Well, baseball never ceases to surprise – it’s being reported that the Dodgers stepped in at the last minute to win the Manny Ramirez sweepstakes, taking Florida’s spot in the three team deal, and enabling the Red Sox to still end up with Jason Bay.
No final word on who is going where, so it’s tough to provide analysis, but the Red Sox have to be happy to have Bay instead of Ramirez, you have to assume the Pirates got what they wanted in order to move their star outfielder, which means that the Dodgers almost certainly paid a high price.
The Pirates will reportedly receive 3B Andy LaRoche, RHP Bryan Morris, OF Brandon Moss, and RHP Craig Hansen. The Red Sox get Bay and the Dodgers get Ramirez.
So, the Dodgers got Manny, but didn’t give up any outfielders, meaning that they now have two spots available for Kemp/Ethier/Jones/Pierre. That’s going to be fun for Torre to manage. If they can manage to keep Jones and Pierre on the bench most of the time, this is a pretty big upgrade, considering those two are not good at all. If Manny takes time away from Ethier or Kemp, it’s not a good move.
The Red Sox get Bay and rid themselves of the Manny show. They win.
The Pirates don’t get any stars back, but both LaRoche and Moss could be solid players, while Morris is a big arm and Hansen has some value as a reliever salvage project.
You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.
http://postgazette.com/pg/08213/900952-100.stm
The Pirates will receive third baseman Andy LaRoche, outfielder Brandon Moss, and right-handed pitchers Craig Hansen and Bryan Morris.
Interesting. Seems quite a bit worse for the Pirates than the Marlins/Hermida version.
Things we know.
The Dodgers lost. They gave up 2 good prospects for 2 months of Manny. LaRoche and Morris are both better than the draft picks they will receive.
The Red Sox probably won. I think Manny/Bay is a push for this year. But they got rid of Manny’s headache. Morris and Hansen are both decent, but the Red Sox will not miss them. And they might be worth having Bay in 2009.
The Pirates won. LaRoche still might be a star. Not a superstar, but a very, very good player. Hansen and Morris are two power arms in a system devoid of them. It will be interesting to see what Moss can do starting.
So with this trade in the books, what kind of impact will gaining Manny have on the Dodgers’ win total? Thanks.
It should also be noted that Boston is paying the 7M left on Manny’s salary.
The Dodgers still paid a high price, but ignoring the financial part of the deal makes it look even worse.
Will the Dodgers even offer Manny arbitration at the end of this season in order to get the draft picks if he signs with someone else? And would Manny turn down the $20 mil or so he would get from arbitration if he’s offered it?
I assume that Andy LaRoche goes right to the bigs, throwing across the diamond to his brother (is there another brother-brother combo on the same team this year?). Too bad they can’t send Hansen to the minors, he really needed time to develop that he just never got with the Red Sox.
@Nick, according to reports, Manny only would agreed to a trade on the prerequisite that the two club options years not be picked up, and the Dodgers required Manny to reject arbitration when they offer it in the off-season so they could get the compensation picks.
@Dan, Hansen never got time to develop with the Red Sox? He was a college reliever coming into the 2006 draft, came quickly to the bigs for the last month or so in 2006 and then spent all of 2007 in AAA Pawtucket. He’s been up and down for most of 2008 as well. Hansen had time to develop in the minors. You have to wonder if playing in Boston got to him.
This is a decidedly better deal than what Florida was offering; Jeremy Hermida (the next Chris Duffy); Ryan Tucker (the next John Van Benschoten); and a third, no-name player; plus one prospect from Boston.
In Brandon Moss, the Pirates probably get another “Xavier Nady,” at least undoing the damage from the previous trade. Damaso Marte was worth two lesser pitchers, so, in effect, Nady was traded for Tabata and a third pitcher.
Thus, Bay was traded for “Nady,” a third-base upgrade (over Bautista), and two pitchers. Or substituting for Nady from the last paragraph, the net result of the two deals was three pitchers, plus the LaRoche upgrade, plus Tabata.
Not a total disaster, but not a great trade, assuming as I do, that Tabata will be worthless. Of course, if I’m wrong, and Tabata becomes the “new Bay,” the Pirates will have upgraded their pitching staff and lowered their payroll for “free.”
Problem is, the Pirates’ successful reclamation projects have involved players of no better than average talent that were, however, “good citizens;” Doug Mientkiewicz, Phil Dumatrait, Tyler Yates. Tabata is an explosive “talent” who is decidedly not a good citizen; probably the new Manny Ramirez. So, to a lesser extent on both counts, was Oliver Perez, whom the Pirates couldn’t stand, and therefore traded for Nady. Perez-for-Nady was a good trade; Nady, and ultimately Bay, for “Manny Ramirez” was questionable.
Comparing Jeremy Hermida to Chris Duffy might be the most bizarre and wrong headed thing I’ve ever read. Their similarities end at the fact that they both play baseball.
Dave, great comment on Hermida. Hermida hasn’t developed as many thought (maybe his litany of injuries have hampered him and his plate discipline has declined significantly), but he’s much more than Chris Duffy. Duffy is a slappy centerfielder with good defense. Hermida has good power and plays good RF. Hermida was once a top 20 prospect who many thought would be a star. Duffy was never a top prospect and I don’t know anyone credible that though he could be a star.
The Pittsburgh Pirates organization once projected Duffy to have a higher ceiling than Nate McLouth, although we now know how wrong that was.
Hermida may someday be better than .261 BA, .331 OBP, although it’s not clear (to me, at least), at this point. Only time will tell.
And why don’t you just say “I disagree with you about Chris Duffy/Jeremy Hermida” instead of saying that someone else’s comment “might be the most bizarre and wrong headed thing I’ve ever read.”
The Oakland A’s organization once projected John McCurdy, Steve Obenchain, and Jeremy Brown to be better draft picks than Brian McCann. We now know how wrong that was.
What’s the point of comments like that?
As for Hermida “someday maybe being better” than a .260/.330 hitter, did you miss last year, when he hit .296/.369/.501 as a 23-year-old in a pitchers park? Pretty much every projection system in the world has him as a true talent . 800 OPS guy right now with room for growth. Comparing him to Chris Duffy, who has an entirely different set of skills and abilities, is just… wrong.
If you wrote that the world may or may not be flat, and that it wasn’t clear to you if the earth really did revolve around the sun or not, should we just be like “hey, that’s okay, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion”?
Jeremy Hermida and Chris Duffy are nothing alike. That’s not a difference of opinion. That’s you making a really weird comparison that undermines your entire analysis of the deal.
Fact (s) Jeremy Hermida hit (in the majors) .293 in 2005
.251 in 2006
.296 in 2007
.261 in 2008 (so far)
Opinion: Jeremy Hermida is an uneven player who will give managers fits. In this regard, he is much like Chris Duffy (who hit .341 in 2005 and much worse thereafter), even though “the latter has an entirely different set of skills and abilities.” I regret not making this clear earlier.
Query: Is Hermida really enough better than the players that the Pirates got to compensate for the fact that the other Marlins are worse?
Major league baseball players don’t hit exactly the same every year. None of them do.
Taking those four numbers (of which one is a 41 AB sample, not to mention the fact that just looking at batting average is stupid) and concluding that Hermida “is an uneven player who will give managers fits” is completely ridiculous. It’s the kind of meaningless trash talking “analysis” you would find on Pardon the Interruption or something.
Using batting average alone to evaluate a player? I thought this was FanGraphs!!
Duffy (career, 681 at-bats): .269/.328/.361 with 6 homers
Hermida (career, 1160 at-bats): .261/.347/.453 with 42 homers
Power matters, and Hermida is a far superior hitter. The gap is even bigger when you look at their ages. Hermida is younger today than Chris Duffy was when he got his first at-bat. It’s a bad comp.
Oops, I messed up Hermida’s batting average. It’s actually higher, at .272.