory, the Los Angeles Dodgers believe Puig was a bit too jacked in 2015.
According to a recent article from ESPN, the organization believed that Puig’s bulkiness contributed to his injury problems last season, when the Cuban sensation played in only 79 games. Most of the time he missed was due to persistent hamstring injuries.
“So much of it was never a weight issue in the classic sense; it was just how big, just how strong he had gotten,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman told ESPN. “If he’s playing in the NFL every week, it would be great. The fact that there are 162 games in the regular season and then you have the post-season, with so few off days, our theory was that it contributed to some of the soft-tissue injuries.”
For once, it looks like the Dodgers and Puig are on the same page. Puig has been training hard to slim down and transform his body so that he might hold up better throughout the 162-game grind.
Puig has already lost between 15 and 20 pounds, putting his current weight at roughly 240. Even more impressive, he’s managed to lower his body fat percentage from 11 percent to 7 percent. For comparison, Bryce Harper was at about 8 percent when he appeared on the cover of last year’s ESPN Body issue.
Yasiel Puig recently measured at 7% body fat, person close to him said. Was at 11% last year.
— Dylan Hernandez (@dylanohernandez) January 30, 2016
Puig is still only 25 years old, and he is tremendously talented. If he can manage to stay healthy for a full season, he could help the Dodgers reach new heights. We will be interested to see if his shredded, leaner body helps him remain more durable on the diamond in 2016.