Since I was working most of the day, I missed the 4 pm trade deadline, and all of the excitement (or disappointment, for some) it brings. Lance Berkman was traded from the Houston Astros to the Evil Empire, Ryan Ludwick ends up in San Diego as part of a three-team deal that also sent Jake Westbrook to St. Louis, and the Yankees also added another bullpen arm in Kerry Wood. While some of the more flashy deals did not go down, one of those in particular caught my eye.
Apparently, after the deadline passed, news emerged that the White Sox tried to land Manny Ramirez in a deal. That's right, THE Manny Ramirez. The Sox were not willing to give anyone up for him, but they were willing to pay the Dodgers $1 million of his remaining $6.7 million of his contract, which ends after this season. Ramirez is on the DL right now, and wouldn't be available until sometime in August. As you might have expected, the Dodgers said "no" to this offer.
While I cannot blame GM Kenny Williams for trying to make this team better at any cost, why would you go after someone who has as much baggage as Ramirez? He already has a reputation for not necessarily giving his full effort out on the field, and with his numbers being sub-par for his standards this year (.317 average, eight home runs and 39 RBIs), he hasn't exactly earned a free pass for that type of play. Plus, wasn't the goal at the beginning of the year for the Sox to become a more athletic, versatile team? While Ramirez would have been featured exclusively at DH if he joined the Sox, I don't think he has enough power left in him at this point in his career to justify acquiring another base-clogger on the basepaths. While Andruw Jones and Mark Kotsay aren't exactly the best hitters on the team, the platoon of those two has been working out just fine so far.
Also, the mixture of Ozzie Guillen and Manny Ramirez has the potential to become very volatile, very quickly. I cannot imagine what would happen if Ozzie felt Manny was not giving his best effort out there on the field (or better yet, on the basepaths). However, the club seems to click in spite of the distractions surrounding them (like the Guillen/Williams near fist-fight over the spot Ozzie's son was selected in this year's draft). Despite that, I'm sure that Manny Ramirez is one more distraction the Sox could do without. We'll see what happens with the Sox in the next month, since the waiver deadline is on August 31.
In the meantime, let's hope that the Sox can pull one out tomorrow and take two of three from the A's heading into this week's big series against Detroit!
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