June 01, 2008
Manny at 500
Manny Ramirez became the latest player of his generation to reach 500 home runs and the 24th overall. There are now nine players whose careers started in the mid 1980s or later who reached this milestone. Congratulations to Manny on his achievement!
The next question becomes, how high can he go? Manny's seasonal age is 36, and his skills as a batter started to diminish in 2007. It was the first year his slugging percentage fell below .500 since his cup of coffee in 1993. His playing time dropped in 2006, with Manny losing about 30 games to injury in both 2006 and 2007.
Prior to this season, Manny went through an intense training regimen. The result so far is a slugging percentage up 8 points and an OBA down 19 points. In other words, the falloff we saw from Manny in 2007 appears to be real. What has improved is Manny's ability to stay in the lineup, as he's played 54 of the Red Sox 58 games.
So it looks like Manny's new home run level is somewhere between 20 and 30 home runs a year, probably 25 on average. Even with his performance falling, Manny's coming off such a high level that he'll continue to be valuable for a few more years. That means he'll keep playing.
I don't know if it will be with the Red Sox, however. One thing that's helping Manny's cause right now is the large per year contracts given to Hunter and Andruw Jones. Given the relative performance, Manny's $20 million options don't look so bad. It could be the Red Sox want to spend that money long term, however. It's interesting that now that the option is near, Manny wants to stay in Boston and loves the Red Sox fans, etc.
Does he have four more years of 25 home runs in him? I'd say the odds are good. I'd expect him to pass Sosa, but not get to Mays.
Posted by David Pinto at
08:52 AM
|
Sluggers
|
TrackBack (0)
$20 is an awful lot to pay for a guy that's never going to do 420/620 again and is much more likely to do 380/500. But it's not like it's a long term investment. Smart teams, like Boston, are generally much more wary of long term investments than short term stopgaps, so I expect the decision making process to be something like, 'Is there anybody that we actually want to get for LF? No? Ok, pick up Manny's option and wait a year.
I thought I saw an analysis on The Book blog about how Manny really isn't much better than Coco, with them both at their 2007 level. Both have lost their power and OBA's of a few years ago, but the difference is Coco's defense has gotten better - a lot better. I used to think there was no chance the Sox would re-sign Manny, but their deal to Mike Lowell was perhaps more unfathomable to me than the Drew signing. So I really don't know what to think at this point.
And Tom Tango or MGL (very rightly) pointed out that our knowledge of defense isn't good enough to compare hitting prowess and defensive prowess. Furthermore, Coco would be great for the road, but at home in left field, it's just overkill really. And neither Ellsbury nor Coco can throw well enough to play right.
