The Dodgers picked up Manny Ramirez from the Boston Red Sox. This was an excellent move by Ned Colletti (finally). In exchange, we gave up Andy LaRoche and Bryan Morris. LaRoche was widely known as one of our top minor league prospects but Dodger management was never really enamored by him. Morris, our second 1st round selection in 2006 was out all of last year with Tommy John surgery. His stuff is known to be great, but he's still a couple years away from making the big show.
In addition to picking up one of the best hitters of our time, the Red Sox are paying all of his salary for the rest of the year. Plus, to compensate for the loss of our two prospects, if we don't resign Ramirez, we'll pick up two first round sandwich picks for losing him.
Who knows how this will work long term, but this move was definitely needed. Now, if we can get some of our guys healthy again, our lineup won't look too bad.
My August lineup:
Matt Kemp (CF)
Andre Ethier (RF)
Russell Martin (C)
Manny Ramirez (LF)
Jeff Kent (2B)
James Loney (1B)
Nomar Garciaparra (SS)
Casey Blake (3B)
* Give Pierre starts depending on matchups. I'd start Pierre against tough lefties to give Ethier the day off, and tough righties (Peavy, Webb), to give Kemp's strikeout prone bat a rest. Pierre's can be used as a late inning pinch runner
** Two options with Andruw Jones- Either DFA him and outright to AAA, or use him only as a late inning defensive replacement. Better to cut bait than continuing to give him a spot on the 25 man roster.
*** If we can get Rafael Furcal back in September, that would be a huge lift for us. When healthy, he's our best overall player in my opinion. His absence has killed us these past three months.
