Manny, Sox, together forever

The Red Sox gave themselves a deadline to trade Manny Ramirez. It was today. It has passed. And Manny is still a Sox.

I was talking to Sarah on the phone the other night about (what else?) Ramirez. She was guessing that the Sox probably wouldn’t trade Ramirez. The Sox were asking for a lot for him and there didn’t seem to be any takers.

Sarah even went as far as to suggest that the Sox were asking for so much because they didn’t want any teams to accept their offer. They wanted to go back to Manny, yet again, and say, “See, we tried to trade you, but we couldn’t.”

I think she’s probably right.

A few thoughts on Manny and the Sox:

1. The Sox are asking for too much for Ramirez. But for good reason. The Yankees got three young arms from the Tigers in exchange for Gary Sheffield, who is basically a slightly less talented and less crazy version of Manny, except Manny doesn’t have any history of steroid use.

The Tigers gave up WAY too much for Shef. And the Red Sox would be crazy not to demand as much in return for Ramirez. But, unfortunately, no teams seem interested in repeating the Tigers’ mistake.

2. Speaking of the Yankees, they’re having a pretty good offseason. They managed to get way more for Sheffield than he was worth, plus they got rid of one of their ‘roids guys, plus they added a bunch of young arms to their farm system. They’ve still got the best lineup in baseball (it’s not even close) and next season they are looking at a staff that could include Carl Pavano, Ted Lilly, Chien Ming Wang, Mike Mussina and Randy Johnson. Oh, and that Japanese guy.

3. If the Red Sox keep Manny and sign Matsuzaka, their payroll is going to be insane. Still not as high as the Yankees, but really, really high. Drew’s getting $14 mil per, Manny gets $20 mil per, Lugo is getting $10 mil per, and Matsuzaka figures to get about $12 mil per. So that’s $56 next year on just those four guys, not to mention what they’re paying Beckett, Schilling, Ortiz, Varitek and Coco. Yikes.