As a Yankee fan, I have a hard time thinking back to the time when Manny gave runs back when it counted. All I see is him putting runs on the scoreboard. Manny being Manny means to me, a die-hard Yankee fan, that Manny will keep putting up production numbers that are equally as good as Pujols and as close to Gehrig and Mantle as any other player to play the game in the entire history of baseball.

Manny sucks defensively, tell me something I don't know but all we keep hearing is how he's getting older and isn't going to be as good and will eventually start to hurt the sox more than he helps. Talk to me at the end of the year and, if that's finally the case, then you will have one happy ass Yankee fan. It's not like Jordana Drew will carry the Sawx and replace Manny's production.

If the Sawx would have traded Manny this off-season then I would have done another sex video where I have sex with the entire membership of SABR. I would have made it for free too, with Theo being the first to receive a copy.

So I guess the next logical question is how many runs does Ortiz at first base cost the Sox?

After the 2005 season, you did a special analysis of Manny's home and road performance, finding Ramirez performed significantly better on the road, and in fact slightly above average. I think it would be interesting for you to repeat that, because you've further refined your model for outfielders, and the big question about measuring Manny's defense is whether correct adjustments are being made for balls in play at Fenway Park. Even among those who watch him regularly, there is wide disagreement about how many catchable balls are really falling in, which makes a trustworthy objective measurement desirable. I am in the group that thinks he is clumsy, but not frequently seeing balls he "should have" caught.

For 2006, I collected free data [STATS ZR] for games at Fenway Park and discussed it after the season here.
Manny's performance did decline precipitously in the 2nd half, co-incident with his injury. The park effect in 2006 was also very severe, and after making apples to apples comparisons within Fenway and away, injury and all, by this measure Manny was at most about -11 runs . Now STATS ZR has some flaws which cause it to understate the differences between good and bad fielders, so there is room for a somewhat worse result from measures which count all balls in play and try to measure the exact difficulty of each one. But unless there was something very atypical about the balls hit his way, I think that should only amount to a handful of additional runs allowed. To persuade me that he was as bad as -20 runs or worse last year, I'd like to see a detailed accounting explaining why ZR missed so badly.

If he is healthier in 2007 than in 2006, I expect to see him significantly improve.

I don't think Manny is as bad defensively as people would believe.

btw, not sure if you are a member of the Sons of Sam Horn discussion board, but there is currently a "Sandbox" thread devoted to this article.

See reactions below:
http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?showtopic=16427

Manny's decline phase will be better than most player's prime years.