Let me give you another example of the Red Sox propaganda machine hard at work. Peter Gammons (I know, big surprise) posted an ESPN Insider article on Friday in which he discusses the Pedro Alvarez situation and includes some more shots at Manny. Check this out:
Management people point out that Boras proudly orchestrated the Manny Ramirez shutdown in Boston and, as Boras has told GMs, got Ramirez where he wanted him in Los Angeles. Getting a player to opt out in the middle of his contract and essentially refuse to honor what he’d signed isn’t easy, but the Red Sox are 16-8 since the trade, and, when they scroll down the ESPN.com sortable stats, find that Jason Bay has more runs created than Ramirez.
Unlike Gammons, I actually went to ESPN’s sortable stats and did some sorting.
As I mentioned in “Who wrote Bill Shaikin’s column?”, Manny hit .347/.473/.587/1.060 for the Red Sox in July. How is that not honoring his contract, especially with Big Papi out of the lineup?
Here’s August 1st-31st for Manny and Jason Bay:
Player AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
Ramirez 106 21 44 7 0 9 25 18 18 415 508 736 1.244
Bay 111 22 35 6 2 4 29 8 26 315 358 514 871
Not to take anything away from Jason Bay — he had a fine August — but to suggest that his fine August was significantly better than Manny’s in any way is just Red Sox propaganda of the worst kind.
I like Peter Gammons and his writing; he seems like a personable guy. But this is just blatant and willfully wrong.
