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Manny deal saves the deadline day

by Matt Smith

I mentioned yesterday that the trade deadline day can sometimes be an anti-climax.  With only two major deals being completed after all the hundreds of rumours, at first glance you would be willing to put the 2008 deadline day on to the “a lot of fuss over nothing” pile.  Thanks to the Manny Ramirez deal though, it could go down as one of the most significant deadline days in recent memory. 

All deals require a taking off point and in this case that was provided by Boston.  After several years of coping with ‘Manny being Manny’, they finally decided that they would prefer Manny to be Manny somewhere else.  That decision lit the blue touchpaper as players of Ramirez’s quality don’t come on to the trade market too often.  A unique opportunity was being presented to teams in contention and it was hard for the likes of the Marlins and the Dodgers to ignore it. 

The Red Sox knew that they would be parting with one of their best players and that they would be doing so for off-the-field reasons.  That’s not a position any organization wants to be in because it will always be extremely difficult to justify a trade which makes the team weaker.  Much as I like Jason Bay as a player, he doesn’t quite bring the production, and just as importantly the protection, to a batting lineup in the way that even the 2008 version of Ramirez does.  The think tank at Fenway presumably decided that if they could get Bay then the overall trade-off would be acceptable to them; an equation of Bay’s production + the lack of distractions caused by Manny, being equal to Manny’s production + the distractions he causes.

The Pirates had no interest in obtaining Ramirez’s services so a third trade partner was needed to get the deal done.  It looked like the Marlins would be the final piece of the puzzle and Ramirez would have certainly made them a better team for the rest of the season.  Quite why the Marlins fell out of the race isn’t clear at the moment, but it is likely that agreement couldn’t be reached on the prospects that they would have to give up.  With the Marlins deciding to walk away, it seemed that their Florida rivals the Rays might benefit by putting together a straightforward deal with the Pirates for Bay.  Maybe this scenario prompted Boston to slightly change their side of any deal to keep Bay away from the Rays?

We do know that it was the Dodgers who jumped in and completed the circle in the dying moments with the deadline approaching.  Although it creates a logjam in their outfield for the rest of the season, Ramirez undoubtedly makes their offense better and the move could ultimate decide the NL West race in their favour.  Arizona will still back themselves to see off L.A.’s challenge, but they know that their task just got that much more difficult. 

It’s no wonder that Dodgers owner Frank McCourt looked so pleased when he announced the news at the 2009 World Baseball Classic press conference yesterday, the final rounds of which will be staged at Dodger Stadium.  L.A. have been criticized in recent years for not using their excess of young prospects to make an impact move, while simultaneously not giving those same young prospects much of a chance on their own team.  Andy LaRoche was the prime example of a player who was thought of highly outside the organization, while the Dodgers preferred to put the likes of Nomar Garciaparra in his way.  He now gets his chance to prove himself in a Pirates uniform.

From Pittsburgh’s point of view, they’ve been able to use Jason Bay’s return to form after a poor 2007 season to carry on their much-needed rebuilding process.  It’s hard to see someone of Bay’s calibre leave town, but if they couldn’t come to an agreement on an extension to keep him with the team for years to come (and, regardless of money, you would have to question Bay’s ambition if he had wanted to stay in Pittsburgh rather than go to a contender), then they had no choice but to trade him for pieces that could be contributors on a competitive Pirates team over the next few years. 

Had it not been for the Ramirez deal, the trading deadline day would have been a major disappointment.  The only other main deal that was completed saw Ken Griffey Jr leave Cincinnati for the White Sox.  Five or six years ago, that would have been big news and in a sense it is still big news today.  The difference is that now once the initial interest caused by the news dies down, we are left with a deal that doesn’t really have much impact at all.  Adding another bat to your roster cannot hurt, but there isn’t an obvious place for Griffey on the White Sox and any impact he does have will be as an occasional starter or coming off the bench.  Useful, but not a difference maker.

That description also would probably be relevant to any deals that are made over the next month.  While the trading deadline has passed, we now move to the waiver wire period.  MLB.com provides a helpful explanation of the process and which players might be available over the next thirty-one days. 

Whether any of those players could have a significant bearing on who makes October and who wins in October is debatable; however the Dodgers definitely came out of the deadline day having made more of a difference to their chances than any other team in the Majors.  From a neutral’s point of view, a Joe Torre led Dodgers team, containing Manny Ramirez in left field, facing the Red Sox in the Fall Classic would be well worth watching. 

It’s now a distinct possibility as well.

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