Party's Over

Now that I have had a few days for the news to settle in I feel it is time to weigh in on Manny Ramirez. (OK, so I've just been remiss in my duties and should have put something up on Friday, sue me!)

In my last post I talked about how I felt that the Red Sox should not trade Manny simply because they could not get value back for him. And I was right on half of that statement. They did not get the value back for what they traded away. But the Red Sox were forced to get rid of Manny because of his actions and those caused by his agent Scott Boras.

Scott Boras has got to be one of the most destructive forces in professional baseball. He routinely drives up the price on free agents he controls far above what they deserve and his dealings with teams and the media are shady to say the least. His release of the news that A-Rod was going to opt out of his Yankee contract during the World Series last year was a ridiculous display of grandstanding. And he has a big hand in driving Manny out of Boston.

Boras was not a part of the original deal in 2000 that brought Manny to Boston. Manny only recently changed agents to Boras and I believe that Boras saw this as an opportunity to get his money's worth out of his new client. If the Sox had picked up the final two option years of Manny's contract Boras runs the risk of getting much less from his client in a potential free agent deal two years from now. By forcing the Red Sox to either sign an extension or trade Manny, Boras now gets his money immediately at the end of the season. Now Manny is a grown man and can make his own decisions so this is not strictly Boras' fault but their was undoubtedly manipulations going on behind the scenes.

Manny's performance over the past few weeks was like a spoiled child not getting what he wanted and throwing a tantrum. Everyone knew what was going on and from reports his teammates had had enough of the Manny show. It was reported that veteran players told Epstein that they felt they could not count on Manny down the stretch and that Francona was in danger of losing the clubhouse if Manny was allowed to continue getting the breaks he has always gotten in Boston.

This leads me to the deal itself. While Manny did have to go, as Peter Gammons, Theo Epstein, and even Jason Varitek all agreed, maybe we could have let him go for a little more return considering what we gave up. Like all other Sox fans, I enjoyed watching Jason Bay play as well as he did over the weekend and I think he will be a solid player for this team in the future. But giving away three players and cash for him when one of those players is one of the greatest right handed hitters in the history of the game? The price seems steep. I'm not going to cry of the loss of Craig Hansen, as I have mentioned in this space before, he has been dreadfully inconsistent and unreliable in the clutch this season, and Brandon Moss is not a future Hall of Famer, but couldn't we have gotten more. Grabow? Maybe not include Moss and flip him to the Royals of Mahay? We made a blockbuster deal and didn't fix the glaring bullpen problem that has cost us games this season. It will be interesting to see if Masterson, Smith, Aardsma, and Bowden can make a difference over the last two months of the season.

So this is how an era ends. Manny Ramirez is gone and with him a big piece of the World Series champions that transformed the way this city looks at its sports teams. I don't blame the Sox, they did what they had to do. The final straw was probably when Manny said, "The Red Sox don't deserve me." My boss has a 9-year-old son who was crushed as many fans of all ages were when news of the trade came. When told what Manny said, he looked at his father and said, "Well that's not being a very good teammate to the rest of the Red Sox, is it?" No it wasn't and I guess that's the ending on this story. Did the Red Sox not deserve Manny Ramirez? I think Manny just didn't deserve the fans of Red Sox Nation.