Ned Colletti Makes Boras His Bitch: Finally the Manny Ramirez Saga Ends.
Manny Ramirez has signed a deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers have been offering 2 years / 45-M since these negotiations started, and that’s what they’ll pay. The Dodgers, and Colletti in particular, even got Manny and Boras to accept the rent-to-own theory of economics. If Manny stays for 1-year and opts out (which he will), he gets 10M this year and then 5M each January for the next three years — totaling 25 Million dollars. Jayson Stark has a solid article over at ESPN summarizing the whole she-bang. While I don’t always agree with Jayson, this is worth a read. The AP also put out an article that’s a bit more too the point, giving you more info / less analysis.
Big Ol' Dipper By Ramirez Photo By Matt Stratton . Flickr (CC)
Big Ol' Dipper By Ramirez Photo By Matt Stratton . Flickr (CC)
Manny Ramirez’s Fantasy Value
Everyone knows that Manny Ramirez had a ridiculous second half after dawning Dodger blue. Manny’s a fantastic player, and generally the only thing standing between him and fantasy stardom is desire. That, and the possibility of his, soon to be 37-year old, body falling apart. The risk of Manny coming down with an injury that destroys your fantasy squad are no greater, or less, than any other player. Quite frankly, Manny’s lack of exersion on the diamond may actually make him less injury-prone.
Batting Average: The basement is going to be .300, so at the very least Manny is going to help you in average. Manny’s ceiling is Pujol-esque. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Manny go for .330+; continuing his amazing hitting in a weak-ish NL West. Realistically, Manny should come in at around .315 – .320 ish similar to his 2006 numbers. Most of the Robots are going to have some issues predicting Manny, because he’s Manny. If only Ramirez could tell the projection systems when he cared, and when he just didn’t bother — they’d give more accurate predictions.
Home Runs: After this winter, Manny is going to have to prove his worth. In some ways, it’s almost better for fantasy owners for Manny to have held out. When combined with Manny’s opt-out clause, we’re looking at the possibility of a career year. The only thing that could improve Manny’s performance further would have been a massive financial bonus for achieving certain milestone homerun marks. The basis of “Manny being Manny” is that Manny can be the greatest hitter alive — if he wants to be.
When it comes to numbers, we’re once again going to be in Pujols territory: 35-37 HR on the year, seems right. The Robots have Manny coming in at around 33/34ish Home Runs.
Stolen Bases: This is where Pujols kills Ramirez. Pujols nabs 7 bases, Ramirez steals 1.33333 bases. This doesn’t need analysis, but I wouldn’t put it by Manny Ramirez to steal 10 bases this year.
RUNS & RBI: The Cardinals offense is good, but the Dodgers offense is better. If Hudson and Furcal can stay healthy, Manny may approach his crazy-stupid RBI totals of past seasons. The Possibility of 140RBI is definitely out there. I’m not sure how the new Dodgers line-up plays out, but the possibility of Kemp, Ethier, Loney, Martin, Furcal, Hudson, Blake, and occasionally Pierre batting around Manny is ridiulous. A healthy Manny easily eclipses 100 of each RBI and RUNs scored.
So Why is Pujols a First Rounder & Manny A 2nd? 3rd? 4th?!?!
Pujols is safer, and will probably drop a pretty hefty batting average on ya. Personally, I’d rather have Manny at his ADP over Pujols at his ADP.
The Rest of the Guys
Everyone assumed Manny Ramirez was going to sign with the Dodgers anyways, so you shouldn’t be switching up your rankings. I still like Loney, and I still think expecting improvement from Kemp is asking quite a bit.
We are however in the same place we were last year, except with Manny Ramirez taking the spot of Andruw Jones. Jones came in, and could play CF — not so much with Manny. So we have Ramirez, Kemp, Ethier and Pierre.
Kemp’s shown his ability to play CF, and I’m assuming that’s where he’ll get the start. Manny’s entrenched in LF, so where does that leave Pierre/Ethier.
Ethier should get the start in RF more often than not, and should at least manage to “play” in 145 Games. His AB will be a different story, as he wont get typical AB from a 145-Game player. I’d expect somewhere around his 525 AB of last year. Ethier is still a viable outfield option at 500AB, and if you’re the kind of person that likes monitoring line-ups the day of — he brings solid value, real solid value. You aren’t going to want to leave Ethier in your lineup for weeks at a time though.
Pierre on the other hand, is a completely different story. If Juan Pierre plays, he’ll hit for a solid average, score a load of runs, and steal bases. Pierre will spell Manny and Ethier, and with Manny getting more than his fair share of off-days; Pierre will play a good amount. In 2008, Pierre only managed 375 AB yet managed to steal 40 AB. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Pierre eclipse the 400AB mark in 2009 but while he may steal 40 bases — a fair amount of his stolen bases wont count.
Starting Pierre or Ethier on the hunch that they’ll pinch hit is idiotic. Pierre may pinch-run for Manny fairly often, and he’ll come in late in games for defense (he’ll come in to play CF with Ethier to LF, and Kemp to RF). It’s just not worth the SB from Pierre if you’re getting a line of 0-for-0, 1 Run, 0 RBI, 1SB.
As I mentioned, if you’re into checking your line-up daily and looking to see when Manny’s scheduled day-off is or whether or not the opposing pitcher is a lefty or righty, then Juan Pierre and Andre Ethier are terrific bench players. They’ll fill in nicely, and acrew high-value statistics without the cost.
