4 comments I Post Entirely too Much on Manny Ramirez

It's part of the sacrifice you make, posting on a blog like this. You hate the saturation and simplification of the media by morons posting about the same beaten to death topics. Manny. A-Rod. The Cowboys. Brett Favre. Tom Brady. Punting on fourth down. The lack of basketball "fundamentals" (ie. white guys). And so on. You hate it but every day you post on it, you read stuff about it to post on it, and as a consequence, maybe you, we, are part of the problem. I don't know. Complex issues in the arena of journalism, not just in sports, but in general - Obama used the word "pig" and it's dissected for days, Sarah Palin is applauded for being...I don't even know why she was ever applauded. We fixate on the little things and the critique of that fixation seems to only feed the beast. This is a difficult thing to face, the accountability of we, the public, to the standard of media we receive. The answer is not easy to find.

Unlike this position. An answer on whether Manny Ramirez is MVP is easy to find. For those who don't wish to read further the answer is no...that's my basic point here.

Manny being … MVP?

let's not even bother this time.

No, not him. Anybody but him.

too late, Scoop, you've already introduced yourself, right below the column, crushing dreams of those who still value the written word everywhere.

There it goes: "Manny Aristides Ramirez, the 2008 NL MVP." That's a hard one to absorb, ain't it? Maybe too big a blue pill to swallow. Especially if you live outside the 323 area code. "That dude being honored as the MVP? Over our dead bodies." Let the church say, Amen!

Well …

According to the Book of Torreians, the audacity of Manny Ramirez winning the MVP award is not as insane as some people think the man himself is.

not as insane as some people think the man himself is. There are so many qualifiers in this...comparison? Is it a comparison? It's barely intelligible. And that's before we get to the "Book of Torreians".

Even though there's a better chance of Sarah Silverman getting an Emmy (oops, it happened!)

you know, ever since Ben made that excellent point about Bill Simmon's nearly pathological compulsion to compare sports stuff to pop stuff, I've been obsessively looking out for this. What is the connection here? Obviously there is none, it doesn't belong in the column, but stripping it of it's "I'm hip!" wannabe reference, it's trying to make the subtle point that crazy shit happens, and this is somehow substantive evidence for Ramirez winning MVP. People do this stuff all the time; "well if Justin Morneau can win MVP!", well yeah, but he was a terrible choice. We shouldn't encourage terrible choices and we shouldn't be like "if Sarah Silverman can win an Emmy, maybe David Delluci can win the MVP!". No, this is not an argument, even a silly, throwaway argument. Bad judgements, poor decisions, unforgivable choices in this field over there, do not justify nor increase the probability of equally bad judgements, poor decisions, and unforgivable choices over here.

for Manny, it actually should happen. Actually, if this were an episode of "Boston Legal" and William Shatner and James Spader were Manny's legal team handling his case for MVP, they'd both be on the office balcony with celebratory stogies wearing No. 99 Dodger jerseys and blue caps with faux dreads.

hey guys, you like TV right? You're kids. Kids with their TV's hahaha...always with the TV's. Well if you like TV, you're gonna LOVE Page 2. We're totally down with you're..."MTV" culture...dude! We hang out and drink manly drinks with like, hot women. And we like, go to Vegas and gamble, which is pretty out there for fringe social activities that are broadly accepted in mainstream culture! Bill Simmons even mentions porn sometimes! Woah! Radical!

The case should be closed.

But since it's not, let's crunch some numbers of the players mentioned most often as MVP candidates:

• Ryan Howard: .245 BA/46 HR/141 RBI/.334 OBP/.529 SLG/.863 OPS
• Carlos Delgado: .273 BA/37 HR/110 RBI/.355 OBP/.521 SLG/.875 OPS
• Albert Pujols: .348 BA/34 HR/106 RBI/.453 OBP/.631 SLG/1.084 OPS

well I haven't heard anyone advocate Ryan Howard. Literally no one. Basically Chase Utley is still the best player on that team, even just offensively, and he's an excellent second baseman. Delgado I have heard get some press, but it's basically in the vein of people knowing they are making a ridiculous argument based on watching him for like, two weeks. They already anticipate the criticism. It's the kind of MVP campaign that exists purely to make sure no one ignores the fact this guy is playing well, and he is, full props to Delgado, but he's patently not the MVP.

It's Pujols, the answer is Pujols. These stat lines actually put it very well, let's get the engraver out now.

All three front-running candidates for NL MVP have offensive numbers that extend over the entire season, not just the 48 games Ramirez has played since he slipped on Lasorda blue.

But without even getting caught up in the .399 batting average, the 16 home runs and 49 RBIs he's put up since his Red Sox divorce -- or the .493 on-base percentage, .751 slugging percentage and 1.243 OPS -- his season-long numbers provide a part of the story that most are missing (Fox's Mark Kriegel made a similar argument).

• Manny Ramirez: .331 BA/36 HR/117 RBI/.429 OBP/.600 SLG/1.030 OPS

good, but worse than Pujols, across the board in meaningful categories. And then there is the whole, 48 games as a National Leaguer which just has to count against him. Maybe that's unfair, but he hasn't proven he is the best player in the National League this year because he hasn't even played everyone in that League. It would be embarrassing if he won it.

When compared to Pujols, it's like trying to tell the difference between Henry Paulsen and Arthur Slugworth.

I don't know who those people are but I bet I'd be very impressed if I did.

Then there's that small thing called "impact." Some call it "making the players around you better"; others say "making your team better."

have you ever read a column, that used quotation marks for reasons other than to quote someone, that you liked? I never have, it's a repugnant literary move, it smacks of condescention and a lack of creativity. Yeah there's impact, there's hitting balls hard and making great plays (defensively, where Pujols is awesome and Manny...isn't) and helping to build a cohesive unit, and playing through pain and emboding sportsmanship. There's this kind of stuff, we're well aware they are relevant to the MVP debate, and we didn't need sarcastic little quotation marks to get it - thanks.

Of all the aforementioned MVP candidates listed, none has impacted their team the way Manny has the Dodgers. This is the one factor that sets him apart from all the other pretenders in this year's race.

did someone say "Win Shares"?

These numbers are three weeks old, I'm sure Scoop has the latest.

Pujols has 31 win shares. Manny has 28, but here's the deal, only 13 in the NL. That's the impact he made on the Los Angeles Dodgers...13 wins. Pujols...31 wins. Obviously the number is very high proportionate to the appearances he made, but that's the point! Ramirez was worth 13 wins to his team, Pujols was worth 31 wins to the Cardinals. And you wanna lecture me about impact?

True, it's only been 48 games of impact, but he's done more for one team in 48 games than any of the others have done (with possible the exception of Pujols) over the season.

he's done much less for that one team than almost any name player in the NL has done. Pujols especially. Berkman has 35. Beltran has 27. Utley has 26. Brian McCann has 19. Pick a player, throw a dart at NL rosters, you'll hit someone who has been worth more wins to their team than Manny Ramirez has for the Dodgers. And furthermore, the moment you brought "impact" for the Dodgers into this, you forfeited the right to use his season long numbers in a meaningful way. You are in effect, conceding that they do not stack up to Pujols, which would be a good idea because they don't.

More numbers:

6: Number of games the Dodgers have played over .500 since Manny arrived.
500: Dodgers winning percentage before Manny joined the team.
519: Dodgers winning percentage today.
2: Number of games the Dodgers were out of first place when Manny got there.2: Number of games they now lead the NL West.
274: Andre Ethier's batting average July 31.
361: Andre Ethier's batting average since Manny joined the lineup (of late, Ethier has been hitting second, Ramirez third).
16-5: Dodgers' record since Jeff Kent was injured Aug. 29.
25: The number Andruw Jones wears for the Dodgers that Manny has mercifully made you forget.

well how about that. Hoisted by my own petard! Your numbers have won me over Sir. I wholeheatrtedly support your endorsement for all these candidates, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Arizona Diamondbacks, Andre Either, not Jeff Kent and the number 25.

Ramirez himself told the Los Angeles Times, "It's nice that some people think I deserve [the MVP]. I'd like to win it, but I have to be realistic. Someone who was only here for two months doesn't deserve it. It should go to someone who played the six months of the season."

Gotta love political correctness.

if there's one thing Manny Ramirez has been famous for, it's political correctness, subtlety and tact, gotta hand it to you there Scoop - spot on.

But Manny himself is wrong in his episode of humility. He has played all six months; it just hasn't been with the same team or in the same league. He's produced. Plain and simp. He's put up the numbers over the course of the entire season (148 games played and counting) that are on par with if not superior to any player up for the honor.

plain and simp.

Yeah, he has played with different teams, reducing his impact on either dramatically, lessing his impact on any given team, making him less valuable. Scoop Jackson is claiming that the most valuable player in the MLB this year was traded away from the defending champs - they decided they didn't want him any more. He doesn't even claim they are superior numbers, after just calling the remainder of the field "contenders". That's self contradic.

Plus, he's done the one thing that seemed impossible when this season began: He made the Dodgers relevant again.

puh-leeze.

When owner Frank McCourt and GM Ned Colletti brought Joe Torre to Los Angeles, they figured Torre's name and cachet would be enough to get the people in La-La Land to care about the Dodgers. That didn't necessarily happen (in fact, Dodgers attendance has spiked since the Ramirez trade).

attendence has nothing to do with being the Most Valuable Player. AT ALL. These are the same people that criticise VORP. No, no, don't use EqA, use attendence figures.

Then the Andruw Jones move blew up worse than Barry Zito in Frisco. And to top it all off, the Dodgers weren't even the best team in the weakest division in baseball.

Barry Zito and Andruw Jones and attendence and Joe Torre and the interest in the Lakers and Andre Either and William Shatner, they AREN'T RELEVANT.

Then he came. And all of a sudden everything changed. With an extremely heavy emphasis on the word "everything."

...and I...love him! He fills my soul with wonder and awe, and when he walked into the room I just had to have him, and I instantly became wet.

Heavy emphasis on everything. It's like a sneaky way of saying "literally" when you mean "figuratively". Not everything, most things remain the same. I shit you not, the biggest factor on the Dodgers winning the NL West was Webb (4.02, 9-5) and Haren (3.85, 8-4) having relatively poor periods from July-September. As you yourself pointed out, the Dodgers have played just .519 baseball - they are not a very good team.

And here's one more number to think about:

hold onto your seatbelts kids.

You can't see it, can you? It's there. It's that invisible, impossible-to-define-or-determine number that represents the intangible. That invisible number that changes the culture of a team inside a clubhouse and spreads itself over an entire city. It's that number that helps makes major league baseball better and so interesting. Look at the All-Stars Ryan Howard has on his roster; look at the superstars Carlos Delgado has on the Mets; true, Pujols has carried the Cards, but they are in fourth place and the unwritten rule in sports is that the MVP award usually goes to a player on a playoff contender. But Manny Ramirez, in two months, resurrected one of the most important and storied franchises in baseball.

I can't see it Scoop. Only you can. Open our eyes! Tell me more about your invisible numbers or the magical power of not being Jeff Kent or the fact that playing 48 games makes you more valuable than playing 150 odd. No, I can't see it, because you can't demonstrate it, it's not fucking there. The case is not there, and if it was it would be put a lot more elegantly than you are capable of. Pujols is awesome, he truly is, Berkman has been even better, and they didn't get traded from their teams and played in all the games. They weren't missing their pixie dust, ok? They really weren't. Make the case, but don't pretend we're all fucking idiots for not seeing this non-existent factor, which you readily admit is not apparent and acting like you are receiving your MVP vote like Moses found the commandments.

For that unseeable, intangible number, Manny Ramirez deserves the NL MVP.

unseeable. You see it, right? Therefore it's not seeable, you possess some special, dare I say, magical ability. You think he deserves it because he's more interesting than Pujols, I guarentee it. If Albert Pujols married a stripper and racked up gambling debts and...yes, had a cocaine problem, or got traded because his team hated him, or retired and then unretired, in short, if he was a better "story", you would want him for MVP. Because you don't pay attention to Pujols and fawn over Ramirez, and Favre, and Hamilton, that is why you pick these guys, because it's not about baseball to you, it's about what can hold your goldfish attention span in this highlight a minute sports Universe. That, Scoop Jackson, is why you want Manny to win the MVP, and you hide behind this screen of intangibles because if someone ever actually challenged you you can call them a Phillistine and hater of the game of baseball.

It's a tired old move, and it's time we fucking evolved beyond this rubbish.

It doesn't help his case when even he doesn't believe it will happen. Or that he doesn't feel he deserves it.

At the beginning of the season, all Manny Ramirez said he wanted was to win a Gold Glove.

Pujols already has one, a side of the argument you have completely neglected.

That was just MBM: Manny Being Manny, again. Little did he -- or rest of us -- know that this year there'd be something so much bigger in store for him.

Scoop being Scoop. That is - terrible.