Pablo Sandoval has always faced questions about his weight. He is a big guy. It hasn’t always hurt him in the past, but the questions really started to come fast and furious in 2015 when he struggled in his first season in Boston. Logically, after a year like that, you’d expect Sandoval to put some sort of emphasis on coming into camp in top shape.
Nope!
Welp. Here it is. Via the @BostonGlobe, the picture that everyone's going to be talking about tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/FbWPrm8DfH
— Jared Carrabis (@Jared_Carrabis) February 21, 2016
The internet reacted very, very cruelly to this, as you would imagine.
The Life of Pablo. pic.twitter.com/LyXTeZpTQG
— Dan Worthington (@danWorthington) February 21, 2016
According to ESPN’s Rick Weber, Sandoval refuted reports that anyone from the Red Sox had asked him to lose weight during the offseason, despite the fact that three members of the team’s hierarchy, including general manager Dave Dombrowski and manager John Farrell, are on record as saying he was told to. He also said that he hasn’t weighed himself since October.
“I don’t weigh. I don’t weigh in at all,” Sandoval told reporters when asked how much weight he had lost. “I just do my work, try to do everything I can out there. I don’t weigh at all in the whole offseason. I just try to get better, be in a better position and, like I say, be an athlete.”
In January, Farrell said that Sandoval had dropped 20 pounds during the offseason. That does not appear to be the case – if anything, he looks heavier than he did last season. His former team, the Giants, also had issues with his weight, and he admitted it was a factor in his departure. Perhaps they had a point, Pablo. Have you considered the Barry Bonds training program, by any chance?
