The Manny-Less Dodgers
08 May 2009
Last night marked the first night that the Dodgers played without their star outfielder, Manny Ramirez. The Dodger outfielder was suspended by MLB officials for 50 games for failing a required drug test. This unpaid “vacation” for Manny will cost him nearly $7.7 million of his $25 million dollar contract, as well as bring him a barrage of unwanted negative media attention. Los Angeles and Boston have come to Manny’s defense claiming he is “not the drug using type“, while Yankee message boards have already started pegging the incident as “Manny being Tranny” (a reference to the guilty drug HCG which is prescribed to stimulate female fertility and testosterone production in men).
Throughout last season, all the west coast media blabbed about was how Manny became a positive influence to the Dodger’s lineup by “calming” the nerves of young bench players as well as giving them a much needed confidence boost. However, if you look at the stats, the media was clearly blubbering as Manny did nothing for their overall stats. RBIs and HRs dropped significantly, while the only their on base and batting average made a noticeable increase (only in some).
Player…..Pre Manny/Post..AVE…OBP…..SLG…..OPS…AB…R..HR..RBI..SB
Andre Ethier………..Pre..0.274…0.338…0.442…0.779..351..53..11…46…3
Andre Ethier……….Post..0.368…0.448…0.649…1.097..174..37…9…31…3
Matt Kemp…………..Pre..0.295…0.351…0.464…0.815..390..57..12…57..26
Matt Kemp………….Post..0.282…0.319…0.449…0.768..216..36…6…19…9
James Loney…………Pre..0.296…0.354…0.456…0.810..395..53…9…60…4
James Loney………..Post..0.275…0.307…0.390…0.697..200..13…4…30…3
Russell Martin………Pre..0.297…0.393…0.428…0.821..374..56..10…52..10
Russell Martin……..Post..0.246…0.367…0.330…0.697..179..31…3…17…8
Although the Dodgers are indeed missing an integral part of their lineup, it will be interesting to see what kind of impact the absence of Manny will play through mid-June. A Deadspin reader pointed out that:
What was the first night of post-Mannywood like? Totally strange. It’s like someone took a scrub brush and wiped every trace of Manny from the stadium-including the fans. I figured there probably wouldn’t be Manny videos and I thought they might even pull the Manny merch from the stands and vendors (I didn’t see any for sale) but I looked all night and couldn’t even find a fan with a Manny shirt on. (And these guys are usually everywhere….often with the fake dreds). Seems LA has turned on the guy, at least judging from how quickly he’s been forgotten. Oh, except we lost in spectacular fashion. That hadn’t seemed to happen much (or at all) this season.
On the other hand, it seems the only person celebrating the Manny steroid allegations is our good friend Jose Canseco. Jose decided to hold a special press conference in a LA hotel earlier today to say “I told you so” and accept any questions. The results are as follows:
That’s right, only 1 AP reporter made the trip to hear Jose’s ego feeding and “I told you so’s”. The only question reportedly asked was by a hotel busboy regarding the “freeness” of the ham sandwiches.