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“Are you out of your [bleeping] mind?”
— Dodgers global cross-checker Paul Fryer to VP of scouting Logan White, after White told him how much he intended to offer outfielder Yasiel Puig.
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IMAGINE you have the scantest information on a basketball player, and there are rumors the player might not be the greatest guy, and you have to fly into a foreign country to see him, and all he will do is essentially work out by himself in a gym — jump shots, layups, some running. He will speak, but not in your language.
There are no games. No eyewitness scouting reports from your own organization. Limited film. In this age — when everyone knows everything about everyone — you wouldn’t offer that guy much, if any, money to sign, would you?
Except, White asks, what if the player were LeBron James? Based on just seeing him work out, would you walk away from that gym without moving heaven, earth and even $42 million to get him? Don’t some athletes just pop, just scream that they are unique?
Because White saw the baseball version of LeBron James a year ago this month in Mexico City. A year later, the newest sensation in the sport will be at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night as a combination of Bo Jackson, Roberto Clemente and Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery.
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In his first 12 major league games, Puig had seven multi-
hit games, smacked four homers, threw out two baserunners — one on a catch-and-peg play that just might be the defensive gem of the season — moved seen-it-all broadcaster Vin Scully to on-air disbelief and was a trigger point in one of the worst base-brawls in years. But his greatest achievement just might be this: He brought joy and wonder, if not consistent victory, to perhaps the most discouraging season in Dodgers history.
For a team that has served as the symbol for overspending poorly, it just might be the $42 million given to Puig, because he looked great in batting practice and could establish an Internet connection, will be the best money invested by the franchise in years.
Even the folks nearby in Hollywood wouldn’t believe it.
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“I wanted the player,” White remembered during a phone conversation. “And I will tell you how badly I wanted him: I would rather he come to us with the talent I saw and fail to turn those tools into anything than go someplace else and succeed. I couldn’t have lived with that.”
So White and the Dodgers gambled in a way maybe no one else ever had in baseball. But to understand the extent, you have to better know baseball’s International Man of Mystery. And even now — with Puig in the majors — much remains sketchy.
Starting in 2008 at age 17, Puig began playing on Cuban national teams and did so for three years. However, Cuba does not allow major league scouts onto the island, so aside from international tournaments, information remains hard to get. And in June 2011, Puig suddenly wasn’t playing any longer. There are various stories explaining why, but the most common is he was punished because he tried to defect. Like many defectors, Puig has provided reporters limited information about his problems and his ultimate escape to Mexico.
But last June word began to circulate that he would work out for major league teams in Mexico City with one agent, then Cancun for another, then Mexico City again. The clock was ticking. A rule was going into effect July 2 that would limit each team to a $2.9 million pool to sign international free agents, so Puig was going to agree before that. But for how much? And to which team?
Puig was going to work out for four days in Mexico City. Nothing beyond hitting and some running. No games. I contacted executives from 10 teams beyond the Dodgers, and each said their organization declined to sign Puig based on some combination of 1) too little information and too little time to gain more; 2) refusal to pay big dollars based just on workouts; 3) background checks that suggested Puig had a poor makeup; and 4) concerns that his body had thickened some already while not playing for a year.
The Mets, in their austerity, never were players. The Yankees, counting pennies more than ever, also never made an offer. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman explained how hard it is to make judgments if a player can transition from the NL to the AL or from Triple-A to New York — and that is with reams of information. How do you pay millions and millions based on a handful of workouts?
But the Dodgers were unique. They had been sold for a franchise-record $2.1 billion in March from the miserly Frank McCourt to a group fronted by Magic Johnson and bankrolled by Guggenheim Partners. The new ownership made spending lavishly its initial strategy to win back its fan base.
Thus, White went from having the smallest budget for such maneuvers to the largest. Still, White and his associates never saw Puig sprint or throw all out. White found a YouTube video that showed Puig making a dazzling throw while in Cuba. White was impressed with the intelligence he saw when Puig — the child of engineers — established an Internet connection for White’s laptop after the Dodgers executive was unable to do so.
Mainly, he saw that LeBron-ish athleticism and the ball exploding off the bat. Those were crumbs of information, but White was convinced this was the best set of tools he ever had seen on an amateur, and White had drafted Matt Kemp. He sensed the White Sox and Cubs wanted Puig badly.
He knew Cuban defector Yoenis Cespedes (A’s) had received a four-year, $36 million deal and Jorge Soler (Cubs). another Cuban defector got a nine-year, $30 million package. So White called Fryer up at 2 a.m. and told him he was going to offer seven years at $42 million, heard his friend ask if he were insane and responded that you either have the stomach for this or you don’t.
“No one had much data on the guy, no one had much information, but someone was going to sign him, and I wanted it to be us,” White said.
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THE initial reaction around the sport mirrored that of Fryer — the Dodgers were crazy. How could you invest so much money without even seeing the guy play one inning in person?
But once Puig was playing, his talent was overt. The Yankees, for example, had two different scouts see Puig play at A-ball Rancho Cucamonga last year and file reports that he was an impact player. Then this past spring training, he hit .517 and played at 6-foot-3, 250 pounds with the physicality and speed of an elite outside linebacker. But with the high-paid trio of Kemp, Carl Crawford and Andre Ethier in the outfield, Puig was sent to Double-A.
While there, he was arrested for driving 97 mph in a 50-mph zone, and reports from scouts on other teams were that his body language and effort were not always the best. But he hit .313 and slugged .599, so with Kemp and Crawford injured, the Dodgers — with their $200 million-plus payroll making them arguably the most disappointing team in baseball — summoned Puig less than a calendar year after his BP audition.
The Dodgers insist Puig has behaved wonderfully and been an ideal teammate, and his skills, well, White was right about those. The power bat and arm, high-end speed. He hit an opposite-field grand slam to culminate a few days of magic and move Scully, in Year 64 with the Dodgers, to say, “I don’t believe it.”
Will it last? Will the league adapt and subdue him, or will Puig actually show he has those makeup issues? Or is this a great Hollywood story playing out in L.A., the International Man of Mystery saving the Dodgers?
joel.sherman@nypost.com