Manny Ramirez is sitting in his large mansion, looking at the television. Looking at the phone. Getting up, staring out the window. What he sees, hears, reads, are all relating to one thing: nothing.
That’s the image I get as one of the greatest hitters of all time sits and ponders what happened since Manny uttered one of his more memorable quotes of all time: “Gas is going up and so am I.”
Unfortunately since then gas has come down and so has Manny’s suitors. You would think that the numbers he put up in the final 53 games of the Dodgers season (53 Games .396 BA, 17 Hr's, 53 RBI's) to literally carry that team into the post season all by himself wasn’t enough to warrant him one last major big money contract.
Front offices put a cap on players for a reason. They use a multitude of reasons to convince themselves and the general public that this player is washed up, too old, too brittle, or too much of an oddball to join the team. What they are really saying is: I don’t want to pay him what I truly feel he deserves to be paid.
The best player in the sport is a subjective discussion and usually begets several responses, all with equally valid arguments in their favor. But in baseball, if we are to look on contract alone, that player would have to be Alex Rodriguez. You know, the guy with the $300 billion contract on the world’s most famous sports team?
But if I were to ask you who you would want with 2 outs, in the ninth inning with everything on the line, Alex Rodriguez would be far down on the list. The guy that you would probably pick is David Ortiz from the Boston Red Sox. He’s still cashing that respect check from the 2004 playoffs in which his big hits catapulted him into the upper echelon of players. His stats were good enough but when he led the most famous cursed team aside from the Cubs to the World Series to break “the Curse”, he went to heights unknown.
A funny thing happened on the way to the super star line. No one talked about why guys continued to pitch to David Ortiz. I'll tell you the reason? The number four hitter, Manny Ramirez. The four hitter is the protector. The guy who makes sure that the number 3 hitter has good pitches to hit. While the 3 hitter has this reputation as the best hitter on the team, that is the farthest thing from the truth when thinking about it rationally. Isn’t it the number 4 guy? The guy batting clean up? He’ the guy that no one really wants to face so teams end up pitching to the number 3 guy.
Thus, David Ortiz got the fastballs in the wheel house, and Manny had to sit back and let him eat off his prowess. Manny is a genius. He’s painted as this goofball, sideshow, character that brings misfortune when he eventually turns sour on an organization. This reputation is almost laughable to me, especially considering his situation with his former team.
When last we saw Manny Ramirez in a Boston uniform, he was being booted off of the defending world champions after concerns were raised about him dogging some plays and taking plays off and being this huge malcontent. In a place like Boston where sports rules, fans don’t take kindly to their stars cake walking. Over the years, Manny’s personal style made him the butt of many jokes except when it came to the batter’s box. His trip to the bathroom in the middle of an at-bat. His hi-fiving a fan while making a catch at the wall all sort of made this “Manny being Manny” thing bigger than it was.
But when fans saw his play take a dip, they began wondering aloud whether he was posturing after the Red Sox refused to talk contract in mid season. This is the same guy who's off year is .299, 20 Hr's and 68 RBI's Many teams have procedure set in place where they don’t discuss contract extension mid season because it may become a distraction. But this was the same team that during the 2003 and 2004 seasons had put Manny on the waiver wire for any team to pick him up. They basically got tired of paying him $20 million to be a security blanket because he was quirky. So Manny had reason to wonder aloud whether the Red Sox were seriously going to give him a fair shake at a contract. He wanted to know if he was going to get a contract extension offered, and when they were unable to give him a direct yes or no statement, he decided that he had enough.
He brought two world championships to Boston after the most insufferable fan base in all of sports (right next to Philly), were pining for one. He was one of the best players in the game. Yet, he was being disrespected by his team. So he acted out. Was it smart? No. Was it rational? No. But that was “Manny being Manny.” He was basically traded for nothing, with the Red Sox pleading with teams to take him off their hands. When the Dodgers came calling, Manny was brought to a team and a fan base that really didn’t care. L.A. is like New York in one way and one way only: both cities have transplanted fans. Some become a part of L.A. and adopt those teams as their own. Most still root for their hometown teams from a distance if they have any kind of emotional connection to them. So Manny was surrounded by a fan base who merely came to hang out. If you had to take a poll, it would probably go 80/20 for fans who came just to hang as opposed to the actual fans who came because they cared about what was going on in the field. There's a good and a bad to that. Those fans are priced out by the rich guys who take their children to the ball game or take their wife/girlfriend or clients because its the American thing to do. The real fans are so far up that when they boo, their voices aren't really heard so Manny wasn't hearing the negativity that he would get constantly from Boston fans who DID care.
Finally Manny was playing without the pressure to bring a world title to fans who constantly expected so much and played in the NL West where if you had to compare that to the AL East is like going from Afghanistan, back to cadet training. So Manny relaxed and “Manny being Manny” gelled with the mostly Latino fan base and with the culture of laid back Los Angeles and played out of his mind. He was the ONLY real threat on that team and he still hit .396. You saw what could happen when he played loose and free and didn’t have to carry a team on his back while performing for a management group that had no interest in giving him his just due for his accomplishments.
But the reputation he got from dogging it in Boston stuck like gum to a shoe and he never shook it loose. Everywhere you see a report about Manny being linked to a team, teams quickly shoot it down like they don’t want to touch him with a ten foot pole, like he’s some cancer. Like he will make teams horrible once he goes there. Of course he proved that all wrong. He was a monster. The kind of hitting machine we all knew Manny was, just never got to show because he was too busy getting all the kind of negative attention that media types like to bestow upon guys who they just grow out of favor with. But fans who knew and understood Manny knew that if Theo Epstein just said yes or no, all this could have been avoided regardless of how it went down.
So what he’s a little quirky? According to Joe Torre, Alex Rodriguez couldn’t even get his own coffee and had people to do that. Mike Mussina thought he was better than everyone else because he could do a New York Times cross world puzzle. But those guys don’t carry around this crutch of a reputation that trips him up everywhere he goes.
He could be the difference maker for the Mets, but they won’t even acknowledge his presence because Omar Minaya wants to focus on pitching. He thinks Oliver Perez and Ben Sheets are a more sound solution than picking up a Manny Ramirez. So let me get this straight, a guy who’s medical history looks like a grocery list and another guy who can’t keep his ADD under control for 3 hours every five days is more sound than the all world offensive machine still sitting at home with bat and glove in hand?
What will it take for a team to see how motivated he’s getting right now? The Dodgers, after being carried to a division title (albeit in the NL West) and a first round defeat of the Cubs by Manny , offered him a two year deal for $45 million fully knowing that he wouldn’t accept that offer and retracting it a few days later and then not offering him a follow up deal, were doing what? Taking advantage of a market that dried up unexpectedly; that’s what. They have not moved from that stance.
If I were Manny I would go to the Giants. I would take their offer. Hell, if I had any say in the Mets front office I would beg them to get this guy. He’s been keeping in shape like he last offseason when he under went one of his most rigorous training regiments ever in preparation for what would be a contract year. Again, he’s being challenged. Again he’s being counted out and carrying the burden of an unfair title on his back. This conjured up villain that the media created in Boston so that they could justify such a move. See, what they don’t want you to know is, its all about marketing. How they make this appear to everyone. They made Manny to be this villain. A guy who didn’t get along with teammates. You mean guys like Kevin Youklis? The same guy who gets insanely angry when he pops up or grounds out, like he expects to get a hit every time? Manny once told him to calm down and Youk went nuts. The anti-Manny fan club used words like tough and gritty and a competitor to describe Youklis. You know what I would call a guy like that? A douche bag.
So here’s my pitch to the Mets front office. Sign Ollie to a 4 year deal with a fifth year option. Make the salaries 10 mil for the first two years and 11 mil for the third year and then 13 mil for the fourth and finally a fifth year club option at 15 million. Then you sign Manny to a 2 year deal with a third year and fourth year club option that becomes automatic if he hits incentives like MVP or World Series MVP at $23 million a season. This could easily happen because while your discussing contracts for Ollie with Boras you can open up discussions for Manny. Imagine what would happen if the Mets signed both of them and announced both signings on the same day? Increiiiiible!
For those of you thinking I’m crazy to let this guy have that kind of a contract, think about it this way, you are getting a guy for two years basically and then you have the right to dump him after the third or fourth year. But if you keep him for the third and fourth year, it was because he was the MVP of the league which is a win win for your team. He will fit right in at Citi Field with the Latino fan base that the Mets have and the new stadium and the television rights. I believe you’d be crazy to NOT do this. Maybe I’m dreaming.
But there he sits. Waiting for the phone to ring. Looking out the window for some team to come and take him out of baseball purgatory. For the one team that will look past his reputation and see him for what he is, the best baseball player. Just imagine he comes to your favorite team feeling disrespected, imagine what he will do then. Oh wait, we DO KNOW what he will do. Sounds like he’s a steal to me.
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