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Curly: Bringing him back would be bad move financially
Should the Dodgers re-sign slugger Manny Ramirez?
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More from Sports ColumnistsThe head needs to know some numbers to convince the heart that the Los Angeles Dodgers need to let Manny Ramirez walk in the offenseason.
Not the .396 batting average with 17 home runs and 53 RBIs that Ramirez hit in the final 53 games of the regular season.
Not the two home runs Ramirez hit in the Dodgers' first two playoff wins over the Chicago Cubs.
The numbers that make all the difference in Ramirez's future in Dodger blue are 80, 4 and 40.
As in the $80 million Ramirez wants over the next four years to put pen to paper this summer — a contract Ramirez will finish when he's 40 years old.
There is no doubt that Ramirez's acquisition will be remembered as the point of origin of this playoff run.
Dealing Andy LaRoche and Bryan Morris for two months of a free Manny may just have saved the job of general manager Ned Colletti.
But the beautiful part of the trade wasn't just how well Ramirez played once he arrived, how much the Dodgers won once he arrived or how his teammates and the fan base enjoyed his presence in the middle of the Dodgers lineup.
What made the trade so impressive is that the Dodgers, reportedly, got Ramirez for free. Boston picked up the slugger's tab for the rest of the season.
Colletti was in a tenuous position in Los Angeles in the first place because he wasted upwards of $80 million on aging outfielders Juan Pierre and Andruw Jones.
Throwing another $80 million for the twilight of Ramirez's career would be more of the same unsound decision-making that necessitated the deal in the first place.
— Joe Curley is a staff writer for The Star. He can be reached at jcurley@VenturaCountyStar.com.
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