Ramirez Arrested, Rays Make Postseason Development
“You never know where help will come from — until you look for it.”
— Tobias Funkë, Arrested Development
News broke last night that Florida police arrested Manny Ramirez on battery charges concerning his wife. Just a few months ago, Ramirez was preparing for another MLB season and had a gold-plated opportunity for redemption.
Since then, though, the former Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox slugger has journeyed down a divergent path from his most recent team, the Tampa Bay Rays.
Rewind to the beginning of the season: The Rays management willingly admits 2011 would be a “reloading” year — which is to say the team anticipated a good, but not good-enough performance.
Sure, they had the pitching — what with David Price, James Shields and three young and above-average starters in Jeremy Hellickson, Wade Davis and Jeff Niemann — and they had the defenders — again boasting some of the league’s most valuable fielders in Evan Longoria, Ben Zobrist, and B.J. Upton — but they also had holes aplenty.
For one, the Rays lacked a legitimate DH and a proven first baseman. In hopes of putting power in the DH spot and getting the team a few lucky bounces away from the playoffs, they signed Manny Ramirez to a $2M, 1-year contract — deemed by many as a triumph of Friedmanonics — and Johnny Damon to a $7M $5.25M (excluding incentives), 1-year deal. But even with these additions, the Rays had little chance to out-talent the Red Sox and Yankees in 2011.
The story, as any good story goes, proved quite unpredictable.
Just weeks into the season, news broke that Manny Ramirez had again violated the MLB’s substance abuse policy (he had previously been caught while playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers; I think it was either Teamocil or Xanotab) and faced a 100-game suspension. Instead, Ramirez retired and the Rays muddled through a 1-8 start.
Essentially, the AL East team most looking for some good-luck glisten instead received a lump of sour-fortune cornballs. Ramirez retired, Sam Fuld’s start hot turned cold, Evan Longoria missed a month with injuries, and the catching and shortstop situations proved as dire as ever.
But with Ramirez retired, Johnny Damon took the DH reins — performing admirably despite a nearly-career-low on-base percentage — and Casey Kotchman proceeded to have a career year at first base. The Rays never slipped beyond contention, but seemed entirely threatless.
Heck, on September 3rd, Boston had a 9.0 game lead in the AL Wild Card and Tampa Bay had a 0.5% playoff chance according Cool Standings.
Now, after a hot August and a scalding September, the Rays are now a scant 3.0 games behind the powerhouse Red Sox (and their top slot in the Wild Card standings) and a more sizable 7.0 games behind the New York Yankees in the AL East. Cool standings had them at a 1 in 10 chance of winning the Wild Card as of last night.
This trade deadline, the Rays made the audacious decision to not trade a slew of interesting and valuable players — Damon, Shields, Upton, and de facto closer Kyle Farnsworth — and they have clearly reaped the reward of a Wild Card race because of that decision.
As Jayston Stark noted on Sunday: “#Rays are in position to do something epically historic. No team ever came from 71/2 back or more in Sept. They were 9 1/2 behind Bos on 9/1”
Actually, they were 8.5 back, but the comeback would be historical nonetheless. What do they have to do through the next two weeks and two days? Here’s what they face:
2 vs Orioles (away)
4 vs Red Sox (away)
4 vs Yankees (away)
3 vs Blue Jays (home)
3 vs Yankees (home)
What crazy algorithm monkey made this schedule?! Anyway, the Rays have 11 games against teams well over .500, 3 games against a virtually .500 team (the Jays), and 2 games against a sub-.500 practically-high-school team.
In other words: The road ahead is certainly working against the storybook finish. As Joe Maddon noted, the Rays have already entered the playoff stage of the season. A few losses can and will effectively end the Rays’ season.
But then again, this season — what with the Ramirez life-collapse and the Boston Red Sox’ standings-collapse — has been anything but a storybook story. It’s been more of a crazy, twisting comedy and I, for one, am rooting for these men in blue.
Are you including the incentives in Damon’s 7M? Thought he got 5.25M base.
His incentives are more or less unreachable. If Tampa’s average attendance holds for the last six games, they’ll fall a quarter of a million short of the first attendance incentive.
They weren’t unreachable at the time they signed the contract, though. If Tampa’s attendance figures from 2009 and 2010 held up, he would’ve reached the first two incentives.
I assume it’s been a combination of the economy, the “reloading” year expectation, and the fact that they’ve been way out of the race for almost the whole season.
Base salary is $5.25M and he won’t come close to getting any incentives (they’re based on attendance figures).
My question is how does 1 WAR in 581 PA’s mean Damon is “performing admirably” ? That’s well below average, and the $5.25M price tag (especially for a team like the Rays) means they were expecting a lot more.
When taken in consideration of the Rays previous DH disasters (see: Burrell, Pat), yeah Damon’s performance has be admirable (but not great, for sure).
I wish he was dead, personally.
I believe that Johnny Damon is actually making $5.25 mil this season, not $7 mil.
I am also pretty sure that Damon has the highest 2011 salary on the Rays roster.
All owners of MLB teams need to be going to their front office folks and asking, “Why can’t we do that?,” if they haven’t already.
Not mentioned in this article is that Desmond Jennings has a WAR total nearly ten times the size of Carl Crawford’s total.
If there is an audience for “Moneyball,” there is surely an audience for “The Extra 2%”, right?
What that be awesome? I’ve even given them a kick start:
http://youtu.be/jH0Oqk2nY3k
Kathy Bates… as Lou Piniella. You definitely brightened what has been a terrible day so far.
🙂 Glad to be a force for good.
always sunny reference!
I would like to hear someone contest my thought that last offseason, TB pulled off the greatest exchange of players in MLB history.
Not only did they save themselves the money by not resigning Crawford, but they ultimately burdened Boston for the next 6 years by making him available. So, effectively TB weakened not only Boston’s roster, because really, Crawford is awful, but also Boston’s ability to sign future, better players (like Ellsbury). They also replaced Crawford with a younger, more powerful version, in Jennings.
They made their team better
They made Boston’s team worse, for now and for the foreseeable future.
Think about it; It’s stunning. And also why TB has been able to keep up with two teams spending 4x more on their rosters.
Go Rays. Love this organization.
Crawford is awful for the money, not awful. Would you care to make a wager with me that he’s a 3 WAR player next year?
With Boston? LOL
1) He’s afraid of the Wall so his defense will be negative
2) He’s afraid pitchers know he hasn’t a clue what a K zone is
3) He’s afraid full stadiums recognize how afraid he is
He will never have a 3 WAR season with Boston. Not that even that would be worthy of his salary, and not that the immature Reddick/Kalish wouldn’t do better for a lot less $
Epstein better be careful. The burdens of Lackey and Crawford are daunting, for both the team and his status. One more screw up could cost him his control, in which case he’d leave – or be booted. He really screwed the pooch with those two.
Just Manny being Manny… Pacquiao.
I think Damon took the reins, not the reigns….
Ah, the ol’ reins-reigns typo — my greatest nemesis.
I prefer Raines in all scenarios.
Now if they could only get a ballpark and a fan base…..
The fanbase is passionate, though small. The stadium will come after the TV deal that is the real revenue bottleneck. Look how the Rangers go from bankrupt to able to make legit offers based solely on a TV deal.
If they have such a small fanbase, why do you think they’d be able to sign a lucrative TV contract? The Rangers got a nice deal because they have a lot of fans. Who will, you know, watch on TV.
I’m not sure you can even say the fanbase is all that small. Sure, nobody shows up to the games but that may be more due to the ballpark location (bad) and the Tampa area economy (worse). The Rays actually finished in the top 5 in local TV ratings for MLB teams last year.
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-fanbase-problem-reds-and-rays-among-top-5-most-watched-teams-2010-10
TB is not Fort Worth/Dallas. It’s old, disinterested, and mostly NY/Bos fans. Best thing for that org, IMO, is to get the phuck out of Dodge.
Maddon just blue himself.
Oh, Joe, you blowhard!
Wait until they hear his story about being a Leather Daddy.
Who want’s some bangers in the mouth?
Here in the states we say “who wants some sausage in the mouth”
There’s gotta be a better way to say that.
“– Tobias Funkë, Arrested Development”
The only thing worse than shoehorning a pop culture reference into a post is overexplaining it.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. 🙁
My chief concern about the Manny Ramirez arrest is that it was actually just Ronny Beliard and Man-Ram just swapped places with him. I guess we’ll just need to keep our eyes peeled for a I’mRonny.com.
Your analysis on playoff races is bad. The Rays prefer to play the Red Sox (WC team) more than anyone else. You also incorrectly assess team strength… because you suck at it.
Simply stating a team’s record and making shit up is both lazy and dumb. You may be better than this. Consider showing it.
They may want to play the redsox in order to beat them and gain faster in the standings. But there is no way in hell they want to play the yankees for 2 series.
You’re wrong.
Hi there.
Well this Manny situation is really enlightening. Is it not clear now that he was taking the Teamocil to reduce his sex drive, thereby keeping his passions in check to protect his wife from physical danger? Yet another unintended consequence of the MLB drug policy. And yet another example of the conventional wisdom about Manny Ramirez being the opposite of the reality: The man is a giver, plain and simple.
Teamocil is not for pregnant or nursing mothers. Teamocil!
Maebe: “Delayed irritability? What do they mean by ‘delayed’?”
Lindsey: “IT MEANS IT COMES LATER!”
Stark mentions a 7 game deficit as of 9/1….what was the 9/1 deficit for the 1995 Mariners, who I believe were something like 13 games back in mid-August?
A Mariners victory on September 1 of that year drew them within 6.5 of the Angels.
Thank you sir.
Lets say the Rays are within 2 games of the Red Sox by the end of the 4 game series and the Yankees maintain a 7+ game lead. Why wouldn’t the Yankees “rest” some of their key players during the 7 remaining games against Tampa Bay. They have almost nothing to play for, but if they drop 5 or 6 out of 7, they might be able to knock off their rivals before the playoffs even start. Is there any downside to this at all strategically?
I know Rays fans would sure like that, but I don’t imagine the Yankees have a preference between facing Ortiz’s bat or Shields’s changeup.
You’re probably right. If the teams were to go head to head in a 7 game series, there is probably not much to gain or lose either way. I was thinking about this from a fan perspective. If I was a Yankee fan I would be thrilled if Boston, with all their offseason acquisitions and MVP candidates, were to utterly collapse at the finish line.
That said, I don’t think it would be at all surprising if the Yankees did rest some of their older players for some of the Rays games or try to line up their rotation for the playoffs – which means Tampa Bay probably will not see CC at all.
Larry, you should calm down. With CC and filler (and even CC being pretty bad for over a month now), NY is certainly ripe for a collapse, anytime.
TB is surging, Boston is crashing, and NY leads today. With so many H2H play though, a lot can change in a weeks time.
Because, with the state of Boston’s Rotation, Tampa is probably a better team.
As a Tigers fan, I’m definitely rooting for Boston to hold on (and for the Tigers to stay ahead of Texas). Tampa has a real rotation, which Boston can’t touch even if fully healthy. In its current state, Boston’s starters are a joke. Andrew Miller in a playoff chase? Good lord.
They will rest players when they clinch division and set up rotation for playoffs.
Apparently I’m the only one who is responding that realizes this.
Not counting Larry, who 15 minutes before you wrote: “I don’t think it would be at all surprising if the Yankees did rest some of their older players for some of the Rays games or try to line up their rotation for the playoffs”
Maybe he just expresses certainties in the guise of uncertainties but its a [redacted] stone cold lock. If anyone of any note played the day after clinching (including Nick Swisher DHing), that would be “surprising”.
“they signed Manny Ramirez to a $2M, 1-year contract — deemed by many as a triumph of Friedmanonics”
I don’t see anything in that contract that resembles the doctrine of the Chicago School, unless “Friedman” refers to someone other than Milton Friedman.
Andrew.
Thanks for showing me that I am a dumbass. I didn’t know the name of the GM of the Rays.
🙂
@Black_Rose: But kudos to you for knowing your historical economists!
MARTY !
And… this whole thing died in Baltimore. If you can’t win these games… good luck with the others.
Man, I love some Arrested Development, and combined with baseball…it’s even better. Keep up the great work.
Welcome to Amateur Writer Hour, starring Brab Woodlump.
What the hell is wrong with all you hypercritical jackasses? Get back behind your hobby store counter, asshole.
Welcome to Amateur Insult Hour, starring DuddM.
Pretty sure you’re the star here. I’m sorry I interrupted your class, little fella.