A Tribute to Manny

Yes, baseball is all about pitching and defense, but you wouldn't know it from the action on deadline day. Hitters carried the day. In three pretty huge surprises, Manny Ramirez went NOT to Florida at all, but wound up with the Dodgers, and gets to be Joe Torre's player, no longer his nemesis. Ken Griffey Jr. leaves the Reds after all those years. And Pudge of course will wear a Yankees uniform.

Only the Pudge trade could even be remotely related to pitching, as the catcher, of course, is one half of every pitching matchup. And Pudge will have to represent the defense as well, for Manny surely won't be a Gold Glover, and Griffey, though he'll play centerfield in his new role with the White Sox, is kind of long in the tooth to be able to make an impact that way anymore.

Yankees fans are thrilled. Not only did they pick up one of the very best catchers in the game, but they won't have to face Manny anymore. Mets fans are happy too, for, although the Mets made absolutely no deals, they won't have to face a Marlins team with Manny on it.

All those pitchers who could have gone elsewhere, Washburn, the guys in Toronto (pick a guy), and just about every pitcher not playing for a contender, was fodder for the rumor mill. But the GM's went for hitting on the last day. And WHAT hitters!

Manny Ramirez is a career .312 hitter and he's hit 510 homers. Ken Griffey Jr. is a career .288 with 608 home runs. Pudge isn't really in the same class but he does hold some records for 4-hit games. And his .302 career batting average over so many years stamps him as an All-Star candidate as well, though he's hit "only" 293 dingers.

Dodgers fans should be especially happy. Over a 2-day period, they picked up Casey Blake from the Indians, another power hitter, and now they get Ramirez. The Dodgers weren't scoring enough runs, something Mr. Torre, after all those Yankees sluggers, can't really deal with. And now he won't have to.

Torre’s outfield juggling may not cease altogether, but he’s certainly holding some more powerful cards. The Dodgers hit only 74 home runs this year, next to last in home runs and fifth from the bottom in RBI’s in both leagues. Casey Blake has 11 homers and 58 rbi’s while Ramirez currently has 20 dingers and 68 ribbies. Dodger fortunes look much brighter as their pitching has been good, currently holding the league’s third best earned run average.

I know some of the Boston faithful think this was a good move, as they did get Jason Bay, a productive and powerful presence himself, in return for Ramirez. And, of course, he won’t be nearly the same pain in the butt.

How much of a true “distraction” he ever was for the Red Sox seems a bit unclear. For a guy who’s been a distraction, he sure gets more than his share of accolades from his team mates, former and present. Former Sox now with the Dodgers, Derek Lowe and Nomar Garciaparra had only good things to say yesterday. Big Papi was pictured hugging Manny the other day, no doubt his realizing their days as the top third and fourth hitters in the league would soon be at an end.

I think Manny’s problems were with management alone. All the players seem to acknowledge his hard work and appreciate that he is a family man, a guy who does his job and then goes home to his family.

Of course, the players didn’t have to worry about the gamesmanship Manny used in his all-out effort to maximize his income over his last playing years. And they weren’t on the hook for his salary. So, in the end, the Red Sox got off the 40 million dollar hook for just the 7 million they sent the Dodgers to pay Manny’s salary for the rest of this year.

Boston’s management may be happy for now, but I have a feeling they’ll be despondent in October. Jason Bay is just not Manny Ramirez, not only with the bat, but I have a feeling they’ll miss the way Manny’d play all those balls off the Fenway wall.

But, most of all, they’ll miss his sense of fun, his enthusiasm for the game and especially his pure hitting ability. Jason Bay can’t be Manny. He’s a one of a kind.

Boston’s management says they’re tired of Manny’s antics but those antics won them a World Series in 2004 and 2007. Jason Bay hits a hundred points less than Manny with runners in scoring position.

How many times have we seen Boston opponents intentionally walk Big Papi only to have to face Manny? And how many times had Manny stuck their strategy right in the eye? Manny has to be the best hitter in the league following an intentional walk. I don’t have any stats on which to base this claim, just an observation. If I had to guess, I’d say it was about .660.

Ortiz and Ramirez, Ortiz and Ramirez, Ortiz followed by Ramirez, how many times have those words struck fear in all but the Boston faithful? No more. For an avowed Yankee-hater (in general), these last days before the deadline have been an ominous sign of things to come, a portent of doom for the un-striped.

So, for an old baseball fan, I guess it’s interesting that Griffey goes to those other Sox in Chicago. And it’s kind of interesting that the Yanks got Pudge too. And, yeah, it’s the first time ever that three future Hall-of-Famers have been traded in the space of 24 hours. Cool.

For all that, the real story yesterday was Manny Ramirez going to the Dodgers. Churchill said it best, “never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

For Boston, the few have lost a key man.

Go Get 'Em Hank !!

I say kudos to Hank Steinbrenner for his blustery attack on the Yankees decision to keep Joba Chamberlain in a relief role. He sees his franchise going down the tubes this year, he knows who is leading his bunch of planning miscreants, and he doesn't like it. Not one little bit.

Even as a devout Yankee-hater, I cringe at the ridiculous mistakes made by Brian Cashman over the years. So it comes as absolutely no surprise to me that the voluble Hank should go after him. How could he not? Cashman passed on Johan Santana this year as part of his plan to develop his young pitchers.

For the sake of a plan, Cashman chose to go forward with a starting rotation of two old guys, two new guys and just one relatively no-risk starter. But Cashman's errors are legion, starting with ignoring erstwhile Boss George to select Nick Johnson over Big Papi himself, perennial MVP-candidate David Ortiz.

I look forward to quite a few more attacks on the smug Cashman from Hank's direction. And I love his tone. Especially the "idiot" part. That word surely fits the bill. I mean....Carl Pavano, Kyle Farnsworth, Kei Igawa, LaTroy Hawkins, and going back some, Kevin Brown, Jay Witasik, Javier Vasquez, Jaret Wright, Steve Karsay...

And how about others he passed on....Curt Schilling, Hideki Okajima, Bernie Williams. How about trading Mike Lowell to the Marlins for three pitching prospects (in Brian's muddled mind) named Ed Yarnall, Todd Noel and Mark Johnson. Real household names are those three!

Without going into the tell-tale statistics, let's just review the current situation. The Yanks are 10-10. The Red Sox are 14-7. Kennedy and Hughes haven't panned out yet, and not only that, but they show not a hint of ever coming out of their funk. Mussina has been dreadful. Pettite has been very good, but how long can that continue?

All the Cashman apologists will point to the success of Joba in his setup role for Mariano Rivera. (Keeping Mariano is one of Cashman's good moves, to be fair). When the Yanks have held a lead going into the eighth inning, nobody can hold a candle to finishing up with Joba and Mariano. And you'll hear the yada yada yada as to how and why Joba will get injured in a transition.

But how many leads will they take into the eighth? Doesn't a contending team need at least three legitimate starters? Shouldn't there just be one day out of every five that the whole team will give up because they're down by seven? Not three out of five days, that's too much. Even for the Yanks lineup.

Let's look at the alternatives. For starting pitching, there are no good alternatives. In the relief area, there is one good one, at least at the current time. Brian Bruney has been impressive, showing every indication that he can handle that setup role.

Let's look at motivation. Joba wants to start. Just the fact that he wants to start would go a long way towards ensuring that he wouldn't injure himself on the way to stepping into his dream job. How hard is it anyway, this transition? Put Joba in a long relief role, a couple of innings, then three or four, then he's a five inning starter, then the sky's the limit. In a few weeks, he'd be a starter, and you wouldn't lose his services along the way.

Imagine Wang, Pettite, Chamberlain, Mussina, rookie. Four out of every five starts will be competitive, three out of five could be dominating starts. Good pitching four out of five days would go a long way towards motivating that Yankees batting juggernaut too.

Yes, the move makes sense. From a baseball and business standpoint. That the best pitcher in baseball went to the Mets doesn’t make things any easier for Cashman. That ticket prices will be going up in the new stadium doesn’t help his position either. What’s the first question you ask when thinking about attending a game? Who’s pitching? Kennedy? Um, I’ll pass. Santana? Sure, when do you want to leave?

<>And I think it’s quite possible that his master plan for developing young pitchers is founded on his rock-solid history of selecting bad ones. I also think Cashman had better start communicating with Hank, at least a little bit. It sounds as if he’s talking to George and Randy Levine a lot, but not with Hank. Big mistake, worse even than all his pitching snafu’s combined, if that’s even remotely possible.

The enormity of Cashman’s huge failures in the pitching department would be hard to exaggerate. Carl Pavano’s 4-year 40 million dollar contract would have to top the list as he went 4-6 in 2005, 1-0 in 2006, and then never pitched again. Kevin Brown comes close though. The Yanks picked up the remainder of Brown’s record 7-year 105 million dollar contract in 2004 and Brown went 10-6, then 4-7 in 2005.

<>Randy Johnson at 41 years of age was picked up for a mere $57 million for just two years, including the cost of dropping his no-trade clause. Jeff Weaver, another costly acquisition, though, did lose a Game 4 2003 World Series game to a walk-off home run by a light-hitting Alex Gonzalez. How about paying Clemens all that money last year on a start by start basis only to have him pitch badly and then be named in the Mitchell report?

More recently, of course, Kei Igawa signed for a relatively meager 5-year $20 million. He won a couple of games, lost a few more, and you just don’t hear too much about him anymore.

<>So.. is Hank allowed to question Cashman’s genius? It’s been suggested that Hank’s just a clone of his father, that because he inherited his Dad’s money, he should just shut up. I don’t think so.

I think he’s showing a bit of his Dad’s good instincts, as when his Dad suggested the Yanks acquire a guy named David Ortiz.