Manny Being Underrated?
Manny Ramirez was humbled this winter. The dreadlocked one pulled in over $23 million last year and has career earnings topping $200 million, but he inked a one-year, $2M deal with the Tampa Bay Rays after a 2010 season sullied by three DL stints and a power outage. Even compared to his DH brethren signing single-year deals on the free agent market — Jack Cust, Hideki Matsui, Vladimir Guerrero, Jim Thome — Manny got less money.
Ramirez’s stock is similarly down in fantasy leagues. MockDraftCentral lists Manny’s ADP 42nd among those with outfield eligibility, and 156th overall. Jason Kubel, Ryan Ludwick and even Carlos Lee place ahead of Ramirez. Is it possible that Manny is actually underrated at this late point in his career? To answer that question, let’s review Ramirez’s injury-marred 2010 and try to project whether he could have a quality year in the land of cowbells.
Manny logged just 320 plate appearances between the Dodgers and the White Sox last year, serving two DL stints for a calf strain and another for a pulled hamstring. His plate discipline remained superb, as Ramirez walked 14.4 percent of the time, but his prodigious power was absent. Manny posted a .162 Isolated Power, his lowest mark in meaningful big league playing time and barely above the .145 MLB average.
Perhaps due to his lower body injuries, Manny didn’t turn on the ball with the same authority last season. Here are his spray splits from 2009 and 2010, as well as the MLB averages for right-handed hitters:
Ramirez pulled the ball less often in 2010, hitting more to center instead. On pitches that he did pull, his wOBA dipped .150 points, from .593 to .443. That’s still above the .419 big league average for righty hitters, but not by all that much. An uptick in grounders hit to the pull side (from 50.5 to 61.9) certainly did him no favors.
While Manny’s pop was modest, he was still an excellent hitter overall — Ramirez batted .298/.409/.460, good for a .382 wOBA that ranked in the top 25 among batters with at least 300 PA. Hampered by a bad hammy and calf, Manny still managed to be a major asset at the plate, if not the absolute terror we came to know from his days in Cleveland and Boston.
What might 2011 hold for Manny? Here are Ramirez’s projections for the upcoming season:
ZiPS: .249/.374/.436, .187 ISO
PECOTA: .268/.379/.458, .190 ISO
Oliver: .283/.385/.481, .198 ISO
Chances are, Ramirez’s average falls. His near-.300 figure last year came with a .354 batting average on balls in play, high even by Manny’s standards (.339 career BABIP). Still, the ZiPS batting average seems exceptionally low and would entail a big drop in BABIP. All three systems foresee more extra-base thunder, with Oliver being the optimist.
While the Trop isn’t known as a favorable venue for righty power hitters (94 HR park factor, according to StatCorner), I think the Oliver forecast is entirely reasonable for Manny. To be sure, there’s risk with a 38-year-old player with bad wheels. But as a DH in Tampa, Ramirez won’t go anywhere near leather. He qualifies as an outfielder in fantasy leagues, but he won’t tax his hammies and calves trying to track down flies with the Rays. Could he still get hurt? Sure. His chances of staying healthy increase in the DH role, however.
Manny Ramirez is no longer the hitter who routinely put up slugging percentages north of .600 during his peak. But that doesn’t mean he’s finished. With better health as Tampa’s DH, he should easily provide more value than the Kubels, Ludwicks and Lees of the world.
A recent graduate of Duquesne University, David Golebiewski is a contributing writer for Fangraphs, The Pittsburgh Sports Report and Baseball Analytics. His work for Inside Edge Scouting Services has appeared on ESPN.com and Yahoo.com, and he was a fantasy baseball columnist for Rotoworld from 2009-2010. He recently contributed an article on Mike Stanton's slugging to The Hardball Times Annual 2012. Contact David at david.golebiewski@gmail.com and check out his work at Journalist For Hire.
Ludwick over Manny in mock drafts? Blech. Underrated sounds right. I’d rather have 350-400 really good PA’s than 550 terribly mediocre ones.
Dan actually found an error in the parameters for his projection of Ramirez after a bunch of people complained that it seemed exceptionally pessimistic. He fixed it and ZiPS came back with .259/.369/.458, which actually still isn’t very good but does look more plausible. I’m actually a little less optimistic about his ability for next year than many other “sabermetrically-inclined” people seem to be. Tropicana Field isn’t a good place for an aging hitter to regain home run power, and I think that his batting average will similarly fall substantially as a result of the park and his age as well as simple regression.
Also, I forgot to mention that he’s moving back to the somewhat more difficult environment of the American League after two seasons in the National League that presumably hid some of the aging. Dan says that in in the NL, and in the higher-offense AL stadiums, ZiPS would put Manny above .270.
I don’t understand why people automatically assume the pitching is better in the AL just because the hitting tougher (DH). Petco, AT&T, and Dodger stadium are 3 very pitcher friendly parks. The starting rotations of the NL West easily stack up against those of the AL East–the Yankees’ starting 5 is downright bad, the Orioles and Jays are filled with unprovens, and the Sox starters have a good bit to prove as well.
It isn’t just an assumption. Yes, people sometimes fall into the trap of assuming that the change for hitters matches that for hitters, but it’s demonstrably true that hitters who move from the AL to the NL perform better than those who move from the NL to the AL. Also, be careful in how you’re looking at the pitchers – pitchers will have a worse FIP in the AL not only because the overall level of competition is higher but also, obviously, because the presence of the DH deflates their strikeouts and increases their walks.
” With better health as Tampa’s DH’
Thats a huge assumption for a 38 year old.
It’s an easier assumption to make when he will not have to put his body through some of the spectacular defensive plays he used to make in the outfield!
/sarcasm
This actually makes a great. I still see Manny hitting around .290 with 15-20 homers, maybe less because of the Trop but Manny is not done yet. People just tend to think that because he was on steroids and because he’s 38 but he Still get the job done fore sure
He wasn’t on steroids. He was on me.
You forgot to mention whether or not he’ll be on steroids this season. He obviously was just coming off a cycle when he was caught with estrogen not long ago. For a 38 year old this type of thing could make a huge difference in terms of production and health.