"Manny Goes To Hollywood"
Manny got his wish shortly before the trade deadline expired on July 31 when he was shipped to the Dodgers as part of a three-way deal between the Sox the Dodgers and the Pirates. Gone from the Red Sox are Manny (LA), Brandon Moss and Craig Hansen (PIT) plus the balance of Manny's 2008 salary ($7M). The Dodgers traded Bryan Morris and Andy LaRoche to the Pirates and Pittsburgh sent Jason Bay to the Red Sox. Boston fans can't look at this transaction with great deal of excitement. The front office was forced to trade away a Hall of Fame hitter and two young players together with a pile of money to be rid of an enormous headache. In the end, the Sox lose one of the greatest players in their history and try to pick up the pieces and move on.

In this battle between a player and the team, the player won this round and sold out everyone else in the process. But it was not as shocking as the 2004 trade deadline when the front office made a bold move by trading away one of the team's most beloved players in Nomar Garciaparra. At the time everyone was blown away by Theo’s fortitude in doing what was needed to shake up a lethargic team. This time, it was the player's actions that left the team no other choice but to move him. He made it emphatically clear that he no longer wanted to be a part of things in Boston. He burned his bridges with the statements he made to ESPNdeportes.com on the 30th where he stated that the Red Sox "didn't deserve" him. The last time I checked, the Red Sox put in excess of $150 million in this man's back pocket... the disconnect is simply…mind numbing.

Since Manny is not going to be nominated for a Nobel Prize anytime soon, perhaps he needs some sort of reminder that the only thing separating him from washing hubcaps at a car wash is the God-given gift to hit a sphere with a stick prodigious distances. Think about it: nobody lives or dies based on what Manny does with a baseball bat. World peace does not hang in the balance if he goes 0-4 or grounds into a double play. Somewhere along the line everyone's priorities (including mine) went out of balance. We're talking about a game, entertainment, the toy department of life. We have young men and women laying their lives on the line in some of the most wretched parts of the world defending our freedom and little if any attention is given to their incredible sacrifices. Yet the public is obsessed with this goofball in dreadlocks. Sorry, but there are genuine heroes to root for, and many of them are currently patients at Walter Reed Army Hospital, a facility that Manny was "too busy" to visit when the Red Sox went to Washington to celebrate their World Series victory with the President during the spring.

Momentarily putting these philosophical considerations aside for the practical baseball analysis, we need to ask whether the Red Sox are better off now from a talent standpoint as a result of this trade. No. There are few, if any, right-handed power hitters who can rival what Manny brings to the batting order every day. It's pretty much evident that his antics must've pissed off the front office something fierce to essentially sell off his rights for fifty cents on the dollar.

I've been watching this team for close to 45 years and the only right-handed hitter that I’ve seen approach Manny in terms of power and production over the long run was Jim Rice. Manny was a big part of two World Championship teams and was an enormous fan favorite. On the other side of the ledger, he was an enigmatic world-class prima donna. It's a wonder that the marriage lasted as long as it did. It was only a few years ago that the team put him on unconditional waivers and there were no takers. Over the course of the past couple of months, the cost of "Manny Being Manny" outweighed the benefits and it was time for him and the team to go their separate ways. Shortly after the trade was announced, some fans were bewildered by the principals involved as if this was the sort of trade where talent was being exchanged for a reasonable equivalent. They underestimated the front office's desire to be rid of Manny once and for all. When the team refused to divulge its intentions with respect to exercising their option on Manny's services for 2009 (as would be appropriate for any prudent manager), he went off the rails, so to speak. There were the shoving incidents with the traveling secretary and with Youkilis, calling the front office hypocrites, begging out of the first game of last week's series with the Yankees, and basically coming out in the Spanish press stating that he no longer wanted to play for the team. And those are the only things of which the public has been made aware. At what point does ownership and management say, “enough”?

That negotiated player option was a prized asset that they were forced to abandon. Whether or not they sought to exercise it is an open question. There have been subtle signs that his performance was beginning to decline (e.g., inability to catch up to 90+MPH fastballs). Regardless, that option was just as much of the contract as was the $20M/yr. the team paid in compensation for his services and the team has every right to believe that he would not honor the terms in full. They could’ve elected to decline it for whatever reason and received additional draft picks from the team that signed him as a free agent, or they could’ve exercised it and either kept him or traded him for greater value than what they received today. Exchanging one asset (or in this case, three plus cash) for something of lesser value is not good business. When there is a genuine concern that the asset will fail to perform for the balance of the contract then the traditional models are out the window.

He placed his immediate gratification first and, as a result, placed the team between a rock and a hard place in the thick of a pennant race. The Red Sox had no other choice but to get whatever they could and be done with his tired act. This is a sad and stupid way for Manny to end things in Boston. Manny will go on to Los Angeles, do well, and eventually score that last big payday that he and his despicable agent envision, but at what price? The guy was absolutely beloved in Boston and has more money now than he could spend in a thousand lifetimes. Had he waited, or played his cards right, the politicians in Boston would have one day when named a bridge or a tunnel in his honor, like they did with Teddy Ballgame. He could've made a graceful exit at the end of this season but instead chose the trapdoor. Do you think that any of this really matters to a numbskull? Most people figured that Manny, his agent and the team would have found a way to nurse the relationship through the end of the year but they were wrong, and now he's off to greener pastures and “peace of mind” in LA. The Red Sox and their fans ought to be pretty angry about this. Manny basically hijacked everyone involved to meet his ransom demands. Who cares? It's not the end of the world, and someone else will be playing left field for the Red Sox on Friday, August 1st. The diehards will keep rooting for the laundry no matter who's wearing it and the team will keep scheduling games for as long as they continue to rake in obscene profits. The pink hats, well that's another matter entirely... things may get a little bumpy on the bandwagon in the next two months.

That someone else in left field will be Jason Bay (22HR, 62RBI, 282/.375/.519). While his statistics in 2008 may be comparable to Manny's, make no mistake about it, he is not Manny Ramirez, nor should the Red Sox or their fans a place that sort of expectation on his shoulders. He's been an All-Star but there has been no suggestion that he's been marching on a career path toward Cooperstown. He'll be more than adequate if he can handle playing in the cauldron. The Red Sox also had to surrender Brandon Moss and Craig Hansen to Pittsburgh as part of the deal, and this is really a good career move for both players. Moss is now going have an opportunity to be an everyday player (something that wasn't going to happen here) and Hansen will have a fresh start where he will hopefully develop into the pitcher that everyone envisioned when he was million-dollar bonus #1 draft pick a few years ago. It never really worked out for him in Boston and it's a shame. Now both will get a chance to shine in an environment where there is no pressure or lofty expectations. Over the course of the past couple of weeks, the Pirates have traded away a number of very good players but the team has failed to be competitive in the National League Central for well over a decade, so it's back to the drawing board with a new cast of characters.

As far as the Red Sox, it's time to turn the page and move on. Manny will have one last big splash in the local newspapers tomorrow. By the next day, a lot of those same papers will be lining birdcages throughout New England. His act is elsewhere now. Life moves on.