Fresh off the wire comes the news that the Red Sox have traded slugger Manny Ramirez to the Dodgers in a 3-way deal involving a handful of prospects heading to the Pirates and Jason Bay moving to Boston. I’m sure Boston will bemoan the loss of Manny’s endlessly entertaining antics, but, honestly, it’s not as though they’ve accomplished much in the past few years with Manny on the roster.
The Dodgers won’t complain about the extra firepower heading their way, and for his part, Manny will love the attention he gets in Los Angeles. As a bonus, since he’ll already be in Hollywood it will ease that whole post-retirement transition from professional athlete to professional shill.
Sadly the prophesied Sox - Packers dream trade was not to be. Maybe next year, Manny and Brett.
this is kind of a shrug trade to me. does it make Boston worse? I feel like yes, but not by a ton. Certainly not enough to seriously derail the team.
Ortiz’s health becomes more important, as does JD Drew’s newfound ability to give a shit. We’re certainly going to learn how important the “Manny” factor was in the middle of that lineup. Even though Bay’s numbers this year match up well against Ramirez, he’s not going to have the same scrotum-tightening effect. Bay’s going to have to step in and keep the pressure (and Intentional walks) away from Big Papi, that’s where this trade becomes a win or a lose.
Pittsburgh gets some nice prospects. Progress is good. They were never going to win anything with Bay, and they nicked some good pieces.
Manny’s bat will be welcome in that lineup. His arrival does create a huge backlog in the Dodger outfield, but considering two of those players are basically useless (Juan Pierre and Fat-Zombie Andruw Jones) it’s a logjam that should resolve itself with little difficulty.
Have the Dodgers agreed not to exercise Manny’s option year(s) as was originally suggested?
It definitely isn’t quite the blockbuster that people were expecting.
At the moment it looks like the Dodgers can still exercise those option years at $20 Mil a pop.
I think the Dodgers are the biggest winners here. I think Manny suits the atmosphere out here, and I see first-hand the kind of love the team gets out here. He’s a whore for attention and he’ll be the star of the show here. Even if he keeps up the pace in what has been kind of a middling season by his standards, he’ll offer a big boost in production to a team that doesn’t generate many easy runs.
Bay is solid, but obviously that he just doesn’t have the same aura/mystique that Manny does. Opposing pitchers will feel that they can take a chance with him in a way they just couldn’t with Manny. Boston has to hope he proves them wrong. The biggest boon to Boston may just be in stabilizing the tumult in the dressing room.
As for the Pirates, Laroche is a decent prospect at 3rd but I don’t know enough about the rest of their pickups to gauge the overall quality of their haul. Time will tell.