Manny Ramirez Retires

If you haven't heard, Manny Ramirez has announced his retirement. Reports indicate that he failed another PED drug test, and was informed he would need to serve a 100-game suspension, and he told the MLB he was retiring.

The point of this post isn't really to discuss whether or not Manny Ramirez belongs in the Hall of Fame, because it's pretty clear he does -- if you can get past the PED issue. He is one of the best hitting Outfielders of all time, and he is in the top 25 in Homers, RBIs, and Adjusted OPS. It is difficult to argue against Manny Ramirez's Hall of Fame candidacy assuming the voters eventually decide to let PED users in.

The real point here is how Manny retired. First of all, he didn't inform the Rays first that he was retiring -- the MLB Office had to call the Rays and tell them. That alone is kind of disrespectful on Manny's part, and probably does a little more damage to his already questionable reputation. It also leaves the Rays in an undesirable situation, which I will get to later.

The other thing is that he clearly does not have a PR guy looking out for him. Unlike every other potential Hall of Fame player who has used PEDs, Manny Ramirez was essentialy forced to retired because of his drug use. Other PED usersretired essentially under their own power, and played out their careers after they tested positive. Alex Rodriguez, when he retires, will not be immediatley remembered for PEDs (in theory), for instance. Any time Manny Ramirez is discussed, any biography of him that is ever written, people will be forced to note that he retired after a failed drug test because he did not want to serve the 100-game suspension.

Anyway, that's really it for discussing Manny himself, but the other question here is how the Rays will deal with him leaving. If my understanding of contracts is correct, if a player retires, the otherwise "guaranteed" contract is no longer guaranteed, so at least the frugal Rays are off the hook for the majority of Manny's two million dollar salary. The real issue is that early season trends really seemed to indicate that Manny Ramirez was going to be their full time DH for the most part, somewhere Manny probably could have excelled in the long run (he did start the season rather slow). Manny started at DH for every game he was with the Rays and not dealing with his "family problems" which in retrospect may have dealt with the PED issue. He also got the same amount of at-bats as starters did during Spring Training. So the Rays plan this season was for Manny to get around 450 at-bats, and be a presence in their line-up. Now they don't have that because of Manny's indiscretion, and it is hard to see where they will go from here given that they don't have a huge presence of great power-hitting prospects in their system who are ready to go.

In general, I am sure the Tampa Bay Rays front office is not happy with the way their plan has been dismantled tihs season between Evan Longoria's injury and Manny Ramirez's retirement.

What does "Pat the Bat" do now?

Pat Burrell was released by the Rays this week. He was still owed a lot of money by the Rays, who signed him to a 2-year, $16 million dollar contract before the 2009 season. He didn't perform well the for the Rays at all, only managing to hit 16 Home Runs in around 500 at-bats in his time there, to go with a .218 batting average.

However, it should be noted that "Pat the Bat", who is a former first-round pick, hit 29 Home Runs or more in every season from 2005-2008, with an OBP of .380 during that time period. Obviously Burrell is not very far removed from his good seasons with the Phillies, but he did suffer an injury last year that may have decreased his hitting ability.

The question, now that he's been released, is what happens to him now. More than likely a team really hurting for offense (the Seattle Mariners and the White Sox come to mind) will take a risk on Burrell and pay him around the league minimum and give him a shot to produce for them.

I think that Burrell has got to have something left in the tank, because he's only 33 and he's not that far removed from being a very good player. I really hope that he can catch on with someone and prove the Rays wrong, but the Rays did take a risk investing so much of their tiny payroll into a player with as limited a skill-set as Burrel has. Not that it matters for them right now, considering they have the best record in baseball.

Best of luck to Pat Burrell in finding another team to play for, it'd be a little odd if someone nicknamed "Pat the Bat" was currently employed in an occupation where he uses a bat.

Observations from today's games

Hey everyone, hope you enjoyed some Tuesday baseball! Not every team was in action today, but enough teams were in action today for some interesting observations. While I only actively follow about one game a day while it's happening (typically the Red Sox game), I check the box scores for every game after they all go final. Tell me I have a problem if you want to (I might), but I almost always find a handful of things that interest me enough to make checking all of those box scores pay off. Baseball is just such a quirky game that almost every day something interesting is happening. Here are the two things that interested me the most that I noticed today.

1. In today's Orioles @ Rays game, two guys who worked in a shared closing role for the Atlanta Braves last year were the pitchers of record for opposing teams, those two guys being Mike Gonzalez and Rafael Soriano.

It would not surprise me if this is the first time in history that two guys who got 10+ saves for the same team the year before were both the pitcher's of record on opposing teams the next season, simply because two guys getting that many saves on the same team is rare, and the chance of both closers being used by opposing teams in a single game is also rare. It might happen more than once too, since these two are in the same division..assuming they can hold on to their positions in bullpen hierarchy.

2. In today's Yankees @ Red Sox game both starting pitchers struggled. This means that the top two pitchers for both of these extremely well-funded organizations, all of whom are getting paid incredibly well, have put up some horrible numbers to begin their seasons, numbers that look even worse when you put all four of them together. As ESPNBoston's Gordon Edes put it "Starting pitching in first two games of series: 20 IP, 26 H, 17 ER, 7.65 ERA, $353.6". Obviously what he means by "353.6" is the millions of dollars that all four of these men's (CC Sabathia, Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, and A.J. Burnett) total contracts are worth. Hopefully John Lackey and Andy Pettitte can put up some good numbers tomorrow, or things will be even more laughable. The chances of all four starters putting up such horrible numbers in the first two games of the season, especially when three of the guys often have "ace" attatched to their name, has to be pretty low.

That's it for now.