Manny / Sammy

[Frayed Knot]

	AB	H	2B	HR	RBI	BB	K	BA	OBA	SLG
MANNY	564	174	37	42	126	85	112	309	399	598
SAMMY	579	181	30	54	135	103	155	312	416	648
SAMMY	458	116	19	30	76	52	120	254	330	499

OK, so what is this nonsense?
Well, line 1 is the average Manny Ramirez season over the last 3 years, the years he'd played at ages 31, 32 & 33.
- Line 2 is Lord Sammy of Sosa's 3 seasons at the same age
- Line 3 is the same Sammy but over the next 3 years - his age 34, 35 & 36 years ('03 - '05). In other words, his seasons at the same age that Manny will be for whoever picks up the remainder of his current deal.

So what does this prove?
Well nothing really, except to the extent that it points out what COULD happen. The same-age years are remarkably similar ... and then the bottom fell out of Sammy's career.
Just a cautionary note, in other words, at those - and lord I'm hearing a lot of them lately - who are acting as if the possibility of a downturn from Manny has never even entered their minds; "you can write in 140 RBIs every year"

[Elster88]

I'm assuming that Sammy was on steroids and using corked bats and that Manny is too dumb to use a needle or spell the word cork. Thus, the bottom won't fall out as quickly.

[nymr83]

Elster88 wrote: I'm assuming that Sammy was on steroids and using corked bats and that Manny is too dumb to use a needle or spell the word cork. Thus, the bottom won't fall out as quickly.

my thoughts exactly. that bat wasn't the ony thing he "corked."

[metirish]

I agree with Elster, although I was going to be a bit more subtle about it..

]"you can write in 140 RBIs every year"

Yeah that does scare me, he can't stay great forever..

[Frayed Knot]

Maybe that's a factor, and maybe not.
At this point we've got no evidence that Sammy was juicing any more or less than Manny - of all the guys caught so far as "public consensus" picked any of them in advance? - or to what extent they helped even if he was.
Of several known or strongly suspected users: Palmeiro, Bonds, Sheffield, Giambi, most are performing well as they age and Giambi bounced back quite nicely.

[Elster88]

I was mostly kidding. I really just wanted to make fun of Sammy for taking steroids and Manny for being dumb.

But I do think that steroids were a factor in Sammy's rise to stardom and subsequent fall. Do I think that means that Manny will necessarily be a stud for the next three years? Of course not. Am I willing to take the risk with the Wilpons' money? Yeah, pretty much.

I'd rather have a first baseman, but I be thinkin that the Nady trade was part of the preliminary preparations for trading for Manny.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'm assuming the assumption that Sammy was isn't all that much safer than the chances that Manny was. Dumb or not.

[Elster88]

Edgy DC wrote: I'm assuming the assumption that Sammy was isn't all that much safer than the chances that Manny was. Dumb or not.

Of course neither assumption was necessarily correct. Geez can a guy have some fun or not?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Well, sure. I just thought there was grain of seriousness in your jocular assmumption.

I wasn't piling on, just typing and submitting slowly. Neither your prior post nor FK's eixted when I started typing.

Let's see how many posts snuck in while I was typing this.

[Elster88]

Yeah, I should've put in an SC meter. I think the main confusion comes from Nymr (apparently) taking me completely seriously, making it seem like I was serious.

[nymr83]

i take the sammy is on steroid talk seriously, and i believe it is a good reason not to believe manny will follow his career path.

[Guest Rotblatt]

There's really no comparison to Sammy & Manny, IMO. Sammy's career is full of peaks and valleys. The only real consistent is his strikeouts. Manny, on the other hand, has just been consistently one of the best hitters in baseball.

One example is OPS+. Since his first full season at the age of 23, Manny's OPS+ never gone below 143 & never above 190 (156 average). At the same ages, Sammy's OPS went as low as 98 and as high as 201 (129 average over his career). And there's some extreme fluxuation around those two benchmarks.

So in short, while their peaks were vaguely similar, Sosa's not nearly the player Manny is. Manny will probably decline over the next three years, but I suspect it will be relatively gradual.

[Frayed Knot]

Manny was the better young hitter than Sammy no question, although Sammy could at least field and run & throw at one point.
Thing is, you can make the argument that by their early 30's Sammy was having better seasons ... right up until he fell into the abyss.

And no, I'm not expecting Manny to fall that hard that fast. Some - Sheffield, Palmiero, Bonds - have survived quite nicely into baseball "old age". Still others (yeah I'm looking at you Robbie Alomar) decline much faster and only rarely does the fan - or even the expert - see it coming. Until it happens of course at which point legions will come out of the woodwork claiming they absolutely knew all along. Many of whom will be the same ones claiming Omar should "do whatever it takes" to get him.

[Willets Point]

Manny Sammy-larities.

[Guest Edgy DC]

All Dominicans age at the same rate.

[Frayed Knot]

I thought I'd update this to reflect a Manny vs Carlos comparison of the last 3 years. The numbers shown represent each player's most recent 3-year average.

Delgado and Ramirez are the same age (Carlos = 3 weeks younger) so their last 3 seasons can be looked at as equivelents.

	AB	H	2B	HR	RBI	BB	K	BA	OBA	SLG
MANNY	564	174	37	42	126	85	112	309	399	598
CARLOS	516	151	35	36	120	83	124	292	390	575

So why do I like this one where I was mostly against a Manny deal?
- the perception at least that the price for Manny would be higher in terms of players: ie. Milledge plus others
- they're taking on some 30% less money: savings of $17 mil over 3 years
- while neither is a defensive prize, I'll take a below average 1st baseman over a train-wreck of an outfielder, particularly an aging one.
- Delgado fills a more obvious hole. As much as we want Jake to flourish at 1st, it's still mostly just a wish. We've already got a decent OF and acquiring Manny would push either him or Cliff into RF; hardly ideal. And then we'd still have to fill 1st, C & closer.
- Manny's "baggage": ie bad baserunning, loafing, "space-outs", taking games off, etc.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Those numbers also aren't park adjusted. I show them each putting up an OPS+ of 160 over the last three years.