OT: Manny will be Manny in LA

[Onestepper]

Traded to the Dodgers...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...takes/?eref=T1

[ScarabGator]

Fucking Braves. Didnt do anything to better themselves for 2009. Lost one of the games best hitters with Texeira and got an average 1st baseman in return. Nothing. What a disaster. Manny, J.Bay, Griffey Jr. all moving around. I wanted Jason Bay in a Braves uniform. Fucking Braves.

[Onestepper]

Fucking Braves. Didnt do anything to better themselves for 2009. Lost one of the games best hitters with Texeira and got an average 1st baseman in return. Nothing. What a disaster. Manny, J.Bay, Griffey Jr. all moving around. I wanted Jason Bay in a Braves uniform. Fucking Braves.

I saw a list of all the players the Braves gave up for Texeira. Ouch.

[7 Wishes]

I guarantee you Manuel will try to sign with the Yankees or Rays in the off-season. However, Tampa cannot afford a $15 million per year guy, and Hank Stein-grabber is too smart and unimpulsive to do it. He'll wind up with the Marlins, and hopefully he'll hit .235 in the NL and retire in shame in three seasons. What a world-class asshole.

[Saint John]

Manny Ramirez is one of the hardest workers in the game. His pregame weight training is legendary. Obviously, he doesn't take his defense seriously, but he's really not all that bad. The guy has been on winners wherever he's been and he's been an impossible out at times in the playoffs. Manny is a first ballot Hall Of Famer. The Dodgers made their team a whole lot better today.

[Enigma869]

Manny Ramirez is one of the hardest workers in the game. His pregame weight training is legendary. Obviously, he doesn't take his defense seriously, but he's really not all that bad. The guy has been on winners wherever he's been and he's been an impossible out at times in the playoffs. Manny is a first ballot Hall Of Famer. The Dodgers made their team a whole lot better today.

Nobody will ever argue about Manny's work when it comes to HITTING a baseball. I've been around the city Manny has called home for 8 seasons, and I can tell you that his work is strictly hitting. He's an adequate outfielder and horrendous baserunner. That said, of course he's a first ballot hall of famer. The guy is one of the best pure hitters I've ever seen. It doesn't change the fact that the guy's attitude SUCKS! There is more to winning in sports than pure talent. Atttiude can be infectious, whether good or bad, and I'm personally glad he was shipped out!


John from Boston

[Uno_up]

I would rather have 100% of Bay than 75% of Manny being a dick! I know Manny is a HOFer and a feared hitter....blah blah blah. But if he isn't going to run out grounders and take shots at his team...FUCK HIM! Bay is signed and he is cheap.

[Moose]

I would rather have 100% of Bay than 75% of Manny being a dick! I know Manny is a HOFer and a feared hitter....blah blah blah. But if he isn't going to run out grounders and take shots at his team...FUCK HIM! Bay is signed and he is cheap.

Manny is CANCER with capital letters. If Mr. Nice guy Francona couldn't deal with him, who can? God Bless Torre in this deal!

[Enigma869]

Manny is CANCER with capital letters. If Mr. Nice guy Francona couldn't deal with him, who can? God Bless Torre in this deal!

It's tough to argue with this. The whole "Manny being Manny" thing is old and tired. I have no problem with Manny or anyone else having fun and being light-hearted, even though it's not how I played sports. It simply crosses the line when he stops running out ground balls and takes public shots at the team paying this fucker a whopping TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS PER SEASON!. I don't think even those dopes in The Bronx will pay that much coin for Manny, when he becomes a free agent, at the end of this season!


John from Boston

[Maui Tom]

Manny Ramirez is one of the hardest workers in the game. His pregame weight training is legendary. Obviously, he doesn't take his defense seriously, but he's really not all that bad. The guy has been on winners wherever he's been and he's been an impossible out at times in the playoffs. Manny is a first ballot Hall Of Famer. The Dodgers made their team a whole lot better today.

yeah but you said Maddux would win 400 games too....

[Moose]

Manny is CANCER with capital letters. If Mr. Nice guy Francona couldn't deal with him, who can? God Bless Torre in this deal!

It's tough to argue with this. The whole "Manny being Manny" thing is old and tired. I have no problem with Manny or anyone else having fun and being light-hearted, even though it's not how I played sports. It simply crosses the line when he stops running out ground balls and takes public shots at the team paying this fucker a whopping TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS PER SEASON!. I don't think even those dopes in The Bronx will pay that much coin for Manny, when he becomes a free agent, at the end of this season!


John from Boston

Exactly! He might just be addition by subtraction for the BoSox.

[Uno_up]

Exactly! He might just be addition by subtraction for the BoSox.

That's one way of looking at it. I believe the Sox record after Manny beat up the 60-year old travelling secretary was under .500...is that a coincidence? Manny started acting up right after he met with Boras out in Anaheim and that ain't no coincidence either. Do you think Manny wanted the Sox to pick up the one year option? I think not...he was looking for a 3 to 4 year deal and the only way he could do that was by shooting his way out of Boston. Fact of the matter is the Red Sox were not going to win the way it was...and Manny was not going to be happy unless they gave him a 4 year deal- so I say if a man can't be happy with 20 million dollars a year and is inclined to hit 60 year old guys and teammates -- then fuck him I'd rather he leave.

Now, ON THE OTHER HAND, absolutely without question the Sox had a better chance to win it all this year with Manny than with Bay. A career .889 OPS in the post season with tons of clutch hits. Not only that, you honestly think teams are going to respect Jason Bay and pitch to Ortiz? His production immediately takes a hit. Walks galore. Where this trade helps is 2009. Instead of watching Manny leave, they get Bay at $7.5 million and will now be big players in the free agent market when you add Schilling's money coming off. However, this is a team looking to repeat. If this were a small or mid-market team? Great trade. For the Sox trying to win now...not good. Of course, that's on paper. If Bay hits .420 in the post season than Theo is a genius but on paper, clear loser for 2008.

[Maui Tom]

This is long...,but Gammons take on ESPN "insider"...



The deal that had to be done

Monday, July 28, 2008 | Print Entry

The text message from Alex Cora came not long after the deal was done. "I am very sad," wrote Cora, one of the game's best and brightest people. "I am happy for him because he wanted it, but he is a great guy. He taught me a lot. I will miss him."

That is what's so sad about the way the Red Sox had to spend $7 million and trade two very good young players named Brandon Moss and Craig Hansen, to be able to trade Manny Ramirez to the Dodgers so they could get Jason Bay from the Pirates. But the way the past month had gone, there was no chance -- none, zilch, nada -- that Boston could make the playoffs with Ramirez on the team. In his mind, he had completed his obligation for the guaranteed $168 million the Red Sox paid him, and he was waiting to go on the market and collect the $100 million during the next four seasons he believes he is going to get, which would pay him through the age of 40.

He used sycophants to insult ownership and everyone in authority, and one player who really cares for Ramirez said that he knew Ramirez could sit the last two months, collect his final $7 million and ride off into the $100 million sunset. The Red Sox knew that, as well. They had already threatened him with an unpaid suspension, but in a world where the union fights for those who don't work, the last two months were going to be a living hell of sit-down strikes, followed by suspensions. It would have been a half-season of what the past two weeks have been, namely a chokehold on the team's baseball culture.

Ramirez tried to sit, citing his knee. Problem is, after skipping Felix Hernandez and Joba Chamberlain, the Red Sox ownership and medical staff ordered him to take an MRI. If Ramirez hadn't forgotten which knee was bothering him, he would have been more convincing, but he got mixed up. Massachusetts General Hospital performed MRIs on both knees, found nothing and the next day ownership served Ramirez with a written notice that if he did not play, he would be suspended without pay.

Someday, when we really understand the whole 1980-2005 Steroid Era of which one admitted user says "the only guys who didn't do them after 1994 were either stupid or scared," we may ask the question: Was it worse to take performance-enhancing drugs to perform better and win, or decline to play and steal money?"

That is a question for another decade. The suspension threat was last weekend, hence the "woe-is-me" stuff on Sunday, and the absurd statements about a team that protected him time after time after time after time. But as soon as the deadline passed, if Ramirez were still with the Red Sox, there would have been one incident after another with Ramirez secure in knowing that he didn't have to play, hustle or give any regard to winning to collect his remaining $7 million. Anyone, who was watching John Lackey's run at a no-hitter continue in the seventh inning on Wednesday when Ramirez jogged to first in 5.7 seconds, realizes that he is one of those rare, gifted athletes who cares nothing about winning, about the integrity of the game or his teammates. He can hit.

Oh, there had been attempts to rid the club of Ramirez. At first, it was about the contract Jeff Moorad snookered from Dan Duquette when no one else was bidding, a contract Ramirez decided he wouldn't abide by in the eighth year. They put him on waivers. No one claimed him. They tried to trade him for Alex Rodriguez, but the union killed that. They tried to trade him to the Mets after the 2004 world series, then at the 2005 deadline for a package that included Lastings Milledge and Clifford Floyd, but those deals fell through.

And they won two World Series with him.

But this season became a nightmare when his attention span turned to the next four years, to the next contract. General managers this past weekend said Red Sox GM Theo Epstein had begun calling around trying to get interest in the hitting machine, but by Wednesday night, there were but two teams, the Marlins and Dodgers. The way Boston looked at it was that, fine, Ramirez was gone, and Jason Bay seemed the best replacement with his season averages of 32 homers and 102 RBIs. To get him at the end of the season would have cost more than Moss and Hansen, so they did the deal now. Their feeling was that if Bay adjusts to Boston right away, and they settle their bullpen, they will contend. They do not think they would have contended with their $20 million player on strike.

Florida made every honest effort to get him. On Wednesday night, the Marlins thought they were getting Ramirez and Pirates reliever John Grabow for Jeremy Hermida, second baseman-third baseman Chris Coghlan and left-handed pitcher Taylor Tankersley, who would have gone to the Pirates with a Boston prospect for Bay. The Red Sox had agreed to add $2 million, so they were paying $9 million plus a prospect to do Ramirez-for-Bay.

Pittsburgh wanted more in the deal, while Florida never wavered. The Pirates wanted another package, which was filled by getting Andy LaRoche and right-handed pitcher Bryan Morris, as well as Hansen and Moss. It was a very good package for Bay, a package that frees cash to sign top draft pick Pedro Alvarez. Hansen and Moss were this year's Matt Murton, without whom the Red Sox could not have made the Nomar Garciaparra deal in 2004 that led to a championship.

Ramirez should be great in L.A. The Dodgers need the bat. Joe Torre and Don Mattingly are perfect for him. He helps maligned young players like Matt Kemp and James Loney. The Dodgers essentially got Ramirez and Casey Blake, with the Red Sox and Indians paying their salaries.

Ramirez will only be there for two or three months, and Torre won't have to live with the compromises that ate at Terry Francona. It'll be a nice stop en route to Cooperstown. Ramirez can blame Larry Lucchino as the reason for not running out ground balls or ducking Hernandez and Chamberlain or sitting out the last five weeks of 2006 when David Ortiz and his teammates needed him, and some of the L.A. media will sympathize.

The Angels continually prove that baseball is not a computer game, but a human sport, and the gap between Ramirez's numbers and performance widened this season as he became obsessed with his next contract. It is sad, sad that he trashed Francona and those that tried to coddle him to the point where one of the best managers of his time lost weight and sleep trying to live with what he had to allow Ramirez to do, including deck the traveling secretary. It is sad, because most of us will always like Manny Ramirez, because the best people on the team like Cora, Ortiz and Mike Lowell tried to make it work and cared. In the end, though, Ramirez listened to and cared about no one when it came to the next $100 million.

He tasered the 2008 team because management wouldn't pay him $100 million for four years. Now he has a chance to be happy, his back turned on the team with whom he won two rings, a team that on Thursday turned the page and, in many ways, is morphing into a team far, far different from the Idiots of 2004, one built around Josh Beckett and Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia and Jonathan Papelbon and Jon

[rsimpson]

Fucking Braves. Didnt do anything to better themselves for 2009. Lost one of the games best hitters with Texeira and got an average 1st baseman in return. Nothing. What a disaster. Manny, J.Bay, Griffey Jr. all moving around. I wanted Jason Bay in a Braves uniform. Fucking Braves.

As a die hard Angels fan, I take offense to your average 1st baseman comment

Casey is going to be a star someday

[yulog]

Manny Ramirez is one of the hardest workers in the game. His pregame weight training is legendary. Obviously, he doesn't take his defense seriously, but he's really not all that bad. The guy has been on winners wherever he's been and he's been an impossible out at times in the playoffs. Manny is a first ballot Hall Of Famer. The Dodgers made their team a whole lot better today.

He's juiced. Pre game weight training isn't very impressive when your using drugs

[ScarabGator]

Fucking Braves. Didnt do anything to better themselves for 2009. Lost one of the games best hitters with Texeira and got an average 1st baseman in return. Nothing. What a disaster. Manny, J.Bay, Griffey Jr. all moving around. I wanted Jason Bay in a Braves uniform. Fucking Braves.

As a die hard Angels fan, I take offense to your average 1st baseman comment

Casey is going to be a star someday

not soon enough for the Braves.

[Eric]

Manny Ramirez is one of the hardest workers in the game. His pregame weight training is legendary. Obviously, he doesn't take his defense seriously, but he's really not all that bad. The guy has been on winners wherever he's been and he's been an impossible out at times in the playoffs. Manny is a first ballot Hall Of Famer. The Dodgers made their team a whole lot better today.

I'm a Dodger fan...and they needed a bat. Bosox are still paying him. Good deal. Obviously, thats a terrible division, and the Dodgers have the pitching to win any short series...

[Uno_up]

I'm a Dodger fan...and they needed a bat. Bosox are still paying him. Good deal. Obviously, thats a terrible division, and the Dodgers have the pitching to win any short series...

I would be shocked if Manny just made them a true contender. Their pitching falls way short and other than Manny, nobody in that lineup scares me.

Loney is a CI that hits like a MI, Kent is old, the SS slot is crap, Blake is Ok, love Martin but he is not a truly imposing force in my mind, and the rest of the OF is old crap (Jones/Pierre) and youngsters (Either/Kemp).

Their bullpen isn't that great either. With Saito hurt everyone slides up and they really don't have a power setup guy anymore with Broxton jumping into the 9th inning role now.

Starters - Jason Johnson...really? They need Penny to come back strong and Kuroda to get his head out of his ass. Billingsley is a beast but not really to annoit him as an ace yet due to his WHIP and Lowe is solid but he is good for a pounding every now and then. Not sure I love this staff in a playoff series.

[conversationpc]

Starters - Jason Johnson...really?

That guy's career W/L record is 56-98. That's a .364 winning percentage. Horrible.

That being said, as a Red Sox fan, I am glad they finally got rid of that turd Ramirez. He may work out with the weights but he is often careless and doesn't bust his ass actually playing the game like he should. Think of the even bigger numbers this guy could've put up if he were able to stay motivated all the time, instead of just occasionally.

Bay is already a decent hitter but should hit for a higher average in Boston and is better in the field than Manny. At this point in his career, he is already a 30+ HR and 100+ RBI guy, so he should be able to at least match Manny's numbers over the last couple of years and more than make up for him in the field and on the basepaths.

[RockitRide]

Manny Ramirez is one of the hardest workers in the game. His pregame weight training is legendary. Obviously, he doesn't take his defense seriously, but he's really not all that bad. The guy has been on winners wherever he's been and he's been an impossible out at times in the playoffs. Manny is a first ballot Hall Of Famer. The Dodgers made their team a whole lot better today.

Manny quit on his teammates....again. PERIOD. That constitutes a first ballot asshole in anyones book. The Sox probably won't make the playoffs this year but they wouldn't have made them with Manny either. Biggest gapping asshole since Judas Damon. The word is Joe Torre is not too keen on the trade. If the Dodgers drop out of sight from this point it will be proof positive that there is a God.

[conversationpc]

Manny Ramirez is one of the hardest workers in the game. His pregame weight training is legendary. Obviously, he doesn't take his defense seriously, but he's really not all that bad. The guy has been on winners wherever he's been and he's been an impossible out at times in the playoffs. Manny is a first ballot Hall Of Famer. The Dodgers made their team a whole lot better today.

Manny quit on his teammates....again. PERIOD. That constitutes a first ballot asshole in anyones book. The Sox probably won't make the playoffs this year but they wouldn't have made them with Manny either. Biggest gapping asshole since Judas Damon. The word is Joe Torre is not too keen on the trade. If the Dodgers drop out of sight from this point it will be proof positive that there is a God.

Hopefully, this one will work out as well as the Garciaparra trade did in 2004. Nomar hasn't played anywhere near a full season since then and, while I don't expect Manny to have the same kind of injury problems, he is 36 and should be on the downhill slide.

[Uno_up]

The Providence Journal reports that Red Sox GM Theo Epstein met with team veterans on Wednesday, and they told him that Manny Ramirez had to go.

The players were not only tired of Manny's antics and felt that he was a distraction, but they didn't trust that they could count on him during the pennant race. One story in the Boston Herald on Friday quoted a teammate as saying "He just doesn't care." Another Herald story discussed his refusal to visit with young cancer patients, calling him a "bum." It seems most everyone involved with Manny in Boston is happy to see him go.
source: rotoworld.com

[Enigma869]

Biggest gapping asshole since Judas Damon.

Damon NEVER quit on his teammates the way Planet Manny did! Damon ALWAYS played hard and ran balls out. Manny almost NEVER did. Manny has a god-given talent to hit a baseball and is one of the most prolific offensive players, in the history of baseball. It's just unfortunate that his legacy will be that of a lazy guy who only played when he felt like playing.


John from Boston

[Uno_up]

Manny update!

Four hits (including a HR), two runs, & three RBI today!

Since joining the Dodgers he's 8-for-13 with two homers!

Torrid start!!!

[marco17]

I'm a Dodger fan too, and to say they needed a consistent power bat in the lineup is an understatement. Even if he is nothing more than a "rent-a-player" through the rest of the season, it makes the Dodgers a more dangerous team. The reason most fans aren't scared of anyone in their lineup is because unlike many teams, the Dodgers do their best to use their homegrown talent, and that is where Loney and Kemp come in. They are very good, and young... listen to any commentator on ESPN, they will tell you the potentional these two have, but because they are not big names and don't play for the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, or Phillies, not many know about them. That's no disrespect to any of the teams I mentioned, but the media is biased to the AL and NL East races. Trust me, I live outside Philly, and Utley, Rollins, and Howard can't take a leak without someone reporting it somewhere. Not to mention the Angels are basically kicking everyone's ass, have the best record in baseball, and virtually nobody outside the LA area knows about them.

As far as pitching... again, you may not have a star-studded rotation or bullpen, but when you look at the stats through most of the season, the Dodgers have been in the top 5 of all MLB pitching staffs. Their problem has been lack of run support.

Now, the Dodgers have their issues, and the main besides lack of offense has been consistency. They'll win 7 in a row, then drop 6 in a row.

Manny may be a little crazy, but if the Dodgers really want to make something happen this season, they got a great player, and virtually got him for nothing. And, with rumors the GM is gone if they don't make a decent run at the playoffs, I'd probably gamble on him too.