Comments on: Slamming The Door On Manny

By: Des

Des — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:34:35 +0000

Amen, Amazin86er, you’ve made clear and made well your view.
Along the line of unnecessary negativity, I have been appalled by the brouhaha about the naming of CitiField. Fortunately, many of us rail against newspaper voyeurism and speculation.
For those who want to see my position on the naming of CitiField, and why I think it’s just a tempest in a teapot, go to:
http://theropolitans.com/2009/02/comment-citis-advertising-budget.html

By: tainoray

tainoray — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:37:15 +0000

Manny wasn’t any trouble for Torre. His teamates love him. Manny isn’t a Wilpon type of guy. renting him was a no brainer last year instead he almost put the Dodgers in the series

By: Amazin86er

Amazin86er — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:20:03 +0000

Des,
Like I said Manny Ramirez is not a perfect human being but almost everything that is written or spoken about him is purely speculation with no fact. When it comes to Manny it seems everyone likes to and would rather pay attention and believe the speculation rather than taking a glimpse at tha actual facts of the matter and those facts are right here…
http://www.baseball-reference.com/r/ramirma02.shtml
He has contributed in a big way for every team he has played for in every season. In the end that is what I care about. The media has created a monster and they enjoy doing such things. The media did their best to create the “KRod Hysteria” which many fans also bought into. Instead of looking at the positives all the media wants to do is bring out the negatives but who could blame when the society we live in feeds off of negativity. Lets just look at the incidents in his divorce from Boston, who have a history of bad mouthing and poorly treating players that are about to leave the organization or have recently left, and believe all the speculation and ignore the fact that this is a miniscule part of one of the greatest careers any baseball person or fan has ever witnessed.

By: Rissa

Rissa — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:15:01 +0000

Beautifully written and I couldn’t agree more.

By: Des

Des — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:38:02 +0000

Some good points you raised, Amazin86er.
Baseball is a business, first and foremost. The Wilpons likely concluded that Manny being Manny just presents too many problems — financial, contractual, “fitting in”, and how he deals with the decisions of the coaching staff and managers. These factors go into the decision of who is offered a contract to become a Mets player and later who stays a Mets player. Several players have been excised from the team over the past 25 years — some quite recently — because of social problems which Mets owners have found unacceptable. The Wilpon family is very aware of social and community issues. I don’t think this factor should be discounted.

By: MJ

MJ — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:23:17 +0000

You can serve Manny ‘haterade and blame the Mets 08 demise on the the bullpen all you want. This team lost because of choking due to lack of heart. Bullpen be damned. All that was needed was one, ONE clutch hit down the stretch and it could have been the Mets instead of the effin Phillies who are the defending champs. One thing I know for sure is this: Manny has the heart of a lion. There would be no choke job with him. In today’s game, when you HAVE to get a hit, this guy is near or at the top of the list of who you would like to have at bat. Joe Torre loves the guy and that says volumes. I could care less about all of the ancillary off the field stuff. I just want the Mets to win the WS. With Manny on the team, you could have dusted off the mantle for the trophy right now. Just make sure that in the very likely event that this team gags it again, you revisit your Manny rant and what could have been.

By: Kay

Kay — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:19:50 +0000

BRAVO!!! TAKE A BOW DOUG!!!!

By: Amazin86er

Amazin86er — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:01:25 +0000

…”When starts butchering fly balls and missing the cutoff man (all add up to runs and loses) how favorable will his approval rating be then?”…
Outside of a few well publicized blooper moments Manny is not nearly as bad an outfielder as you or everyone says he is. He gets to balls quickly and gets the ball in quickly and many would tell you he played the Green Monster as well as anyone.
…”By the way, he’s also a liability on the base paths.”…
If anything I would call Manny an average baserunner while Castillo, Castro, Delgado, and Schneider are below average baserunners and if you really want to get into quality baserunners then look at Reyes and all the blunders he has had on the bases like trying to steal 3rd with 2 outs down by a run with the middle of the lineup up in the later part of the game or the absolute lack there of stolen bases in a big spot.
…”(A recent article in a NYC tabloid contained quotes from Ramirez’s former coach at George Washington HS in Upper Manhattan, saying he never has received one nickel of support for the baseball program from him-the same program that allowed Manny to hone his skills and gave him a chance to play ball. Talk about an ingrate).”…
Are you questioning how Manny spends or doesn’t spend his money? Would you like it for people to be in you business? We are still talking about baseball, right? Oh, I didn’t think so…now we are on to more important things like attempting to bring someone down at any cost. Now I get it.
…”Mets fans that drool over Manny’s prodigious home runs should keep the number 29 in mind. That is the amount of saves the bullpen blew last year. Reduce that number by 11 and the Mets are a 100-win club. Do you think that adding two formable closers could accomplish that?”…
So we can expect for the 2009 baseball season to turn out exactly like the 2008 season except the Mets will definitely win 100 games because of the improved bullpen. There are so many variables that goes into a season and so much that can happen such as injuries, career years, down years, and many other things. Look back after the 2007 season, the Mets were said to only need a frontline starting pitcher to win it in 2008 and they acquired Santana…how did that work out. No two season are exactly alike, baseball does not and never will work like that.
The Mets can win without Manny Ramirez but their chances with him greatly increase.

By: Russell Zanca

Russell Zanca — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:53:20 +0000

Beautiful piece, I say… from a guy who still wishes Manny were a Met!
I will admit that my one niggling bit of skepticism concerns the decline of eyesight at Manny’s age. Guess we’ll learn abou this before too long.
But, seriously, what do you really think about Manny on the Mets?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:50:47 +0000

And I can even recall when the Mets used to be that team with almost no All-Stars to be found, it was mostly a team made up of no name free agents or people brought up from the Minor Leagues. At least thats what I heard from an ESPN reporter about 6 years ago.
It’s weird to have this desire for All-Stars when way back we barely had any. I guess that sense we have some now were just getting a little greedy in the notion that maybe we can get more. But, money is money and this isn’t Monopoly. “You have just bought Manny Ramirez, collect $2 Millioin Dollars.