But realistically this is a two month rental of his services. The Manny being Manny script won’t be complete until he signs with the Yankees during the winter and torments the Red Sox until he hangs them up.

effectively block every single promising prospect I have in the minors, or even trade them!

I am so glad I moved to Anaheim and not LA.

He wore out his welcome in Boston, especially after knocking over the (im not sure his position) Red Sox manager

Cubs pitchers no longer have to worry about Bay and his 17 career homers against them.

Manny is one of the greatest run producers the game has ever seen and remains very productive. Andruw Jones was a horrificly bad signing by Ned Colletti. Figure they just cut their losses and eat the rest of his contract?? Matt Kemp in my estimation is overrated and a bit of a headcase. Juan Pierre is a swell guy who can’t throw and is signed to an ungodly contract. Andrew Ethier is nothing special to write home about.

One of the Dodgers biggest problems (and they have many) is that they get these great offensive prospects and then don’t give them a chance to play. LaRoche will only now finally get his chance.

Or are you of the school that minor league numbers are irrelevant to predicting major league performance? Further, to argue that someone’s performance can be predicted by his brother’s performance is the most obvious kind of wrong.

that Torre is apparently very fond of Manny.

Strange, but true.

If he bats 3rd, he’ll have great hitter [Ortiz] protecting him, something that never happened in Pittsburgh. It was widely known the the Red Sox were looking to deal Manny, and he’ll basically be a rental player for two months. If they were going to Manny, they needed to sweeten the deal, and they got a good player in return.

I think it’s safe to say that they played this beautifully… They brought in the Blue Jays, the Rays, etc. What an awesome move.

They get Brandon Moss, who is a top OF prospect, AND Andy LaRoche, plus the Sox 1st round pick from 2005 Craig Hansen. Three years from now, we’re going to not like facing a lineup of McLouth/Andy LaRoche/Adam LaRoche/Moss/McClutchen/Doumit/Alvarez. Awesome trade, Bucs.

Where do you get this assessment from? Please, before I compare the two, explain how these two players are even close to be similar? A LF’er and a 1st basemen. Bay is only two years younger than Konerko as well, that’s not a huge difference. As I said, please explain your remark.

The questions are:
1) what kind of an effect will Manny have on a clubhouse that absolutely exploded last year? Gammons said Francona lost 15 lbs dealing with Manny-stress. If Torre has to deal with Manny stress, could old Dodger stresses come boiling back, especially if they hit a losing streak?
2) what kind of playing time arrangement will follow re: Pierre, Andruw, and Kemp? If Kemp loses most of that playing time, given Manny’s defense compared to Kemp’s, they may not end up with much of an upgrade here at all. Kemp has turned it on the past 2 weeks (since July 13, he’s hitting .400/.464/.660 with 3 HRs and 4 SBs).
3) is Blake DeWitt the 3B of the future? If he is, then, the Dodgers can afford to give up LaRoche. If not, this deal could look bad in 2 years.

He won’t drive in as many runs with less people getting on base.

of trashing players fans have invested in before trading them (see Sosa, Sammy for the worst example). I think both teams’ managements fear the rabid fan base to a certain degree.

This is an incredibly balsy move by Theo Epstein and Terry Francona. I don’t know how on earth you get rid of one of the greatest all-time run producers who played HUGE role in your franchise winning 2 World Series Championships and remains hugely productive.

To me this is an assinine move by the Red Sox. Believe me the happiest people on the planet right now are the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays. Jason Bay has ridiculously huge shoes to fill and is being thrust from baseball obsurity to center stage. Bay’s a nice albeit overrated ballplayer. But asking him to fill Manny’s shoes starting in August for a mega high profile team that is battling once again for the post-season? And what is going severely under reported is the impact on David Ortiz, who is like a blood brother to Manny.

Today might mark the comeuppance of the Boston Red Sox and their arrogant general manager and manager.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/majors/trade-central/2008/266613.html.

Pirates got a lot of dubious and overrated prospects in these deals. Adam LaRoche is not going to be the answer to any question in Pittsburgh.

Ramirez will be in full blown salary drive these last two months. He’s waived the last two options years at $20M each so he can make another deal at the end of the season. Even he knows loafing through the end of this year won’t get him a deal that tops what he waived.

An ultra motivated Manny Ramirez on a salary push. God save National League pitchers the next two months.

.... this was his thread and he’s been okay. Chill.

You can take your multiple login IDs and your shallow knowledge of baseball and shove it. I’ll chose to engage in intelligent baseball discussion with those members of this threatened blog who are intelligent.

......but I will do as others do….and respond to you time and time and time and time again.

I’m not going to sit idly and be called a liar and p.o.s. This board is infested with a handful whose primary purpose for being here is to bait and attack. I’m either going to defend myself directly or via the written response. If that’s not okay then it is time to remove my BCB privileges.