Dodgers are on the Manny Ramirez clock
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Even when there’s no hard news, there’s news in Mannywood.
Scott Boras, who represents Manny Ramirez, isn’t saying how much money his client will actually demand as a free agent this winter. Dodgers Owner Frank McCourt and General Manager Ned Colletti aren’t saying how much they’ll offer Ramirez or when they’ll make him an offer.
As of Thursday night, Boras and the Dodgers hadn’t discussed Ramirez’s future. But news is leaking out, as it tends to at this time of the year. Call it the pre-negotiation, agents and
teams using the press to exchange messages and set some parameters for when they open formal talks.
The latest headline item came in a story by SI.com’s Jon Heyman, who cited “people familiar with the club’s thinking” to report that the Dodgers wanted to offer Ramirez a deal that would come close to matching Alex Rodriguez’s record annual average salary of $27.5 million but over a shorter period, perhaps only two years.
ESPN’s Buster Olney countered by citing his own sources, who told him that the Dodgers have had ‘no conversations either internally or externally, about money’ with any of their many free agents, which would include Ramirez.
McCourt spoke to 710 KSPN-AM this morning, saying that while he wants to re-sign Ramirez the slugger is “entitled to go where he wants.”
A lot of this is posturing, of course. Dollar figures and contract lengths that are loosely based in reality are being tossed around, the most recent estimates figuring Ramirez will ask for more than $20 million per season over five or six years. There will be more of this in the coming weeks, some of it true, some of it half-true, and some of it completely untrue, as the first major event of Ramirez’s free agency is fast approaching.
The Dodgers are on the clock.
Over the next three weeks or so, the Dodgers will have to make their first strategic decision on the matter, which is whether to offer him a contract in the 15-day window that starts the day after the end of the World Series. Only they can negotiate with him during that period.
What they’ll be forced to decide, in essence, is whether to set the market for Ramirez or let other teams do that.
If the Dodgers offer him a deal, whatever it is, Ramirez is unlikely to accept that on the spot. Boras will almost certainly use that offer as leverage when talking to other teams, making the Dodgers his pawn, at least until he has completed his research into what else is out there. If any team isn’t scared off by the Dodgers’ offer and pursue Ramirez, there could be a bidding war. The Dodgers would be driving up their own price.
For the Dodgers, the ideal situation would be for them not to make an offer, at least not a substantial one, and for Ramirez not to find much on the open market and crawl back to them. But that tactic is risky and could result in a public relations nightmare. Philadelphia could use Ramirez. So could the two New York teams. American League teams could offer Ramirez longer deals, as the DH could provide refuge for his 36-year-old knees. If the Dodgers don’t act quickly and boldly, and Ramirez signs elsewhere, McCourt and Colletti will be maligned for not acting with enough urgency.
Boras’ aura will undoubtedly affect the process.
The Dodgers are wary of baseball’s most powerful agent, enough so that they didn’t make an in-season approach to Boras client Derek Lowe about a contract extension. Predictably, McCourt and Colletti are mum on how they’ll appoach Boras and Ramirez.
Asked on Thursday if there was a plan in place -– not what the plan was, mind you, but simply if a plan existed -– Colletti declined to comment.
(Jon Weisman on the Dodger Thoughts website offers his own handy set of caveats.)
-- Dylan Hernandez
Top photo: Manny Ramirez at bat against the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 4 of the NLCS last week. Credit: Jed Jacobsohn / Getty Images
Inset: Scott Boras. Credit: Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times