Manny Ramirez Set To Split From The Dodgers

[Polaroid]

This off season, most of the talk about a break up in Los Angeles was concerning the divorce of Dodgers owners Frank and Jamie McCourt but, on his first day at Spring Training, Manny Ramirez didn't want to be left out and announced one of his own. Ramirez, who will turn 38 in May, is in the last year of a 2 year $45 million contract he signed in March last year and he made it clear that he does not expect to play for the Dodgers in 2011 or beyond when he was quoted as saying “I know I'm not going to be here next year”. Whether that means he knows another $20 million pay check from LA is highly unlikely next year on a team having no need for basically a full time DH. Or maybe he just can’t keep his mouth closed.

The initial Ramirez deal was one of the better ones of the McCourt ownership, when he was acquired from the Boston Red Sox in a three team deal in return for a minor league pitcher and a bench player, as he rocketed the Dodgers into the playoffs, hitting .396 over 53 games and .420 in October. The second deal was not so good with the Dodgers seemingly bidding against themselves to secure his services last season where he only hit .290, the third lowest since he became a regular starter for Cleveland in 1995. It’s not as if his 50 match ban provided any recuperation time as he hit .255 after his enforced break and .218 after September 1.

If this is his last season in Los Angeles then the Dodgers will hope they don't have a repeat of the Andruw Jones disaster. Jones was in the first year of a 2 year $36 million deal when he turned up 20 pounds overweight to Spring Training and by July he was benched, he finished the year with a .158 average and was released at the end of the year with the Dodgers still paying back the second year of the contract.

Ramirez also noted in his talk with the press that he weighed in at 235 pounds, up from the 200 pounds the Dodgers listed him as last year. Maybe we’re going to see Andruw Jones V2.0, or maybe Manny's fertility drugs finally paid off and he managed to conceive after all that trying.


.

 

[Immortality]

As a Dodgers fan, it saddens me to see where this great franchise is headed. Frank McCourt is an idiot and is going to ruin this franchise.


Did you see some of the financial numbers leaked from the McCourt's divorce proceedings?

Plans to drop payroll from $132 million to $107 million. They have projections to only slightly increase payroll to where they project to spend only $125 million in 2018

Meanwhile they plan on raping the fans with ticket price increases. Average ticket prices going up yearly from $29.40 to $53.50 in 2018.

So there goals are to almost double the ticket price in 10 years while having a lower payroll than 2007.

Fuck that. If this is true they will not see a penny of my money. I hope Dodgers fans revolt before this can happen.

 

[Polaroid]

Plans to drop payroll from $132 million to $107 million. They have projections to only slightly increase payroll to where they project to spend only $125 million in 2018

Is the $125M in 2010 or 2018 dollars? If it's the latter then $107M + 8 years of 2% wage inflation = $125M, so no increase in real terms at all.

 

[Immortality]

$125 million for 2018.

$107 million for 2010.

This was in the local paper here today. Let me find you a link.

 

[Immortality]

Polaroid,

Here is a link to the story.


http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-dodgers-revenue22-2010feb22,0,4788815.story

 

[Polaroid]

So a 100% increase in ticket prices and a 17% increase in payroll it is then.

 

[Immortality]

So a 100% increase in ticket prices and a 17% increase in payroll it is then.

Yeah makes me proud to be a lifetime Dodgers fan

By the way, nice write-up. I am split on Manny this year. Part of me thinks he is going to be a disaster and part of me thinks he plays well to try to get one more payday after this year.

 

[stevek173]

Great write up!

As a Sox fan, amazing how we admittedly got rings out of Papi and Manny in their juiced primes (or close). Funny and sad to see what becomes of Manny, still wants the money his juiced up #'s warranted - guess what Manny being Manny - you got busted now you have to adjust to post being-for-busted-rroids contracts.

That being said, someone will pay him, someone with a strong latino influence.

M-E-T-S

 

[Polaroid]

Yeah makes me proud to be a lifetime Dodgers fan

The sad thing, from your point of view, is that owners (or to be more accurate the analysts they employ) are generally really good at this kind of stuff. There's no way they would implement this unless they know the market can take it.

However, it does seem a little odd unless they are selective increases for certain seats rather than for all seats. I don't know that much about LA baseball but I know that the Dodgers had the highest home attendance in MLB last season but they only got an average fill of 82.9% - that's around the same level since 2006. With somewhere like Boston or Philadelphia you might expect a price hike since they sell out every game but if you're struggling to fill your stadium and shedding payroll, it seems hard to see where they can squeeze money from.

 

[Polaroid]

By the way, nice write-up. I am split on Manny this year. Part of me thinks he is going to be a disaster and part of me thinks he plays well to try to get one more payday after this year.

The 3 models I'm looking at predict him batting .296/.289/.280 (career .313) and slugging .537/.511/.509 (career .591). Joe Torre has stated that he's going to be having less consecutive games so that's more off days this season and less return on that contract. What I'm sure will please you as a ticket paying fan is the the dollar value of his market worth from WAR (Wins Above Replacement) data rates him as worth $13.1 this year (and $12.5 last year). So that's a $20 million overpayment on that 2 year deal.

 

[Polaroid]

Great write up!

As a Sox fan, amazing how we admittedly got rings out of Papi and Manny in their juiced primes (or close). Funny and sad to see what becomes of Manny, still wants the money his juiced up #'s warranted - guess what Manny being Manny - you got busted now you have to adjust to post being-for-busted-rroids contracts.

That being said, someone will pay him, someone with a strong latino influence.

M-E-T-S

It will be interesting to see how Ortiz performs this year - after the disastrous start in 2009 he made a spectacular bounce back. As for Manny, he's not going to get the playing time this year to warrant decent money next year. He'll be another year older and even more of a liability in the field so the best he surely can hope for is an AL side looking for a DH.