Sports Insider by Frank Coppola: Manny's act has grown old, but Sox would be crazy to trade him

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July 29, 2008

Manny's act has grown old, but Sox would be crazy to trade him

Watching Manny Ramirez play for the Red Sox over the last eight seasons has been an up-and-down experience that would rival even the wildest rides at your local amusement park.

He's undeniably one of the greatest right-handed hitters in baseball history. Ramirez, at 36, is a .313 career hitter with 510 home runs and 1,672 RBIs. He's a first-ballot lock for Cooperstown five years after he retires.

But he also seems to be a little boy trapped in a man's body. He pouts about his contract, pulls himself out of the lineup, urinates in the Green Monster, has a tendency to dog it on the basepaths and sometimes flops around like a fish out of water in the outfield. Oh, and occasionally he'll take a swing at teammates in the dugout and push 64-year-old men to the ground because they don't give him enough tickets for that night's game.

Classy guy, that Manny.

The vast majority of Red Sox Nation seemed willing to give Ramirez a pass on all these antics until the incident with traveling secretary Jack McCormick earlier this summer. And the Red Sox front office, along with manager Terry Francona, seemed to reach their boiling point last week when Ramirez pulled himself out of the lineup against the Yankees because his knees were supposedly sore.

Well, the Sox called his bluff, thinking he was again pouting about his contract, and made him get an MRI. The results came back negative, and Manny took the field the next game. Now the idiot savant says he'd be happy with a trade, that he's tired of the Red Sox and they're tired of him.

There's no denying that. The chances of the Red Sox picking up Manny's $20 million options for the next two seasons seem to have disappeared. Ramirez is still a feared hitter, but he's numbers are starting to take a downward trend, as they should for someone who is 36. And if Manny's not driving in 140 runs, his antics get old a lot faster than they used to.

The problem for the Red Sox is that there's no way they can trade him right now and save face for the rest of the 2008 season. When you're trying to defend a World Series championship, that's kind of a downer. Since being forced to get that MRI on his knees, Manny is hitting .357 (5-for-14) with a home run and six RBIs in three games.

Even with declining numbers, he's still batting .304 with 20 homers and 68 RBIs for the season. He's still a legitimate All-Star, still capable of carrying the team on his back for long stretches at a time. Those kind of traits just aren't easy to replace. If Mark Teixeira played the outfield, Boston might be able to work a deal with Atlanta for the free-agent-to-be slugger. But Teixeira plays first base, and the Red Sox are all set with Kevin Youkilis and Sean Casey there.

Boston reportedly called a few teams to get a market check on Manny and were only offered guys like Andruw Jones, who is hitting a crisp .169 with 13 RBIs in 63 games for the Dodgers. Um, no thanks.

Sure, the Red Sox could probably get a couple nice prospects for Ramirez if they'd be willing to eat much of his salary for the rest of this season, but that would basically derail their hopes of winning back-to-back titles. And in Boston, that doesn't cut the mustard.

So even as they grow increasingly tired of Manny's antics, the Red Sox and their fans know deep down that they're stuck with Ramirez for the rest of this season. After that, it gets interesting. Boston could either pick up Manny's 2009 option and trade him, or they could just wave goodbye and sign somebody of their own liking.

The problem, again, is that it's a thin free-agent market. Replacing Manny won't be easy, and therein lies the rub. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

This, as they say, is why Theo Epstein makes the big bucks.

Posted by Frank Coppola at July 29, 2008 11:48 AM

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