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GLENDALE, Ariz. – The Legend of Yasiel Puig is greater than The Truth of Yasiel Puig. The Legend plays like Bo Jackson. The Truth simply looks like Bo, a diesel 6-foot-3 and 245 pounds. The Legend hits .521 in spring training. The Truth understands spring-training statistics might as well be tabulated by Arthur Andersen. The Legend is an invincible athlete. The Truth lost three straight games of ping-pong Thursday to Hyun-Jin Ryu, who is the anti-athlete.

The Legend and The Truth do meet in a most important place: Both agree Puig can be a dynamic player for the Los Angeles Dodgers right now. And with Hanley Ramirez down, Carl Crawford's return for the season opener iffy, the reigning world champions in their division and a payroll well over $215 million, it adds up to an easy choice.

Yasiel Puig should start the season with the Dodgers.

"I don't think anyone in here would cry if that happened," Dodgers reliever J.P. Howell said. "You see what he's done. It's ridiculous. It's something different.

"It would be not a bad decision. At all."

[Related: Dodgers' Hanley Ramirez to miss eight weeks with thumb injury | Fantasy spin]

Certainly there are drawbacks to the idea of plopping a 22-year-old Cuban in his first full season of professional baseball in front of 50,000 people in a city that can eat alive a kid who signed a $42 million contract after spending his first two decades living in a totalitarian country where there's no such thing as a working wage.

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That whole sentence is a pretty good argument against Puig, actually.

As are the financial considerations. By breaking camp with Puig, the Dodgers would start his service clock. If they wait about three weeks to call him up, it would ensure control of Puig through the 2019 season. Assuming he stays in the major leagues from his debut, starting him in L.A. this season means he could hit free agency following the 2018 season.

Rare is the player about whom teams concern themselves with free agency before he has spent a single day in the major leagues. That is what Puig does to people. The Bo Jackson comparison was silly. Puig does not run nearly as well as Bo, nor is his strong arm anything like Bo's RPG launcher. But the look. The swing. The ball trampolining off his bat. It screams superstar. It makes talent evaluators ignore that Puig is 48 at-bats into his spring and still hasn't walked.

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