Why we must sign Manny

Last night, in Game One of the Cubs/Dodgers NLDS, Manny Ramirez went two-for-four with a walk and his twenty-fifth post-season home run. It came in the seventh inning, off a Sean Marshall curveball. It wasn’t even a bad pitch. Marshall kept it low, didn’t hang it. It had bite, nice twelve-to-six movement. But Manny reached down and with an awkward, all-hands swing launched it into the centre field bleachers. Coming out of Marshall’s hand, it didn’t look like a home run ball. But then, that’s just Manuel Aristides (Onelcida) Ramirez being Manuel Aristides (Onelcida) Ramirez.

Blue Jays faithful, these are exciting times. Every so often, we are confronted by an opportunity that can only be described as sublime: so overwhelmingly grand in its implications that it inspires equal parts awe and fear.

Manny Ramirez is about to become a free agent.

Do you understand what this means? One thing:

The Toronto Blue Jays must acquire Manny Ramirez.

The must, because they can’t afford not to. Manny is unquestionably one of the five, maybe even three, best hitters in the game today, and will one day be a first-ballot Hall of Famer in the conversation for greatest hitter of all-time. The Blue Jays haven’t had a truly frightening presence in the order since Carlos Delgado. Vernon Wells is a great hitter, but when a middle reliever wakes with a start, face slick with cold sweat, odds are he wasn’t dreaming about Number 10 – he was watching Manny rip his cutter inside over the left field wall.

Being that baseball is one of life’s few arenas in which numbers rarely lie, I’m going to drop some stats on you to prove my point. Since his first game in Dodger blue, Manny has been the best hitter in the baseball, posting a line of .396/.489/.743 with 17 HRs in 187 ABs. That’s more home runs than any Blue Jay besides Vernon Wells hit all season. His arrival in Los Angeles redefined the landscape of the NL West, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who’d tell you he’s not the reason the Dodgers found their way to the post-season.

As if his preternatural second-half numbers weren’t enough, there are ancillary benefits to having Manny Ramirez on your team that go beyond his personal performance. Dropping Manny into the heart of an order causes a ripple effect: his presence ameliorates those around him. Now, I realize that the notion of hitting with protection is not what you'd call groundbreaking, but consider the following. Before Manny joined the Dodgers, outfielder Andre Ethier was hitting .274/.338/.442 with 11 HRs in 351 ABs. Since then? .368/.448/.649 with nine jacks in 174 ABs – just fewer than half of his previous at-bats. And when he’s batting immediately in front of Manny? .425/.505/.688 with three bombs over 80 ABs. When Jeff Kent hit in front of Manny during a thirteen-game stretch between August 7 and 20, his slash stats read .481/.518/.635. On September 15, Juan Pierre went three-for-five and hit his only home run of the season. He was batting second, with Manny in the three-spot.

Last night, Canadian boy Russell Martin, saw a ton of very hittable pitches while batting ahead of Ramirez, flying out on changeups and fastballs that were coming right down the pipe. In the seventh, he connected for a solo shot on a meatball from Jason Marquis. Question is: would he have seen those kinds of pitches if Manny weren’t in the on-deck circle?

Now, signing Manny will be expensive, there’s no question about that. But with a few contracts coming off the books, we’re going to have some degree of flexibility. Most significantly, Burnett will walk (if you think this rumoured 30 million dollar extension is going to keep him a Jays uniform, you haven’t really thought about it), freeing up 11+ million per season. And if you take a look at the revenue Manny’s brought to LA in the form of merchandise and ticket sales, I suspect Ted Rogers could be convinced to open up his pocket book.

Would inking Ramirez to a huge deal (say, 4/85) be risky? Sure. He could get hurt, though slotting him into a full-time DH role lessens the likelihood of a serious injury. His behaviour could be problem, but there, we know what we’re getting into. Manny Ramirez is a clown. A degenerate manchild incapable of acting like an adult outside of the batters’ box. We know this. We can deal with this. And every time he rips a two-run double or parks a four-hundred-and-fifteen-footer, we’ll be on our feet, cheering his name and thinking, “I’m so fucking glad he plays ball in Toronto.”

Also of interest to the 2008 Jays: with runners in scoring position, Manny hit .355/.505/.623. With seven home runs.

We must sign Manny Ramirez. We must give him whatever he wants – money, his own personal clubhouse, one million hot dogs. Whatever. We must sign Manny Ramirez.