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Raul Ibanez for three years and a total of $30 million. Pat Burrell for two years and a total of $16 million. Milton Bradley for three years and a total of $30 million.

Manny Ramirez for three years and $63 million?

The cluster of corner outfielders in this year’s free-agent market has likely cost each of the individual players millions of dollars. The incredible bargain picked up by the Rays-who get a five-win DH for a pittance-highlights the concept, and we’ll likely see Adam Dunn and Bobby Abreu sign similarly impressive deals for their new employers before the month is out. With that in mind, and while noting that only one player mentioned so far in this article is going to Cooperstown, is it now possible to say that Ramirez and Scott Boras overplayed their hand? Ramirez is the best of this pool of outfielders; he’s also the oldest, the one carrying the most non-performance baggage, and the one with the stated demands furthest from what seems to be the market.


           Age   PA   AVG   OBP   SLG   EqA   WARP   +/-     UZR 
Abreu       35  684  .296  .371  .471  .291    5.2   -24   -25.9
Burrell     32  645  .250  .367  .507  .295    5.2   -20   -10.8
Bradley     31  509  .321  .436  .563  .339    7.0   + 3     1.2
Dunn        29  651  .236  .386  .513  .300    6.3   -23*  -20.0
Ibanez      37  707  .293  .358  .479  .295    7.4   -18   -12.6

Ramirez     37  654  .302  .430  .601  .344    9.8   -13    -4.8

*outfield only

(Thanks to Rick Lopez and Ben Lindbergh for their assistance in researching the data. +/- is courtesy of Bill James Online. UZR, courtesy of Fangraphs.)

I love Manny Ramirez as a player, and I’m on record making the argument that the off-field problems that predicated his trade from Boston may have been overstated. (At this point, six months and a lot of conversations later, I don’t know if I still hold that position. It’s not relevant here, regardless.) It’s not clear, however, that he’s worth twice as much or more per season than the other guys in this pool. More that the others? Sure, he’s the best player out of this bunch, even granting the poor defense and the advanced age. He’s also the most likely, save perhaps Dunn, to sustain his performance over the next three years. With all that, though, there’s just no way he’s worth twice as much per season as Bradley is. He’s not worth three times what Burrell will make. You’re not paying for his Hall of Fame past, remember; you’re paying for his future.

Right now, the best contract for Ramirez is the one that he no longer has available to him: his one-year, $20 million option that was voided when he accepted a trade to the Dodgers. At the time, it seemed silly to suggest that Ramirez wouldn’t do better than that. Now, looking at the contracts signed by his peers, it seems silly to suggest that he will. The signings of Burrell and Bradley have to affect how the Dodgers, the Giants, and other potential suitors regard the price on Ramirez’s head. Of course, the buyers aren’t entirely rational, and Ramirez has some markers that these other guys don’t. He’s fresh off of the two great months for the Dodgers and the perception that he carried them to the postseason. Still, the gap between where the market sits for corner outfielders who can hit but not field-$8 million to $10 million per season for a three-year deal-and the current set of rumors on Ramirez is too wide to be ignored. Abreu and Dunn are still available; there’s no reason for a team to spend twice as much as it has to to get maybe an extra win or two. Even pricing Ramirez just off of last year’s performance, which may overstate the gap between him and the rest of the field for 2009 and beyond, a reasonable estimate would be approximately $16 million per season on a three-year contract, plus an option on a fourth year.

Where does Ramirez fit? The Giants’ interest is amusing, given that 16 months ago they parted ways with an all-bat, no-glove left fielder who was a better overall player than Ramirez on the grounds that they were trying to rebuild. I guess the Fred Lewis Era is over? It’s not, snark aside, that bad of an idea. The Giants have a very good rotation, the makings of an effective bullpen, and they play against weak competition. The addition of one big bat, most likely to play left with Lewis moving to right and the team being saved from Nate Schierholtz, could turn them into co-favorites in the NL West. That’s a combination of credit for the Randy Johnson signing, a lack of faith in Schierholtz, and an indictment of the division.

AL teams with holes at DH or even in left field should be coming in on Ramirez given where the price of relative talent lies. The White Sox list a bit to the right, but they were running DeWayne Wise out there in the postseason, so clearly there’s some need for a major league left fielder, and Ramirez could move to DH when Jim Thome‘s contract expires after this season. The Indians‘ inability to get production from the corners hurt them last season, and only Shin-Soo Choo is clearly worthy of playing time. Ramirez would also insure against the continued failure of Travis Hafner. By the way, Hafner’s four-year, $57 million extension is just kicking in now, and it’s been nearly two years since his last stretch of productivity. He’ll be 32 in June.

Because of Ramirez’s advanced age and defensive issues, he’s a better fit for an AL team that can slide him to DH in short order. An NL team that signs Ramirez will be taking a greater risk, because his glove work could deteriorate further and leave him eating up his bat’s value with his lack of range in left. Still, a team with a short time-horizon and weak options in the outfield corners-in addition to the Dodgers and Giants, the Mets, Braves, and Reds come to mind-has to look at 3/48 or even 4/64 for Manny Ramirez and think about it.

What should be clear, is that with three comparables in and two outstanding, the chance for Ramirez to break the bank is gone. There’s not going to be a nine-figure contract, and Ramirez’s AAV will almost certainly drop from his last deal. He took a risk in pressing to ensure that he would be a free agent this winter, and despite his fantastic performance, that risk looks like it will be for naught because of the glut of players with similar skill sets available. It won’t quite rise to the level of Jody Reed or Juan Gonzalez, but right now, it seems that Ramirez left money on the table by not taking the first offer-two years and $45 million-made back in November.

Thank you for reading

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mlovell
1/06
I\'m sure this is old hat to those who were following transactions in the early-90s or know a thing or two about baseball history, but in doing some reading just now on Jody Reed turning down the 3 year, $7.8MM contract from the Dodgers (total compensation in 4 MLB seasons after that point, $2.875MM) after the 1993 season, I learned that the Dodgers\' GM, Fred Claire, traded Pedro Martinez to the Expos for Delino DeShields in order to fill the vacant 2B spot opened when Reed turned down that contract.
JasonC23
1/06
Re: White Sox and Manny--don\'t forget Carlos Quentin. As of right now, Quentin will be in LF, Dye in RF, Konerko at 1B, and Thome at DH. Unless one of them is traded (by no means out of the question), Manny doesn\'t fit anywhere on the Sox at the moment.
jsheehan
1/06
Completely forgot about Quentin when writing this. Still, could you fake it for a year, play Q a little in center, maybe sit Paulie a bunch, platoon Thome...and make it worthwhile?

Probably not. That\'ll be Jerry Owens, with Brian Anderson the second option, in center.
AirSteve01
1/07
Don\'t forget that Kenny Williams has a Scott Boras allergy, too. I read that there are no Boras clients in the entire ChiSox system right now.
BigOwe
1/06
Not sure it\'s as simple as shifting Lewis to RF and sending Schierholtz packing for the Giants. They still have Winn and Rowand, so presumably they would have to take a hit on a salary dump deal to unload one of these guys. Unless they can do something like sell the Yanks on Rowand\'s gamerific reputation, a Manny deal appears to make even less sense.
tercet
1/06
Lets hope the Jays can get him for cheap.... lol
Arrian
1/06
That would be interesting (as a Yankee fan, I think of it in the sense of the Chinese curse \"may you live in interesting times\"). The AL East is already interesting. Manny to the Jays would make it borderline unreal. Fun, though.
mhmosher
1/06
I\'m loving the whole Manny saga. He\'s getting exactly what he deserves.
eighteen
1/06
And Boras, too.
llewdor
1/07
Boras serves his clients well. I\'m a big Scott Boras fan.
mhmosher
1/06
How in the hell are those comments being given negative ratings? Manny sympathizers? Unbelievable.
mhmosher
1/07
Everyone giving me a negative rating can go eff themselves.
Ragnhild
1/06
\"What should be clear, is that with three comparables in and two outstanding, the chance for Ramirez to break the bank is gone.\"

Perhaps he won\'t break the bank. But you\'ve stretched the point a bit far if you insist on calling Abreu, Burrell, and Ibanez \"comparables\"---a .050 EQA advantage is pretty massive IMO.
jramirez
1/06
To me the problem Manny has is his performance in Boston. Assign whatever motives you want to it an OPS+ of 126 in 2007 and 136 in 2008 isn\'t that far different from Burrell\'s 125 and 127.

If you\'re a team giving Manny the money he wants, you are going to be looking for a pretty clear reason why you should be using the 53 game sample over the 233 game sample.

I think it\'s overly simplistic to say he tanked in Boston, but if I was laying out $70-80 million over the next 3 years I\'d want to know why the difference happened.
beta461
1/06
I don’t see how Schierholtz picks up the meaningful AB\'s required to force them to make a move and \"save\" the Giants from him. After Winn and probably Roberts he\'s 3rd on the RF depth chart. What’s he get; 50-75 PA\'s? I doubt anyone could hurt a team much in that sample size.
mattyc33
1/06
Wow. I had no idea Abreu was such a hack defensively. I mean, I knew he wasn\'t good, but holy schnikes!
Sacramento
1/06
Am I the only one that thinks the Giants don\'t need to be saved from Schierholtz? Sure he doesn\'t walk alot, but he hits for a high average and modest power while just turning 25 years old this year.

If the Giants were to be serious about signing Manny, a better idea might be to see if he can learn to play first base. Better than seeing Pablo Sandoval waddle out there.
Gregjitsu
1/07
I was going to say the same thing. Schierholtz is one of the few ML ready prospects that SF fans like myself are crossing our fingers about-most of our \'blue chips\' are in the low minors. In his two AAA years, Nate\'s OPS has been well over .900, and he has a bunch of assists from RF.

Frankly, I wish someone would save us from Rowand. Trade him, slide Winn over to CF, leave Lewis in LF, and let Schierholtz start in RF.

What do you have against Nate, Joe?
jeffbarton
1/06
I thought I heard last night that Burrell turned down a 2 year/22 million deal from the Phillies in the fall. If so, he left 6 million on the table by having to take the Rays 16 mill/2 year deal. I wonder how much Manny will lose compared to the 2 year/45 million offer the Dodgers once offered? Maybe there should be an annual contest for the worst \'Jody Reed decision\' made that year?

As far as the Giants, they do need a bat. But bad as their OF is, their infield is worse (no one at 3B, Renteria at SS, Burriss or Fransden at 2B, and an untested Sandoval at 1B. I think signing Dunn to play 1B and then trying Sandoval at 3B? makes more sense (and will be cheaper) than signing Manny to try and play LF.

diperna
1/07
Perhaps Burrell decided to take a cut to go to a contender, Tampa Bay. :-)

How odd does that look, though; \"contender\" and \"Tampa Bay\" in the same sentence.
eighteen
1/07
Maybe after all the cr@p Burrell\'s taken from Philly fans, it\'s worth $6m to him to get out of there.
tanthalas37
1/07
I\'m sure Pat wanted to stay in Philly. But if he was offered a 2/22 contract in the fall and turned it down, it\'s probably because he thought he could get more years and/or dollars on the market (that market still would have included the Phils). But once the Phillies jumped the gun and signed Ibanez, that killed any chance that they would resign Burrell.

Burrell turning down the offer in the fall had nothing to do with wanting to leave Philly. He was well supported by the fans, especially the last 2 years, and was on record several times saying he wanted to remain a Phillie.
ScottBehson
1/07
My God, 15 or so teams would have topped the Rays offer to Burrell. His agent didn\'t do his job (unless Burreell was desperate to be in Tampa).
tearec
1/07
The Tampa Bay school system rocks. -Mike Hampton
mcconkey01
1/06
You can count out the Braves. There\'s no way they would sign Manny. The fact that he\'s represented by Scott Boras just puts a nail in the coffin for the Atlanta front office.
Bogomil
1/06
I get the feeling the Angels really dislike dealing with Boras, too, which is why they loudly opted out of the Manny derby.
tdrury
1/07
Why? Atlanta deals with Boras clients, don\'t they?
mattidell
1/06
In light of these signings, it appears the Yankees and Phillies made good reads on their decisions not to offer arbitration to Abreu and Burrell, don\'tcha think Joe?
DWrek5
1/06
1 year of Burrell or 3 of Ibanez at the same per year price? You could argue not offering arbitration to Burrell, but not if you go sign Ibanez for 3 years.
tanthalas37
1/07
I think a more interesting question is how the \"down market\" might affect arbitration in general. Would players like Burrell or Abreu have received raises in arbitration, had they been offered and accepted it? Will the drop in contract money being given out to free agents this offseason carry over into the arbitration hearings? I\'m sure the players will be submitting numbers based on previous years. But I wonder if teams will be submitting THEIR arbitration numbers based on the current market. And how might the panel then rule?
blakesley
1/06
Nice ambiguity with using \'Jody\' in your title :) For me, the outfielder that first came to mind is Jody Gerut, who will likely earn an annual salary 1/16th to 1/20th of what Manny signs for and likely will put up some bargain OF numbers, if he can stay healthy.
mhmosher
1/06
Same here.
tribe4me
1/06
Manny back in Cleveland? With what money, the Tribe\'s payroll is maxed out with the $1.5M signing of Pavano (sigh).
aaronbailey52
1/06
I really enjoyed the fact that you distinguished between \"insure\" and \"ensure.\" To me, to not make that distinction is lazy writing, even if there is some common perception that the two are interchangeable. Until I can buy ensurance for my automobele, I will not cease to attack this despicable lapse in modern grammatical diligence. The funny thing about this post it that I\'m not kidding, just really bored at work.

bdoublegeez
1/06
I think one might get the impression that Manny is relatively well off amongst those fielders from last year\'s fielding data. The truth is closer to him being the worst fielder.

Here are the career UZR/150 numbers from those above (except Bradley and Abreu since both haven\'t played so many games in LF...or anywhere else if you\'re Milton):

Manny: -12.7
Dunn: -9.6
Ibañez: -7.6
Burrell: -5.5

Manny had a fluke season in the field last year--unless negotiating Chavez Ravine provided a huge boost to his defense--and any taker on Manny should beware that his poor-but-not-disgustingly-poor UZR and +/- from last year is deceiving. How that affects his overall value is beyond me.
bdoublegeez
1/06
BP comments loathe tildes. I\'ll forgo in the future.
fsumatthunter
1/07
Quantifying left field in Boston is terribly difficult, keep that in mind when just throwing out the time in LA
bdoublegeez
1/07
Oh I didn\'t throw out the time in L.A. I just doubt that moving from Boston is going to have a radical effect on Ramirez\'s defensive stats. In fact I\'d love to know how much of an effect that has.
fsumatthunter
1/07
I\'d imagine fairly small but positive. Like I said, I\'ve never seen anyone quantify Boston\'s left field well. If anyone has please point me in the right direction, but I doubt he is *quite* the butcher of others or even as much as we tend to think of.
bdoublegeez
1/07
Well Fangraphs actually shows how he did in each locale. Using UZR/150 we see that Manny actually performed worse in L.A. than in Boston.

L.A.: -8.1
Boston: -5.7

Maybe he just had an extended period of fielding bliss in Boston last year and then reverted back to his old ways. I\'m not sure. However, my hunch is that left field in Boston doesn\'t have a big impact. (Since we just have different hunches I know that isn\'t going to persuade you. I\'ll try and look for some more data from other players.)

It\'s also worth noting that Manny was a somewhat competent fielder through 2004 and then became plain terrible for the next three years only to post a respectable--though still bad--UZR last year. Do you have any idea why this might be?
fsumatthunter
1/07
Obviously there is a sample problem with this, but I doubt I have to tell you this and that is why you extended the conversation beyond just his split UZR this year. And -8/150 for him is still well above his norm.

I\'d imagine getting older/realizing nobody cared about his fielding much attributed. This year in Boston may have been an outlier. And by may I mean, probably is.

I\'m fully persuadable. I don\'t even know that we disagree, I don\'t think LF makes a huge difference in Fenway. I just don\'t know that even UZR quantifies the green monster well yet. And seeing as how the glut of his last 8 years are from Fenway\'s LF that may speak to some of the Indians-Red Sox dichotomy we have along with the other factors.

If I told you he was a -12/150 fielder instead of -25, how much more do you like him. It is a lot for me.
bdoublegeez
1/07
Here\'s something from the Bill James Handbook:

\"After the release of the Bill James Handbook last year we put “The Manny Adjustment” into the Plus/Minus System. This adjustment came about because of parks with high outfield walls like the Green Monster in Fenway and the Baggie in the
Metrodome. This is a specific adjustment to the calculation of Plus/Minus numbers for outfielders. In this adjustment we eliminate from consideration all balls that hit an
outfield wall that are too high on the wall and out of reach of the defender in the same way that we remove home runs hit over the wall. The effect was to improve Plus/
Minus numbers for Manny Ramirez, and for other outfielders who play in parks with high outfield fences. In 2007, Manny had a -38 before the adjustment and a -24 afterwards. It’s still a very poor performance reflecting Manny’s ineptitude as a defender, but not incredibly atrocious as represented by -38. As a result, Manny is no longer the 3-year trailer in left field. His three-year Plus/Minus figure of -68 “improves” to second worst as Pat Burrell takes over the dubious distinction of having the worst Plus/Minus figure over the last three years in left field at -73.\"
bdoublegeez
1/07
Also, I emailed John Dewan to ask if +/- or UZR take other park effects into consideration (e.g., spacious outfields, obstacles like Wrigley\'s brick wall or Tal\'s Hill in Houston), or if that even matters. It very well could be that the spacious outfield of AT&T just means that a goodly portion of the outfield is out of zone for the outfielders.
DWrek5
1/07
There is a \"Manny Effect\" in the +/- system. Any ball off the green moster out of reach of the fielder, doesnt count. He has a deeper explanation in The Hardball Times Annual.
DWrek5
1/07
Sorry, didnt read your previous post. Disregard :(
bdoublegeez
1/07
Ha. No problem. I think I preach the \"post first, ask questions later\" mantra more than anyone. Thanks for the tip!
bdoublegeez
1/07
Here\'s a link to a well-timed article by Brian Cartwright:

http://statspeak.net/2009/01/defending-mannys-defense.html

Bear in mind that BIS does have a correction for the Green Monster and other big walls. Also, Cartwright is not the most adept at explaining his results for a lay audience, which means a lot of the methodology went over my head. Thus, I can\'t really judge his conclusions too well.
supersam
1/07
Burrell, a five win player? Really?

Fangraphs win values:

2006- 2.4
2007- 1.9
2008- 2.8

That is a two win player after factoring in aging, not a five win player.

Assuming 4.5 million per win, he got paid exactly what he was worth.
fsumatthunter
1/07
Surely if you read Fangraphs, you know that WARP uses a different replacement level and defensive metrics which could skew that number.

Love to see Joe working with +/-, and UZR, makes the writing even better.
supersam
1/07
I know. But Sheehan says Burrell is a \"five win player\" when he is not. I am pointing out the discrepancy between reality and WARP. This is the problem with WARP, it dramatically overstates value.
bdoublegeez
1/07
For comparison purposes it doesn\'t really matter if WARP \"dramatically overstates value\" since it does so for all concerned. In this case, then, I don\'t think this objection is really important. However, you--along with the folks at Fangraphs--have an argument that I would love to see discussed here at BP.
llewdor
1/07
We know that Clay is adjusting the replacement value used by WARP (because it really is too low). We just won\'t see the new values until BP 2009 comes out.
bdoublegeez
1/07
This should be an exciting annual. I mean they\'re always pretty exciting.
ghruth
1/08
Yes, WARP still uses BP\'s proprietary fielding metrics. (Hopefully, it\'s something else Clay will adjust in the annual.)

But for now, to quote WARP and then use Dewan and Litchman\'s work in the same analysis is a little... misleading.
jc2125
1/07
I don\'t think Manny in left field in San Francisco will work out too well. The outfield at AT&T is massive. Giants pitchers got a lower percentage of groundballs than any other team in baseball and Aaron Rowand didn\'t exactly look like Willie Mays out in center field last year.

And if the guy with the .881 OPS in 2007 or the .926 OPS with Boston in \'08 shows up, I would much rather see a pre-arb Fred Lewis in left than Manny at $16-20 million per year.
carterneal
1/08
joe, what\'s the point here? I mean, aside from common sense?

So far all you\'ve said is that Manny\'s a better hitter than all the other corner-DH types, and he had his peak value before the stock market hit rock bottom. This doesn\'t seem to me really worth writing about.

I don\'t tune in to BP to find out that Manny left money on the table back in November. I figured that was true, oh, sometime in November....