BLUE JAYS 101

As Manny Ramirez attempts to make his return from a brief retirement from baseball, he is – as ESPN Deportes reports – weighing his options between the Oakland Athletics, Toronto Blue Jays, and Baltimore Orioles. It is intriguing that two AL East teams would be interested in Ramirez, but not the prior two (Boston and Tampa Bay) that he has already played for. Should Ramirez sign with any team this year, he will still be required to fulfill a 50 game suspension for his second career positive PED test last year.

It is difficult to see what the Jays – or any team really – could possibly hope to get out of Manny Ramirez. He will be nearly 40 years old at the open of the 2012 season and is hardly fit to play any position other than designated hitter at this point in his career (advanced fielding metrics grade him as one of the worst defensive outfielders of all time). While Manny proved he could still hit in his previous PED marred season (2010) with a .870 OPS in 90 games, it is difficult to see him being such a solid contributor after an entire year off and the prospect that PEDs were a driving force behind his statistics to begin with.

Toronto does have somewhat of a void at DH, but with a surplus of corner outfielders on the team it would've appeared that DH was a position that they were going to be able to fill without much trouble. If Ramirez is able to perform at a 2010 level, he may be worth something close to two wins above replacement for whomever he is DH-ing for, but is that really worth the price of potential clubhouse drama or another failed drug test? Not to mention the prospect of the money spent on him being completely wasted on a washed up former star who couldn't hack it anymore. 

Still, productive hitter or not, Ramirez is sure to bring plenty of intrigue to whichever team he ends up with this year.

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