3 Bergs LOL

Rays Continue Making Good

In an offseason in which the Colorado Rockies saw fit to commit $80 million to a player who hit .289/.322/.453 away from Coors Field, the Angels decided that it wasn’t fair that the Blue Jays were stuck with one of the worst contracts of all time and Dodgers did what the Dominican murder investigators never could and locked up Juan Uribe and his career .300 OBP, the Tampa Bay Rays went ahead with more of their trademark intelligent decision making, signing Manny Ramirez and his Predator costume to a one-year contract worth around $2 million.

As he approaches his 40th birthday and his body falls apart, Manny continues to do those good things that he does — walking, hitting home runs and posting a line of .301/.412/.532 since winning his second World Series with the Red Sox in 2007. For whatever reason though, probably having to do with unorthodox hairstyles and behavior, fans and journalists like to belittle Manny’s performance, decrying him as declining and lazy. While Manny may no longer be putting up the historical numbers he did in his prime, he’s still among the best hitters in baseball. For example, let’s take a look at Manny compared to say, the “Most-Valuable Player” in the American League last season, sports media’s favorite prodigal son, Josh Hamilton:

Manny Ramirez vs. Josh Hamilton, 2007-2010

Despite being nearly a decade younger and in the heat of his prime, Hamilton’s performance over the past four seasons has been nearly identical to Manny’s, with Ramirez showing considerably more patience in exchange for his sometimes-hilarious defensive shortcomings.

Hamilton will earn between 8-12 million dollars next season, depending on the result negotiations leading up to his arbitration hearing with the Rangers, four to six times what Manny will make with the Rays. I’m hardly ready to bank on that Ramirez definitely being as good or better than Hamilton next season, however, the difference between the two really doesn’t seem so drastic that one is worth up to six times the value of the other — both are injury-prone mashers with atypical pasts.

Way to go, former Devil Rays, you may have just secured yourself the most home runs per dollar in the league in 2011.