Yasiel Puig story is just beginning
The script for a movie based on gifted baseball player's amazing life so far would have the ingredients of a classic
With a combined annual salary of an astounding US$241 million, there are multimillionaires everywhere you look on the Los Angeles Dodgers roster.
On a team with the highest payroll in the history of professional sport, Yasiel Puig seems right at home.
An impressive physical specimen, Puig is a five-tool baseball player; he hits for both power and average, runs like a locomotive, can catch anything and has arguably the most powerful throwing arm in all of baseball.
It's bad enough having the sadistically ruthless Mexican drug lords after you, but to be a stool pigeon in Cuba as well would put a rather large bullseye on the young man's back
He is the type of rare generational talent that baseball organisations salivate over and has a seven-year contract with the Dodgers for US$42 million.
But unlike some of his teammates, eight of whom make more than US$15 million annually, Puig is an absolute bargain.
At only 23, his most productive years are clearly in front of him and the Dodgers have him locked up at a very reasonable rate for most of them.
Called up to the majors in June last year, Puig kick-started a moribund Dodgers team and led them to a divisional championship. In the process he finished runner-up for rookie of the year and is one of the top five properties in all of baseball.