Hanley Ramirez Moves to Hollywood
Hanley Ramirez’s trade to the Dodgers was a move by Miami to transfer the salary of an under performing player with the hopes of putting that money to better use. With the move though, Ramiriez’s fantasy value changes very little. His new teammates will see some increase in value, but expectations should be tempered.
Rameriz’s fantasy value really doesn’t change much for several reasons:
1. The production around him will be similar because the Dodgers are averaging 3.9 runs per game (12th in NL) and the Marlins are averaging 3.8 runs per game (14th in NL).
2. The HR park factor for each home park is the same (98).
3. It is tough to tell how his SB chance will change. Both the teams do attempt more SB than the league average value(85 SB). The Marlins have attempted 119 SB to date while the Dodgers stand at 95 attempts.
With all that information, Hanley may see a small bump in his Runs and RBIs and the rest of his stats will likely stay constant.
The other change with Hanley on the Dodgers is that he will hopefully give them a better bat at SS or 3B. Here are the triple slash lines for him and the values for all the Dodger starters at those positions so far in 2012.
Ramirez: .246/.322/.428
SS: .232/.285/.320
3B: .246/.306/.369
It looks like the best position for Ramirez to take over would be SS, but that will probably not be the case. Dee Gordon started the season as the Dodgers’ SS and played in 78 games before tearing a UCL in his right thumb. Offensively, Gordon was a distaster this year hitting .229/.280/.282. Since going down, journeyman Luis Cruz has taken over at SS and hit .241/.297/.448. Not great, but better than Gordon.
I think the disaster for the Dodgers has been 3B. Here are the number of games Juan Uribe, Jerry Hairston and Adam Kennedy have started at 3B over the last 14 games.
Hairston – 5
Uribe – 5
Kennedy – 4
Additonally Cruz, Justin Sellers, Ivan De Jesus and Elian Herrera have started at 3B for the Dodgers this season. Ramirez would bring some nice stability and production to the position that has been missing all season.
Of all the players that Ramirez could oust out of job, only Gordon and his SBs have any fantasy value. Gordon’s injury is really going to limit his playing time to the last month of the season.
Ramirez would be an upgrade to either position, but we are no longer looking at the 2007-2010 version of him. He isn’t putting up 0.300/0.400/0.500 values. He is now the older model that is producing 0.250/0.333/0.425 numbers. They are good, but not game changing. The rest of the team may see a small bump in their Runs and RBIs, but nothing real enough to really change any player’s value.
The Hanley Ramirez trade looks on the surface to be fairly significant, but its fantasy implications are small. The only possible change may be a few more runs scored by the Dodgers.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
Here’s hoping for an “F-U, stick it to the Marlins, I’m not done” tear to close the season…
The real change is that he will likely retain SS in keeper leagues next year.
This is the point I was going to make. I have him for $35 in ottoneu and was almost certainly going to dump him if he was just a 3b heading to next season. If he retains Ss eligibility that will be huge.
Effort matters. Dodgers should get a different player than Miami did of late.
I have no stake at all here, but I expect a spike of some sort. Also, Hanley’s no longer distracted by trade buzz.
Also, LA’s runs per game with Kemp is what matters. Without Kemp is irrelevant.
There is another dimension to this runs-per-game point too. The average RPG in Miami was with Hanley in the lineup. The average RPG in LA was without Hanley (and Kemp sometimes) in their lineup.
As far as the intangibles, while LeBron and his buddies make a big deal about South Beach, it does not compare with the spotlight in LA. It seems that this might engage Hanley more as well.
It would be interesting to see what Hanley’s numbers look like pre and post his altercation with then Marlin Manager Fredi Gonzalez. As I recall Andre Dawson and the Press had a field day going after Hanley’s reputation.
This change of team could be just the fresh start his career needs to get back to his previous 0.300/0.400/0.500 values.
I don’t think it’s likely, but couldn’t Ramirez revert to being elite ala David Wright?
Last night was a promising start, but I agree, it will take more than a full season’s worth of good results to proclaim his re-born Superstar qualities are back.
I forgot to mention that even in his excellent 2009 season, Hanley was ripped by, I believe, Uggla, for not playing thorough injuries or showing enough heart for the team. Kinda difficult to see how batting .342 OBP .410 and Slugging .540 for a shortstop could ever be looked at as dogging it. I’m not saying his physical ailments, left shoulder injury and operations, aren’t sufficient enough reason fpr his regression, just that psychologically Hanley’s battering from the likes of Andre Dawson and others in the media, may well have caused part of his regression. will be interesting to see if Hanley regains his prior Elite Status.
I think Mattingly is going to be aware of helping Hanley mentally… aside from the change in venue and going from a team where it’s obvious he was unwanted to a team where he’s wanted, I think Mattingly is going to put him at SS to encourage him that this is a place where he can fit.
I bet he goes on a tear.