Monday, January 05, 2009

The Price of Manny Plummets (Along With Gas Prices)

"Gas is up and so am I," sayeth Manny Ramirez. He scoffed at arbritration. He spit on the Dodgers' first offer (which was admittedly much shorter in duration than he desired).

And now, Pat Burrell goes out and signs a two-year deal with the Rays for the low low price of $16M. Rob Neyer thinks it's a steal, echoing the rest of the ESPN brass.

And I know Burrell only hit .250 last year with the Phillies. But that's still almost twice Andruw Jones' batting average; and, 33 HR is a hell of a lot more than team leader Andre Ethier's 20 HR. Yeah, Citizens Bank Park is a bandbox. But I think Manny, and possibly Adam Dunn, just got a lot cheaper.

4 comments:

Dusto_Magnifico said...

Which is good and bad. It just means that teams like the Mets, Yankees, Angels, Giants, any AL team can now afford him. We won't get him for 8 or 10 mill, but even a fraction of the cost for us is still 18 million.

The price isn't really an issue, it's the length of the term. Now that the price has dropped significantly, it just means that more AL teams will be interested in giving him more guaranteed years. Something we can't do.

It'e like the myth of lengthening a golf course to hamstring Tiger Woods. It only makes it easier for him since he can hit it further than everyone else. They aren't Tiger proofing the course by lengthening it, they are making it Tiger worthy.

Images said...

The price of gas is up in LA

Dusto_Magnifico said...

You can't possibly be complaining about paying 1.75?

I'm still paying 2.35.

StolenMonkey86 said...

Somehow I see Manny finding himself in the same situation as Jeff Weaver three years ago, when he held out for a 4 year $40 million deal, and then would up setting for a 1 year $8 million deal. The difference is that Manny isn't going to suck like Weaver did in 2006, but I wouldn't be surprised if he has to settle for a 1 year deal, in March.

I'd like to get Dunn. Then we'd have given contracts three years in a row to outfielder's on Jason Stark's top 10 most overrated players list (except Dunn is actually underrated, and a good hitter). I'd also like to see Colletti sign a guy who strikes out 200 times a year, and then still see Plaschke complain about Kemp's Ks.