The Red Sox have put Manny Ramirez on irrevocable waivers, according to this report in the Boston Herald. This means any team can claim Manny's contract by midnight Friday, and the Red Sox will lose him along with all the money they owe him. The Red Sox will neither confirm nor deny this story, making me wonder how it got out. Waiver moves are supposed to be a secret unless they are executed. The leak will make it difficult for the Red Sox to keep Manny even if no one claims him.

The strategy, obviously, is to lose Manny's salary to give the Red Sox more flexibility to sign other players and make deals to improve the team. Is this the right move? Manny earned 28 win shares last year, tied with Beltran, Giambi and Posada for 4th in the AL. That's not easy to replace, but you would think that the $20 million the Red Sox would save in the deal could be spread around in the pitching staff to pick up the win shares there. If that's true, it gives the Sox a more balanced team, and the reduced offense should be able to win more games for a better pitching staff. So I think it's a reasonable move to get rid of Manny.

Should some team take him now? No. Now that the deal is public, the Red Sox have no choice but to trade Ramirez, since he won't want to play for the Sox now. This gives teams more leverage in dealing with Theo, since they'll be able to demand the Red Sox pick up a larger part of Ramirez's remaining salary. The problem with waiting for the trade, of course, is that you might have to bid against other teams.

While I think Manny is probably worth the money for the next couple of years, he's at the point in his career where a decline can be expected. So if I'm a team that wants Manny, I'm going to hold out for a trade and try to get the Red Sox to pick up at least 1/2 of his salary.

By the way, with all the articles about how heads are going to roll in NY, all the Yankees have done is fire their hitting coach. The Red Sox have fired their manager and tried to dump their best hitter! Maybe those stories are being written about the wrong team. :-)