In what would be an uncharacteristically bold move, SI.com is reporting that the Phillies and Red Sox are talking about a possible Manny Ramirez for Pat Burrell swap.
The Red Sox appear serious about trading slugger Manny Ramirez and are talking to the Phillies and two other teams about a deal, according to people familiar with the talks.
The Phillies may be the front-runner for Ramirez, who has told people he probably will OK a deal to Philadelphia if the teams can agree on a trade.
It isn’t yet known what players would be going back to Boston, but left fielder Pat Burrell is having a similar year statistically (.277/.400/.585 with 26 HRs and 61 RBIs in 103 games for Burrell; .304/.400/.538 with 20 HRs and 68 RBIs in 98 games for Ramirez) and could be a logical fit. He has a no-trade clause but has told the Phillies in the past that he’d be willing to waive it for the Red Sox and Yankees.
If this trade goes through were to happen, I see 2 possibilities:
- Manny comes over as a man on a mission (that mission being making the Red Sox look like idiots) and tears up the NL, leading the Phillies to the division win. Say what you want about his attitude, he takes his hitting VERY seriously.
- Manny comes over, doesn’t fit in on his first new team since 2001, makes a couple lazy plays and the fans turn on him.
A Manny for Burrell swap is intriguing on many levels. Manny is not a Philly personality, but is a World Series MVP, one of the best right-handed hitters in baseball and offensively, is an improvement over Burrell. He is a very consistent and clutch hitter and has proven it many times on many big stages. Burrell and Manny are both likely gone in the offseason anyway, so it’s a rental for both teams. And, if the Phillies management does decide to increase payroll, they can pick up Manny’s $20 million option next year (yeah…that’ll happen…). Can’t remember a time when two contenders traded their top right handed hitters for each other right before the deadline.
I can’t see this trade actually happening. Manny has been rumored to be traded a thousand times, and was even signed, sealed and delivered to the Mets at one point, so I’ll believe it when I see it. Personally, I make this move. Sure, Manny might stir something up, be he’s Manny freakin’ Ramirez , he’s a career .313 hitter with 510 HR and has been a stud on 2 World Series champions. Furthermore, he has a good relationship with Charlie which would help the transition. He gets more respect than Burrell from pitchers, and a 3-4-5 of Utley, Howard and Ramirez would be arguably the best in baseball. I say go for it.
You guys making this move?
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24 comments ↓
why people are throwing out contradictions left and right, pete, didn’t you just say you would stay away from manny in your last post?
i do this move. burrell has been great, but come on, its manny. and why do people say manny isn’t a philly personality? isn’t boston just as tough on their players as philly and new york? i am trying to figure this one out. somone please enlighten me.
I did. I changed my mind.
The conservative side of me says that it’s too much of a risk. But, when I saw the article, the side of me that would get really excited to see Manny in red pinstripes took over. Even Manny-haters would have to be kind of excited to see what he could do for us.
(I also partially changed my mind because trading Burrell, who it looks like might be gone after the season anyway, is much better than trading prospects)
good point about boston fans. as long as manny produces, he’ll be liked. and 2 months might not be long enough to turn on him anyway.
Let me first say I’m not the biggest Burrell fan. I’m pretty pissed he’s waited until the contract year of a loooong contract to finally deliver. That being said, I disagree with you. Offensively, I think Burrell is a comparable if not better player than Manny at this point in their careers. I know stats don’t always tell the whole story, but based on this year’s numbers…
Burrell has 26 home-runs to Manny’s 20 and 73 walks to Manny’s 50. Burrell’s OBP is significantly higher as well.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that Burrell’s the better fielder, though he’s no stud of course. Why pay the extra coin for a comparable and potentially disruptive player?
Its interesting that SI would write this story considering Gillick and every other major sports site/program have been saying it wont happen.
If I was the Phillies I would really have to think about this. You have plenty of things to look at here. Manny is great offensively. He will hit for average, good home run power, and is an extremely clutch hitter. He is really not a terrible defender. He isn’t great, but he can make all the easy ones and scatter in some pretty good plays through the season.
But then you have to look at the off-field stuff. I mean just look at what he is doing now. He signed the contract, stick to it for two more months. He doesn’t run out as hard as he can, he won’t try if he is angry, and he will complain. And you have all the ‘Manny being Manny’ stuff.
I don’t know too much about Burrell, but I know he can produce. I don’t know if he still has this stat, but since like July 1st (maybe June 1st) of last year he leads the MLB in RBI’s. Not too bad in defense I guess.
If I am the Phillies, for a one on one deal I make this trade, not including any top prospects or anything.
If I am the Red Sox, then I make this deal if they include something else, not a top-prospect but a minor prospect. Then the Red Sox would have the funds to resign Burrell if they like what he does. If not then they just say goodbye.
To The Duke, Burrell is comparable at this point in his career, but he is not as good. Almost, but not as good. Burrel has more home runs, but Manny has had more RBI’s, more hits, more runs scored, and just about as many doubles compared to Burrell, as well as hitting for a higher average by plenty.
They are comparable but if you asked me who I would want to play left field for a full season, I would choose Manny.
On Comcast this morning, during Sportsrise, they discussed this being a possibility and it sound liked the Phillies had a chance to make this happen. I will believe it when I see it but they said Manny would waive his no trade clause to come to the Phillies, but the issue is money as Many may want to opt out of his contract after this season.
@Joe
Certainly wouldn’t be an issue for the Phillies…they’d have no desire to give him $20 million for another year.
I hope everyone doesn’t get too lathered up thinking that a deal like this might actually happen. Here’s the latest trade deadline intelligence from Jayson Stark: On the Phillies’ radar: John Grabow, Will Ohman, Arthur Rhodes, and Jack Taschner.
if we are going to bring back Arthur Rhodes, why not just bring back Jose Mesa and Ricky Botallico as well. I don’t see any of those 4 players as an upgrade to our roster really.
no comments on Myers last night?
I know it was against the Nats, but he was hitting the corners, his body motion was much more compact and controlled and he used his slider a lot with great success. I absolutely NOT on an sort of Myers bandwagon, but that was potentially a huge step forward.
In my heart I have a sad suspision the Phillies will do absolutely nothing. As long as the Mets don’t make a move it could be OK if they just want to try and make the playoffs again. But this current team, even if playing better, is not better than the Red Sox, Angels, and the real World Series contenders unless it makes a significant move. I am hoping hard, I have had a season ticket plan since the early Francona years and have conceded this year is my likely last for it, win or lose. If they, once again do nothing or little, like when they got Cook & Wendell, I think this year will be remembered as our best shot. Our number 2 pitcher is 45 ish, Pat will be replaced probably a Jenkins/ Helms over priced dud, and we may waste Cole Hammels first and only healthy season since becoming a pro ballplayer. I see more frustation like the past several years, with the exemption of the Mets helpful collapse last season. 85-88 wins, just missing playoffs, in the hunt all year but falling just short. I forsee the Phils stand pat Or a meaningless trade like Aurthur Rhoades, no improvement or talent upgrade, just a move to do a move. I wish I was wrong
I was actually hoping Myers would suck last night, go to the pen, and Happ goes to the rotation. Myers has done the random good start many times before. Last night bought him time/ more starts but Myers has NEVER been a consistantly dominate starter. His best seasons as a starter were pretty average/ slightly above average. Why do people think he will just wake up one day at this stage in his career and become an ace of a rotation?
Hopefully, I’m not being overly sentimental, but I want to keep the longest tenured player on the Phillies roster. Are we really ready to close the book on what has been a pretty good career with the Phils? Despite Burrell’s ups and downs, I respect him for his loyalty to the team, city and fans and applaud him for stepping up his game this season. No position player on the Phils has been more consistant than Pat “the Bat” this season.
I agree Man Ram is a very good player, but there’s no way the Phils will be able to keep him next year. With Burrell, I think there still might be a chance for the Phils to re-sign him (maybe even for less money than other teams would offer). If the Phils trade Burrell now I’d say the chance of that happening disappears.
Obviously, loyalty in sports and players who play for one team for their whole career are a dying breed, but there’s still a chance Burrell can fit in this category. I vote no deal!
I thought it was a positive sign when the commentators where talking about how Myers has been actively watching and learning from Cole Hamel’s between start routine to help get his mind back on being a productive starting pitcher and the type of preparation that takes.
Ok, that’s my baseball comment for the rest of the season, haha.
PETE: Sorry to let you down. Under normal circumstances you know you can count on me, but l missed the game last night due to my son’s soccer practice.
I was over on the Zo Zone earlier today trying to ferret out whether this was only a one time thing or if Myers may have actually started to turn himself around. I was told that his strike/ball ratio was 2/1 and that he looked pretty good on the mound, body language wise. One guy reported that he had a few pitches wild and out of the strike zone and a few others that were mistakes over the plate but that overall had more movement on his fastball and he was better.
This brings me to an interesting question. I actually did catch the bottom of the 7th on the radio on my way home. At that time Larry Andersen was talking about the difference in Myers between when he throws his 4-seamer and his 2-seamer. He said that since the 4-seamer is a straight pitch, Myers feels like he needs to throw it as hard as he can. He loads up, flies open, and over throws it. (I’m guessing those are the ones that are missing badly.) Andersen went on to say that Myers knows that in order to make his 2-seamer move, he can’t throw it as hard.
From what I was able to gather, it seems as though Myers’ success last night was due in large part to his increasing reliance on the 2-seamer. If that is the case, maybe last night is actually the beginning of a meaningful turnaround for Myers.
Having not seen it for myself, I did not want to put up any sort of evaluation. Anybody feel free to correct me if I am wrong or to provide additional information if you heard any of the announcers on tv or radio go into greater detail about this. Sunday against the Cardinals will be a much truer test as to whether or not Myers has found something that works for him.
ONE LAST THING: A guy over on the Zo Zone is saying it is all over 610 that Cole Hamels has a small fracture in his pitching elbow. Someone please get to the bottom of this ASAP!!!
who cares please anyone someone take him away now
im no doctor, but “fractured pitching elbow” seems, well, kind of bad.
couple other comments
- Pudge Rodriguez for Kyle Farnsworth? Is there anyone we could have offered? I mean Farnsworth isn’t all that good. Pudge would have been awesome for us.
- Manny to the Marlins? I don’t get this deal for either team if it happens. The Red Sox get worse THIS season(when’s the last time a WS contender has gotten worse on purpose) and the Marlins trade away several good prospects for a 2-month rental when they don’t nearly have the talent of their other 2 WS runs.
- Pat Gillick announces Utley has been hurt. Utley responds by hitting HRs in back-to-back games. Coincidence?
PETE:
- I thought the same thing when I saw this deal. I hope Rodriguez had a limited no trade clause or something. If not. I’m not happy at all that we couldn’t land him.
- Could this just be the Marlins throwing their name into the Manny mix for the sole purpose of either messing with a division rival’s (us?) chances of landing him or increasing the cost of the deal?
- After Gillick’s announcement, Utley said he did not know what anyone was talking about regarding a hip injury, right?
Pudge - Didn’t want him. I’m sure you getting everyone’s tired of hearing this from me but…BENGIE MOLINA.
Manny to Marlins - I’m not so sure it does hurt the Sox since the Pirates would be involved in a three way. My assumption is they’d get Bay in return with Hermida and prospects to the Buccos. That’s all just my own conjecture though, don’t know any actual details.
How about this: According to ESPN’s Jayson Stark, the Cardinals are willing to trade Kyle Lohse in the right deal. They’re looking for a bat and a reliever.
Lohse could be one of the better names out there, though he’s better served in the NL. The Cardinals certainly won’t be sellers - they’re just percentage points behind the Brewers for the wild card.
I guess the Cards figure they will not be able to re-sign him. I know we won’t go after him because he already spurned us this past off season, he is a Scott Boras client, and I doubt we would want to pay the Cards’ asking price. Also, dave Duncan is not our pitching coach, so he’d probably go back to his former self with us. I just thought it was interesting.
Regarding Cole Hamels and the supposed fracture
in his pitching elbow, I guess Eskin was reporting that he heard it from a scout, so it’s hardly reliable information.
of course a scout told him that, then the scout is wrong, not him.
from the inquirer:
Oh, my arm
Cole Hamels is a movie buff, so the Phillies lefthander might know he has something in common with Al Czervik, Rodney Dangerfield’s character in Caddyshack: Neither has a broken arm. A rumor swirled yesterday that Hamels had been pitching with a small fracture in his left elbow, which was false.
“Do you know how much it would hurt to pitch with a broken arm?” Hamels said.
Manny is a Dodger. And the Red Sox will pay the rest of his Salary. Phillies appear to have done the big nada
that picture of manny is priceless
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