Beleive it or not, this is a new picture. After getting paid over $83 million by the Boston Red Sox, and winning a World Series with the team, it appears that Manny Ramirez is on his way out the Green Monster door for good.
The rumor of the day is that he'll be involved in a three team deal with the Mets and Devil Rays. The Red Sox will have to give up top pitching prospect Anibel Sanchez, catcher Kelly Shoppach, as well as Manny Ramirez. They would receive OF Mike Cameron, mid level starting pitcher Aaron Heilman, and 1B/OF Abrey Huff. This deal doesn't seem too appealing to me. Especially if we have to pay any of Ramirez's salary. Sanchez is our top pitching prospect. We can get alot for him or keep him and get alot out of him. Cameron and Huff are solid players, and I guess with the injury to Nixon they'll see alot of playing time, but neither one has even remotely the same lineup presence as Ramirez.
At the time this is written, the Red Sox have 20 hours to agree to a deal. If the Sox do deal Manny, I think they should get Burnett and take on Lowell's contract.
Apparently, Curt Schilling confronted Manny Ramirez in the Red Sox clubhouse and they needed to be seperated by David Ortiz.
Manny did not start tonight's game against the Twins. The explanation that came out of the organisation is that Francona decided to do it because he felt the trade talk was a bit of a distraction. This flies in the face of reality because Cameron and Huff are both playing tonight and Mueller has been playing despite trade rumors.
I've heard some people compare Manny Ramirez with Pedro Martinez. They claim that both players partook in alot of BS on and off the field. Any semi-intelligent Red Sox fan knows that Pedro was all business on the day he started. Every other day, he kept the clubhouse loose like a Kevin Millar does. Pedro Martinez never asked out of a game that meant something. Whenever this team needed Pedro, he was there. He didn't refuse to come out of the pen in Game 6 of the 1999 ALDS despite an arm injury, or in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS despite his history with the Yankees. In fact, the people comparing Pedro with Manny are the same people that claim Pedro should have taken himself out of Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS. These people have a pathological hatred for the player that helped lift the Red Sox up into a level of respectable baseball and eventually helped the team win a World Series.
