Baseball Musings: More Dodger Interest

December 29, 2008

More Dodger Interest

It seems the Dodgers are also interested in Bobby Abreu, which makes perfect sense. Torre knows Bobby from his last year in New York, and Bobby's a better defensive outfielder than Dunn. I disagree, however, with this on Manny Ramirez:

Having already turned down $45M over two years and the $25M he likely would have received in arbitration, Manny's painted himself into a corner and has two options: go crawling back to Coletti, or retire. I'm very interested in seeing how this one plays out.

I don't think Manny will go the way of Barry Bonds. I still believe he can help the Marlins, and possibly the Rays as well. With his home in Florida and his price dropping, don't be surprised to see him in the uniform of one of the Florida teams.

I also would not rule out the Cardinals. Yes, they have other options in the outfield, but imagine Manny and Pujols back-to-back. That would be a lot of offense in the middle of that lineup.

I'd just love to see the Twins dump a short term ton of money on Manny as well. They didn't play Santana his $20 million a year, and since they were willing to go that high on Santana, they likely have the money. Why not spend it on Manny and add one more bat to the Mauer/Morneau combination?

Posted by David Pinto at 08:26 PM | Free Agents | TrackBack (0)

Comments

I think the "offer" for Santana was more of a face-saving tactic for the fans... just as The Yankees' offer to Torre was. They knew he wouldn't accept that amount, but had to make an offer so it didn't appear to be "dumping" talent.

Posted by: Jesse R at December 29, 2008 09:35 PM

Why no talk of the Braves being interested in Manny? They need a bat behind Chipper and if his asking price comes down, surely they should consider it. They'd have either a speedy Anderson or Blanco to help Manny in the outfield.

Posted by: Yaramah at December 29, 2008 09:58 PM

Hey! Why not a one year deal with the Tribe? Manny was quoted several times when he was in Boston saying he wanted to go back to Cleveland. Cleveland GM Shapiro has history of doing a one year deal with Boras (Kevin Millwood) when it appeared that Boras was striking out on multi-year demands. The Tribe dumped a lot of salary last year (including CC, Byrd, and Blake) and have not spent even half of that on Wood.

Posted by: Zippercat at December 29, 2008 10:41 PM

I'd say the chances of the Twins offereing Manny are somewhat less than 0. Too bad for Manny - he was a jerk in Boston for years and now no one wants him. Boo f'ng Hoo.

Posted by: Bandit at December 30, 2008 07:51 AM

Personally, I want to see the corporate sponsor of a Japanese team offer Manny $100 mil over 4 years. Think of the entertainment value for us... Manny in Japan. That alone is 15 reality shows.

Posted by: tas at December 30, 2008 11:30 AM

Obviously, we could name 20+ teams that could find a way to add Manny's bat to their lineup. Problem is Manny being Manny didn't just burn the bridges in Boston. What he failed to realize is other teams had the capacity to learn from Boston's lesson. At more than 20 million annually teams are reluctant to take the risk of Manny quitting. No amount of reassurances from an agent will change that mindset. If an agent can't get more than one team interested then he has trouble getting the price to go up. Gets even harder when there are quality bats (Abreau, Dunn, etc) still on the market. The other bats may not be as great as Manny when Manny is hot, but they are likely perceived as more reliable and they will be much cheaper.

Having said all that, I'd love to see Manny playing for my team. Easy for me to say - it's not my money anyways.

Posted by: largebill at December 30, 2008 12:44 PM

20+ teams would like to have his bat - but only if they thought it is the one thing thye need to put them over the top - these ideas that someone is going to pay him $25M+ for 1 year are insane.

Posted by: Bandit at December 30, 2008 03:33 PM