In case you haven't heard, the Red Sox actually dealt Manny Ramirez before today's trade deadline, but his destination wasn't Florida, as originally thought. Manny is now a Dodger, which is stunning since the Los Angeles Times reported in today's paper that about as much dealing as the Dodgers expected to do was to try to get Greg Maddux. This is, to put it mildly, much bigger.
First, I didn't think this would happen, period. It seems like Manny's been perpetually almost traded every season, with the media saying something like "unlike last season, when they were able to patch their differences, there's really no going back this time - the relationship is too broken to continue and Red Sox have to trade Manny Ramirez ." And then every year they don't trade him, and everyone goes about their business as he proceeds to get hotter than hell in September and October and mash the ball all over the place.
But I guess the fact that he wasn't coming back next season meant that the Red Sox had all the incentive they needed to make this deal work. And frankly, they made out like bandits. Looking at the numbers for this season, Jason Bay's production is almost equal to Manny at the plate this season. Plus, he's six years younger and locked up through the end of next year at a fraction of what Manny is making. It's a no-brainer.
And for the Pirates? Well, they get prospects. A lot of prospects. But they desperately need depth - the fact that several of the other team's Triple A prospects are going to start right away tells you all you need to know about them.
But what about the Dodgers? What are they getting out of this? Since the Red Sox are paying a bulk of Manny's contract for this season, there isn't a money problem. But, they had to give up Andy LaRoche, who was the No. 1 future option at the sinkhole that has been third base for the Dodgers. (Unless they plan on re-signing Casey Blake, which they may have to after this deal.)
There's no question that they get a premier hitter, even at 36. After all, as ESPN shouts at me seemingly every day, he is ONE OF THE TOP FIVE RIGHT-HANDED HITTERS OF ALL TIME! But they've also added to a position where they already have about 27 options, and made their defense significantly worse no matter what they do.
The logical outfield at this point would be (I guess) Manny in LF, Matt Kemp in CF and Andre Ethier in RF. Which means Andruw Jones and Juan Pierre are riding the pine. Which makes sense from a baseball standpoint, since the only thing more absymal than Pierre's OBP is Jones'...well, everything. But that also means that you lose good defense and speed, and have to play Matt Kemp out of position (he isn't a natural CF). Oh yeah, and you have $17 million in contracts sitting on the bench every night in those two players alone, and you didn't address the really key areas, like starting pitching and shortstop.
And the real bottom line is this: the Dodgers weren't going to win the World Series before this trade, and they really aren't good enough to win it now. It should be enough to put them past the Diamondbacks in the God-awful NL West, but so what? I know "anything can happen" in the post-season, but come on.
I suspect that Dodgers GM was feeling the heat after the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, California, USA made the bold move of trading Corey Kotchman for Mark Teixiaxairaiaxia even though they have a double-digit lead in the AL West and the best record in baseball. He had to make a blockbuster move in order to get the interest back on the Dodgers, and this sure does that job just fine.
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