Yasiel ... could rhyme with a**hole

I'm not saying this just because I'm a St. Louis Cardinals fan who got tired of the schtick of Yasiel Puig during last year's playoff series. I'm saying it because, per ESPN, outrightly refusing to participate in a pop-up drill is a routine that got manager Don Mattingly and teammate Adrian Gonzales both pissed at him too.

And, rightly so. Especially since, per Mattingly here, Dodger management has a two-tier system and is giving star treatment to Puig even though he was just a rookie just a year ago.

Back in October, Mattingly said he had a different vision of handling Puig than the rest of Dodgers management.

"Leave it to me, it'd be one way, but that's not necessarily the way the organization wants things to go," Mattingly said at his famous end-of-season news conference. He wouldn't elaborate much, but he said, "I just think there has to be a development system that we adhere to with Yasiel, along with all the other guys."

Add in reporting to spring training overweight, and you're going to piss off the boss man even more.

We're now at the level of someone having a Deion Sanders ego dunked in a vat of steroids even if, unlike Deion, he's only been up one year, and unlike Deion, doesn't also play football. Or, we're at the level of a twice-as-insufferable Aroldis Chapman.

And, it is something that will get you benched by Donnie Baseball, especially if your stats otherwise warrant it. And, looking not only at his teh suck in spring training of this year but also his split stats from last year after his hot June start, he could be closer to being Pine Time [snark] than he might think. Batting .270 with an .850 OPS+ is far different than .436 and 1.180.

Good luck, Donnie, with a kid not yet 23. Have fun, Dodgers management, if this scenario turns out to be real and at some point, you even start thinking trade. Andre Ethier, might get more takers. Even, with the right trade, Carl Crawford, or Matt Kemp, might be more valued. Per some of ESPN's other anonymous polling, I wonder how the rest of the Dodger clubhouse feels about him at times. And, yes, chemistry still matters. Even more so if you're not contributing with the bat or glove. And beyond the slump in the latter part of last year, we already know that Puig's contribution with the glove/arm is often "indifferent." Per the first link, at the start of this year, just like most of last year, we also know that Puig's speed does not translate into baserunning smart.

Update, a day later: Donnie Baseball says "we're good." Yeah, and California's not in a drought. Also, no, ESPN, he's not the 31st-best player in baseball. He might make the bottom edge of the top 50. And might not.

Speaking of Puig and Chapman, I sure hope Cardinals GM John Mozeliak did due diligence on the head, as well as bat, feet and glove, of Cuban prospect Aledmys Diaz.

Is it something in Fidel Castro's water supply? Has he taken a Jack D. Ripper clue about precious bodily fluids, water, and defecting baseball players?