Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
October 30, 2003
Neyer on Manny

Rob Neyer weighs in on the waiving of Manny Ramirez, and he thinks the move is very interesting (my thoughts here):


What makes all this so fascinating isn't that the Red Sox have placed Ramirez on waivers. That's just common sense. What's fascinating is that the Red Sox are essentially offering a great player to their sworn enemies, gratis. The reports I've seen mention a number of teams that might be interested in Ramirez, but unless the Red Sox are willing to send a significant sum of money with Ramirez, there's only one team, one owner, that might have serious interest.

Will Steinbrenner take the bait? Probably not. Sure is fun to think about, though. And you have to admire Theo Epstein for making the first move.

Rob goes on to discuss how claiming Ramirez would ruin the Yankees ability to remake their defense up the middle:


Ramirez is a great player, of course. If the Yankees had Ramirez, they might reasonably be said to have four of the dozen best players in the league (along with Giambi, Posada, and Soriano). But I suspect Cashman has plans to remake the Yankees' defense up the middle, and the arrival of Ramirez would make that impossible.

With Giambi and Nick Johnson set at DH and first base (and rightly so), Ramirez would have to play left field, which means Hideki Matsui has to play right field, which means Bernie Williams has to remain in center field, which means there's no way of moving Soriano or Jeter to center field (and you can forget about trading for Carlos Beltran or signing Vladimir Guerrero, too).


The other day, I was discussing the Yankees lineup with Irina Paley, and here's what I think New York should do.

  • Move Jeter to third.

  • Swap Matsui and Williams in the outfield.

  • Move Soriano out of the leadoff slot into a power slot, but leave him at 2nd base.

  • Sign Vlad Gurerrero to play right.

  • Trade for or sign a no-hit, slick fielding shortstop.


Then the Yankees lineup would look like:

  1. Jeter

  2. Johnson/Williams (platoon)

  3. Vlad

  4. Giambi

  5. Posada

  6. Soriano

  7. Williams/Johnson (platoon)

  8. Matsui

  9. Shortstop


If the Dodgers sign Miguel Tejada, then Cesar Izturis would be available to fill the hole at SS. Izturis had about 9 more fielding win shares at short than Jeter did last year. And because he can't hit, he'll be cheap.

Whenever I mention moving Jeter to third, I get one of two reactions:


  1. What makes you think he can play third?

  2. He'll never agree to move from shortstop.


Since shortstop is the toughest non-battery position, I assume that moving anywhere else will be easier. Jeter's problem at short is that he doesn't cover enough ground. At third, you don't need to cover much ground, just react well to the ball. Also, even if Jeter's defense was bad at third, it's going to do less damage than bad defense at short, and Jeter's offense at third would rate among the best in the league (he had more offensive win shares than Hank Blalock, for example).

As for the 2nd point, when has Jeter ever shown himself to be anything but a team player? I just did a google search for "Derek Jeter selfish" and found articles saying that selfish players should be more like Jeter. Here's an example:


"The guys who struggled in the postseason were the selfish guys, plus Aaron Boone, who just panicked," another club official said.

Most notable among the "selfish guys" are Giambi and Alfonso Soriano, who have yet to grasp the team concept embraced by Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Bernie Williams and Andy Pettitte, the core five whose hopes for a fifth ring were undermined by the "efforts" of others.


So if the move is presented to him as a way to get back to a World Series Championship, I think Jeter will do it.

The Red Sox seem to be banking on the Yankees making a bad move. Cashman may not be in charge, but I believe he and Torre and Gene Michael still get to voice their opinions, and I can't believe any of them would be in favor of acquiring Manny now. The next 36 hours should be very interesting.


Posted by David Pinto at 11:17 AM | Management | TrackBack (0)