There’s A Lot More Going On Here
August 29, 2010 at 1:03 pm | Posted in Joe Torre, Manny Ramirez | 16 Comments
When Manny Ramirez sat on Thursday after getting on base four times on Wednesday, it was to be expected – he never plays day games after night games.
When he sat on Friday, it was annoying, but somewhat plausible as he had just one hit in fifteen career at-bats against Ubaldo Jimenez.
When he sat on Saturday, the situation got increasingly ridiculous. Joe Torre said he “liked the energy” that Scott Podsednik brings and was worried about Manny’s defense in the large Coors Field outfield, ignoring that Podsednik isn’t much of an outfielder either and brings about 1/100th of what Manny does to the plate.
Today? Manny is out of the lineup again for the fourth straight day, and what this screams to me is that Joe Torre’s been lying to us, to his credit.
Yesterday, Torre claimed (backed up by Ned Colletti) that he had not been ordered to sit Manny. But for all the frustration we’ve directed at Torre in his three years here, I refuse to believe that’s true. Torre’s not a great manager, but he’s not an idiot either. There is no rational baseball reason – not one – for benching one of the ten best right-handed hitters of all time in the most important games of the season, even if Manny is only 80% of what he once was.
More evidence comes in the fact that Matt Kemp is still playing. We all know that Torre loves his “gritty” “hustle” guys like Podsednik and Juan Pierre, so even if Torre really does believe his platitudes about Podsednik’s “energy” and insisted on having him on the lineup every day, the obvious move there – and one he’s done before – would be to move Podsednik to center and bench Kemp for a day.
That hasn’t happened, and no reasonable manager would choose to sit Manny four days in a row for baseball reasons (and that’s without even considering what Manny’s disposition is like after being benched.) So the only rational explanation here is that Torre’s being less than truthful – which I don’t blame him for, because you don’t want to go public about such things until the ink is dry – and that word from above has come to not play Manny for fear of injury sinking a deal. (Personally, I’d rather see a larger deal with Chicago; having put both J.J. Putz & Matt Thornton on the DL, their bullpen is in shambles, so how about trying to send them Octavio Dotel & George Sherrill too?)
And if not? If everything Torre is saying is true? Then all we can do is pray that the last out of game 162 comes as soon as possible.
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At this point I agree. My comment at TBLA from yesterday on this was.
Comment by truthpundit— August 29, 2010 #
We could be partners with the White Sox. They get all our old players, we get all their young players. Sounds fair to me.
Comment by c.lo— August 29, 2010 #
Who would be on your top three list to manage the Dodgers if you could pick and choose, not only those available?
Comment by Blork af Sweden— August 29, 2010 #
Orel
Comment by David S— August 29, 2010 #
Wait, how are these now the “most important games of the season?”
Comment by Josh S,— August 29, 2010 #
At the moment, they are. If you want to operate under any pretense of being in the race, they needed to sweep Colorado. Benching Manny doesn’t help that.
Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— August 29, 2010 #
This is frustrating to no end… if the Dpdgers are in this race, Manny absolutely needs to be playing. He should have been playing all this time until Tuesday, then we can make a decision whether we’re in or out. I don’t see what’s so hard about that.
Seeing as Ned has a reputation of being the GM that can be bitched around, I wouldn’t be surprised if Williams has some say in this… perhaps a better deal if they could insure Manny is healthy. Any way it’s pitched, I don’t like it at all.
Comment by Jason— August 29, 2010 #
A theory. Perhaps this is a way to put pressure on Manny to accept a deal and to not demand an extension. If they set up a situation where Manny is in danger of not receiving playing time to establish himself for the free agent market, Manny could hardly want to stay.
Comment by Table— August 29, 2010 #
What if Manny himself has said “$%&# it?” Anyone recall the at bat vs Mariano R., during the month he quit on the Sox, when he took three straight pitches without moving the bat off his shoulders? I don’t think Torre is a liar. Either Manny is acting out, Ned is lying or McDivorce wants to make sure the team is out of contention by ordering that Manny not play. Might pick is Ned is lying and he is telling Torre, a lame duck manager, not to mess with the future by winning now.
Comment by Adonis— August 29, 2010 #
Don’t mess with the future by winning now? Podsednik is hardly the future.
Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— August 29, 2010 #
Poddy is not the future (God I hope not) but winning now and keeping Manny could hurt the future. This current Dodger orginzation is a mess.
Comment by Adonis— August 29, 2010 #
Overall, this year has been disgusting to watch and read about… The management and ownership make me sick to my stomach, and the play on the field is leading me to find another distraction to fill my life with.
Comment by DGAF anymore— August 29, 2010 #
They’re sitting Ramirez because they don’t want him to get hurt before they offload him. He’s probably played his last game in a Dodger uniform.
Probably smart to sit Manny: it’s 8-2 Rockies late in the game on Sunday, and he likely wouldn’t have mattered at all. They needed to at least take two out of three to have any hope of being in contention. Not going to happen. And one must be concerned that Lilly finally blew up in today’s game. Value down? Who knows.
Do you like .500, i.e., mediocrity? If so, don’t break this team up. It’s just good enough to be in the middle of the pack. But if you want more, break the team up. But also pray that Colletti isn’t the one in charge of the breakup and build process and that Torre or his clone Mattingly isn’t the one managing whatever the 2011 team turns out to be. If those stiffs are still around next year, prepare for some years in the wilderness.
A grievously flawed team with no management whatsoever. There’s a case to made for saying that they do well just to stay around .500. Some of the players deserve a lot of credit. Most do not.
The sale has to happen. Sooner rather than later would be really nice.
Comment by SC Dodger— August 29, 2010 #
Increasingly, the best things about this season are (1) Vin Scully still calling games and (2) Vinny’s announcement that he’ll be back in ’11.
There have been some minor satisfactions with a couple starting pitchers. But that’s all overshadowed by the seeming inevitability of Don Mattingly succeeding (ironic word, there!) Joe Torre as manager. Though he’d never admit it, I think Mike Scioscia may have put a curse on the Dodgers when they didn’t recognize his potential.
Someone asked me the other day, “What would you do if you had a billion dollars?” I didn’t miss a beat in answering “Buy the Dodgers!”
Comment by Ucla74— August 29, 2010 #
I’m not stating fact here, but I buddy of mine read somewhere that Manny has told them that he won’t play here anymore and is now “demanding” a trade to the White Sox. Don’t know if there’s any truth to it but one thing is for sure: Torre is covering for someone or something.
Comment by Doug Harris— August 29, 2010 #
I read that Manny said he “can’t wait” to get to the White Sox, but this is a little different. Can you back that up at all?
Comment by Mike Scioscia's tragic illness— August 29, 2010 #