Losing Makes for Hard Feelings

ESPN.com reports that Marlins’ 2Bman Dan Uggla and SS Hanley Ramirez got into a nasty verbal altercation in the Marlins locker room yesterday, because Ramirez left the game early the night before with an injury.  Ramirez says he’s hurting (he probably is what with it being 130+ games into the season), but Uggla apparently feels that Ramirez should be playing anyway as long the Marlins still have a chance to make the playoffs.  The Marlins are 8.5 back of the Phillies in the NL East and five games back of the Rockies for the wildcard as I write this.

With no way to know how much pain Ramirez is experiencing, it’s impossible to know who’s in the right here.  Uggla apparently threw Hanley’s recent six-year $70 million contract extention in Ramirez’s face, which sounds a bit like the green-eyed monster to me.

There’s an ancient rule in baseball, which no matter how unfair in any particular set of circumstance it may be still makes a certain amount of sense: the better, more valuable player is always right.  I’ll call this rule the “Barry Bonds Rule” because he was a great example of it when he played for the Giants.

In the Marlin’s case, the better player is Ramirez.  Ramirez and Uggla are in their fourth full major league seasons, but Ramirez is four years younger (25 to Uggla’s 29).  Also, Ramirez is hitting .355 this year, while Uggla is hitting .245.

Hanley is the Marlins’ future for the next six years, while Uggla is essentially as much as the Marlins’ can get on the trade market when they become tired of paying his escalating salaries or fearful that they won’t get enough in return when he becomes a free agent.

I have a feeling that the Marlins will trade Uggla this offseason.  He still has value now, since he’s bounced back from a slow start and had a season within his normal range, and he’s still got two years left before free agency.  Also, his salary has reached the point where the Marlins usually get uncomfortable and start looking for younger, cheaper ballplayers.  If he’s causing locker room ruckuses with the Marlins’ main guy, that’s just another reason to unload him.

Uggla would be a good fit for the Giants, what with his right-handed power, which the Giants sorely lack.  When the Giants traded for 2Bman Freddie Sanchez, he looked like a lock on having his $8 million option for 2010 vest (with his 2009 all-star game selection, he needed 600 plate appearances for the option to vest), but with his recent knee and shoulder injuries, it now looks unlikely.

As a Giants fan, I’d rather have Uggla for 2010 than Sanchez, mainly for Uggla’s power bat.  Also, good things happened for the Giants when they last had a slugger at 2B (Jeff Kent 1997-2002).