| Christopher Reina. 4th March, 2009 - 8:25 pm
 Well, that was a fun four months. Manny Ramirez didn't receive a single offer from a single other team, but still agreed to a two-year, $45 million deal from the Dodgers.
The Dodgers and Manny clearly needed each other like the Beckhams need each other.
Manny will not have an OPS of 1.232 like he had in August and September and he probably won't move as many dreadlock units, but he does three crucial things to make this move an outright success for Los Angeles.
1. Hits as well as any cleanup hitter in the game and fills a slot in the outfield that would have otherwise been filled by the sub-.700 OPS Juan Pierre.
2. Impacts batters before and after him in a way that only Pujols can match. I would knock down the projected OPS of the third and fifth place hitters by at least .30 points.
3. Manny makes the Dodgers relevant in a place where relevance counts far more than it does in a place like St. Louis.
Ramirez will be 37 in 2009 for all intents and purposes and there have only been 16 seasons on record in which a player has hit for an OPS over 1.000 at 37 or older. Four of those belong to Barry Bonds, four to Ted Williams, two to Babe Ruth, two to Hank Aaron with Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Edgar Martinez and Larry Walker holding the other four.
There have only been 39 seasons in which a player 37 or older has even hit for an OPS above .900.
He was ranked 13th in season FIC (7th amongst hitters) and he 'deserved' a salary of $16M, giving him a Reina Value of -15%.
At the beginning of free agency, I thought a four-year, $100M contract would be a fair deal for both sides. That projection of course was of target considerably as the big Edgar Renteria contracts dried up and Bobby Abreu somehow became a $5M player.
The biggest upside for the Dodgers? They signed Andruw Jones to a two-year deal last year for just $8.8M less than this one.
The biggest upside for Manny? He was able to skip out on the early part of Spring Training.. Wait, he would have done that anyways.
Grade for the Dodgers: A- |
