Bleacher Report - Articles by Dean Speir

Man-O-Man-O-Manny Ramirez: Who Gets Signed?

Dean Speir — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 18:11:48 -0500

All anyone need to know about the on-going, increasingly soapy saga of the Los Angeles Dodgers commendable attempt to maintain some fiscal sanity in the face of super agent Scott Boras' intransigence in getting his client back into Dodgers Blue this season, was uttered by exiting Washington Nationals General Manager Bob Bowden this morning.

In announcing his resignation from his position the senior vice president and GM, an emotional Bowden said he was leaving the team because he didn't want to be a distraction.

"Unless you are Manny Ramirez, there is no place for distraction in baseball."

It wasn't a quip. Clearly Bowden feels for Dodgers General Manager Ned Coletti, and probably has had some dealings with Boras himself.

Spring training has started, and the Dodgers already have a handful of games under their belt, all without supremely talented left-fielder who almost single-handedly carried his new team on his back over the past two-plus months of the season. There was a division title and then a three-game sweep of the heavily-favored Chicago Cubs in the Division Series.

Manny-being-Manny was jaw-saggingly formidable at the plate. In 53 regular season games, he hit 17 homers (only three behind full-season leader Andre Ethier) and drove in 53 runs while batting .396 and slugging .743! Add eight post-season appearances, and that's 21 homers, 63 RBIs, batting/slugging of .410 and .783, with 46 walks and only 42 strike-outs.

Those figures puts him in Barry Bonds atmosphere, but there's never been any suggestion that Ramirez' performance has ever been anything other than organic.

Do the Dodgers need Manny?

Absolutely, if it's anything like the Manny who showed up over the final 61 games (including post-season) of last season! They haven't had a force anything like him at the plate since earlier this decade when Shawn Green and Gary Sheffield were swinging hot bats for power at the corners of the outfield.

So, assuming that speculation is reasonably accurate and Boras has no place other than Chavez Ravine to take his client this season, which Ramirez dons the Dodgers Blue?

Is it the Manny of last August and September?

Or is it the Manny of last July who, seemingly by design, played his way out of Boston, having become as unruly and malignant a presence in the Red Sox clubhouse as Sheffield was on any team where he started getting restless, and feeling either unappreciated or just plain bored?

With a reasonably young team...thinking of rising stars Ethier, Matt Kemp, James Loney, Blake DeWitt, James McDonald and Clayton Kershaw, here...and no seasoned veteran like Jeff Kent to kick butt in the clubhouse, having an unhappy and disruptive Manny in their midst would have a disastrous effect that could linger for several seasons, and result in the forced fire-sale of some of that budding talent.

GM Ned Coletti and Dodgers owner Frank McCourt have made their line in the infield dirt, and now it's up to Boras and Ramirez to blink or head for Japan to see how well Manny-mania will play there.

Remember, whatever the team may owe Manny for his electric ten weeks in Los Angeles last season, they own nothing to Boras, who likely orchestrated the left-fielder's exit from Fenway in July, and was the agent behind J.D. Drew's 2006 opt-out and ankle for Boston deal.

The other off-season moves by the Dodgers...bringing in Orlando Hudson to solidify the middle infield next to a re-signed Rafael Furcal, Loney and Casey Blake at the corners, a stronger back-up for Russell Martin behind the plate, a more experienced outfield with Kemp and Ethier in support of Juan Pierre and a healthy Jason Repko in reserve...probably leave Los Angeles stronger than they were at this time last year.

The Dodgers would love to have a happy Manny back in left...that possibility, the "happy" part at least, dims with every day.

Furcal Signing Solidifies Left SIde Of Dodgers Infield

Dean Speir — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:45:10 -0500

With the melodrama of indecision surrounding the foreseeable future of Rafael Furcal finally settled in favor of the Los Angeles Dodgers, his most recent team, at the expense of his former team, the Atlanta Braves, manager Joe Torre's defending National League West Champions will start the 2009 season with a hold-over left side of the infield.

Actually... barring injuries... with the earlier re-signing of free agent Casey Blake to another three year contract, also with a fourth year option, that sets the Dodgers at shortstop and third base for the next three years.

The durability factor is a key concern since Blake turned 35 in August and the 31 year old Furcal has been hampered by injuries the past two seasons and played only 35 regular season games last year.

However, the shortstop passed his team physical exam Friday, and the signing was completed.

But what a job the switch-hitting speedster did when he was at the top of the Dodgers line-up!

From Opening Day through May 5th when he injured his back in a game against the Mets, Furcal was batting .366 with 12 doubles, two triples and five home runs for a team-leading .597 slugging percentage! Very simply, he was the Dodgers offense, also stealing eight bases in 11 attempts and setting the table for the slowly developing Los Angeles "youth movement" exemplified by Matt Kemp, James Loney, Andre Ethier and Blake DeWitt. (And had the decade's biggest free agent bust, Andruw Jones, come even close to hitting his ballooning weight, Torre's boys would have been running away with the West.)

Following a four-game, end-of-season tune-up which dropped his 2008 batting average to .357 and an on-base figure of .439, Furcal was one of the sparks of the Dodgers surprising three-game sweep of the heavily-favored Chicago Cubs in the National League Divisional Series before having a horrendous, three-error close-out Game Five against the eventual World Champion Philadelphia Phillies.

In eight 2008 post-season games Furcal batted eight for 31 with nine runs scored.

Clearly Furcal has the tools of a championship caliber shortstop, withstanding his uncharacteristic flubs in the final post-season game. And he has displayed them with consistency throughout his nine-season major league career, with a batting average of .286, extra-base power, and the speed to swipe 259 bases in 324 attempts (80%).

And the simple fact is that the Los Angeles franchise doesn't have anyone near the major league level developing in its farm system that can provide on a daily basis what a healthy Furcal can, and the free agent market was not promising. Angel Berroa was an emergency fill-in when Furcal went down last May, but he never came close to regaining his 2003 Rookie of the Year form for the Kansas City Royals, and was released earlier this month.

A rumored interest in trading for Jack Wilson was soured by the Pirates demand for young Chin-lung Hu and two minor league prospects. And Wilson is not the player that Furcal has shown himself to be.

Obviously General Manager Ned Colletti, burned by his big bucks, multi-year contacts with Jason Schmidt and Andruw Jones (and his heart-on-his-sleeve re-signing of Mark Sweeney who hit the end of the road with a sickening thud before the signatures were dry), approached the Furcal and Blake signings with some caution, the former was indisputably the best shortstop option on the market, and latter was of known quality at a position which has been, with the exception of Ron Cey, a perennial question mark since the franchise moved to the West Coast.

So if all goes reasonably well, the Dodgers are set at short and third for the next three years, and they didn't put owner Frank McCourt on Powerty Row to do it.

And even with the curious inking of aging free agent Mark Loretta as utility infield insurance, there's still enough money to take a run at last year's 75-day (including post-season) savior, Manuel Aristides Ramirez or perhaps a starting pitcher, something the team probably should address with the loss of two front line starters, dependable Derek Lowe and one-time ace Brad Penny, and the potential return-to-form of injury-sidelined, soon-to-be-36-years-old Schmidt one of the biggest unanswered questions for 2009.

Detroit Red Wings Not Yet the Devastating Force Expected

Dean Speir — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:01:22 -0500

Even after the postseason on-ice clinic the Detroit Red Wings held on the way to their fourth Stanley Cup in the past eleven seasons, it is probably unrealistic to expect the team to pick up where they left off last June in Pittsburgh.

Virtually everyone had the summer off, but the Wings had the responsibility (and pleasure) of the traditional Tour de Cup through the provinces, states, and several European countries, giving family, friends and neighbors an opportunity to gaze upon hockey's Holy Grail—and in many instances, to drink from it.

The team's less-than-stellar start to a defense of their title might in part be attributed to the after-effects of such a summer.

After losing their two of their first four games (both at home), they are winning (9-2-2) almost on a pace with last season—just not as convincingly. Three of their wins, including Saturday's home victory over an injury-depleted New Jersey, have been by two goals.

The rest all by a single goal, including two in shootouts. The anticipated domination simply hasn't been evident.

Led by new addition Marian Hossa, the Wings have scored just enough to win—and at the end of the season, that's all that counts. But the defensive giveaways clearly have Coach Mike Babcock concerned, enough that he has temporarily benched Brett Lebda and his team-worst minus-nine from the third blueline pairing. The third-year player hasn't has a plus rating in any of his 11 games on the ice.

Another concern is one of last spring's big heroes, goaltender Chris Osgood, who—until his single goal-allowed effort against the Devils—had a goal-against average a full point higher than last year, when he (2.09) and since-retired Dominick Hasek (2.14) split netminding duties, and pushed one another to a fraction over two goals per game rating on the season.

There have been moments—starting with a shocking giveaway in the crease to Toronto's Pavel Kubina in the season's opening game—when some may have suspected that Osgood had forgotten the essentials of the "butterfly technique" he learned from Marc-Andre Fleury during his three-season banishment to Long Island and St. Louis. A save percentage of 0.892 is not exactly championship-caliber goaltending.

Confidence is high, however, that Ozzie—and, if given the chance, Lebda—can get back on track.

It should also be noted that perennial Norris Trophy-winner Nick Lidstrom (plus-three) and his blue line partner Brian Rafalski (plus-one) are unexpectedly low in the plus/minus rankings from their anticipated norms.

On the bright side, Hossa has been the offensive catalyst so far, with Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Tomas Holmstrom, and last season's break-out scoring star Johan Franzen (out with an injury the past five games) seemingly struggling to regain their championship form from six months ago.

What's the difference?

Too early to state anything definitively after 13 games, but right-winger Hossa, a member of the Stanley Cup runner-up Penguins, wasn't on the Tour de Cup this off-season. And his whole reason for coming to Detroit as a free agent—instead of taking a higher salary elsewhere—was because he'd anxious to take that Tour himself.

L.A. Dodgers Have Plenty of Experienced Bench Options for the Postseason

Dean Speir — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 04:58:59 -0400

With only one game remaining in the season, and Nomar Garciaparra manning the dugout con, with only the proviso from manager Joe Torre that Manny Ramirez will sit this one out, the reserves will be auditioning for postseason roster spots when Hiroki Kuroda faces the San Francisco Giants this afternoon at AT&T Park.

The best news for the Dodgers is that veterans Rafael Furcal and Jeff Kent are again both available and will likely start in the middle infield positions in the Division series, meaning that their replacements, a resurrected Angelo Berroa, surprising rookie Blake DeWitt, and utilityman Pablo Ozuna are vying for the maximum of two available infield slots.

Barring recurrence of his nagging injury problems, Garciaparra, who has played third and first, in addition to his once-natural shortstop position, has the first reserve slot locked up by dint of his great versatility and his previous postseason experience with the Boston Red Sox.

Chin-lung Hu, a shortstop that has filled in as a late-inning replacement for Kent at second base, appears to be on the outside looking in. His light bat doesn't warrant him postseason-roster consideration.

Although the 34-year old Ozuna was given two stints totaling five innings in the outfield (where he remains untested), he'll probably join Hu as a spectator, leaving Garciaparra, Berroa, and DeWitt as the infield bench reserves behind James Loney, Kent, Furcal, and third baseman Casey Blake.

Behind the plate, this season's Russell Martin backup, Danny Ardoin, will continue to serve in that capacity.

As it was when the season started, the outfield is a question of fitting four into three positions, the big difference being that while all eyes were on big-ticket free-agent signing Andruw Jones, who had displaced speedy Juan Pierre in center field, the perennial Gold Glove-winning slugger in Atlanta showed up in Los Angeles overweight and indifferent.

He appeared in less than half of the games played, barely slugged his weight, and was placed on the 60-day disabled list to preclude any further on-field activity.

The new man in town, of course, is Manny! A trade-deadline acquisition, Ramirez exceeded all expectations and quickly erased the sour taste left by Jones' three (3!) home runs, 14 RBI (which Manny surpassed his first two weeks in L.A.) and .158 batting average.

The starting outfield will almost certainly see Ramirez in left, five-tool Matt Kemp in center, and emerging Andre Ethier in right, once again leaving unlucky Pierre riding the bench.

He'll definitely see some action as a pinch-hitter and perhaps as a fill-in for Kemp, whose inexperience and questionable decision-making processes have surfaced at various inopportune times throughout the season.

The other outfield reserve possibilities are switch-hitting Delwyn Young and enthusiastic, but oft-injured, Jason Repko, who, like the great Pete Reiser of the '40s Brooklyn Dodgers, has shown as much promise as he has an affinity for hustling himself onto the D.L.

Young, carried all season for his bat (14-for-48 as a pinch-hitter) as he has no natural position with a glove (at one point he was third on the catching depth chart) will probably see no playing time in the field, but Repko can be a late-inning replacement for Ramirez in left if the Dodgers have the lead; his arm strength is superior to that of Pierre.

Then there's Mark Sweeney, like Jason Schmidt, another former Giants player acquired by General Manager Ned Colletti. Sweeney, second on the all-time list of pinch hits, did well enough in limited action over the last six weeks of the 2007 season that Colletti signed the 39-year old for 2008, and then watched his ace-on-the-bench fail to make contact 28 times!

With no homers, only five (5!) RBI, and a .130 batting average (12-for-78 in the pinch-hitting and, in interleague road games, designated hitter role), if the popular Sweeney makes the postseason roster, it will be on the strength of his personality.

If Garciaparra doesn't start, he will be Torre's first right-handed pinch-hitting option, with enough extra-base power to keep the opposition deep in the outfield. Leftie Pierre lacks power but makes contact, and he loves to drop one down and beat it out, something at which he is extremely skilled.

But, as the Dodgers have shown all season, they must hit to support their excellent starting staff. Manny can't do it by himself, even if he is able to continue his near .400 power-hitting!