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So Ned reportedly made a play for Manny, but it surely is a two-year deal for $55 million.  A nice move, but does anyone seriously think Manny is going to take that?  Not with Boras as his agent!  Good thing the Dodgers cleared some salary by buying out Penny’s contract for $2 million (not a pretty penny! sorry, couldn’t help myself…) as they’ll need that for either Ramirez or Sabathia.

On a related note, Blue Notes had an interesting post relating to comments from Steve Henson at Yahoo! Sports on the Padres’ asking price for Jake Peavy:

The Dodgers would be long shots because the Padres are loathe to help their intra-divisional neighbors to the north. It would take Clayton Kershaw or Jonathan Broxton, plus DeWitt and Ethier, just to pique the Padres’ interest.

JUST TO PIQUE THEIR INTEREST!!! Whatever…could you seriously imagine playing the Pad’s and seeing Kershaw on the mound with DeWitt and Eithier behind him?  Unbelievable.

So ESPN is reporting that the $20-$25 million per year isn’t the issue, it’s the length of the contract, with Ned pushing for two years instead of five or six.

My take is that this is a smart move by Ned for several reasons: one, this is a negotiation. We all know a five or six-year deal for Manny makes absolutely no sense for a NL team. Where’s he going to hit when his knees break down? At 33, Manny’s no spring chicken! Two, the team has been burned by long-term contracts in the past. Does Darren Dreifort’s infamous five-year, $55 million contract in 2000 ring any bells? Personally, I’d take Manny for three years at A-Rod money. He proved a lot to me during his short stint in LA, and the effect he had on the players both on and off the field was undeniable.

Plus, Ned has shown that he likes short-term contracts while in LA, and it probably kept him from getting fired this off-season. Could you imagine if the Andruw Jones and Jason Schmidt deals were for 4+ years??

I’m sure we’ll now see Scott Boras start talking about mythical offers from “unnamed clubs” in an effort to get Ned to bid against himself, but I think we’re long past the Boras shenanigans of old working in 2008 (God, at least I hope we are).

Your move, Manny…

Fasten your seat belts Dodger fans, because we’re in for a whopper of a series against the Snakes. I estimate that the Dodgers need to at least take two out of three this weekend in order to stay in the race. The reason I say this is, looking ahead to next week, 13 of the last 22 games are on the road for the Dodgers (a place that has not treated them well - they’re 28-40 away from Chavez Ravine in 2008).

Still, the team just looks happy! Watch them after a huge hit or home run - they’re like little kids, jumping around in the dugout. I really think that a lot of the credit for this goes to Manny Ramirez, but I’ll have more on Manny later in the weekend. In the meantime, let’s keep the streak alive and LET”S GO DODGERS!!!!!

Jayson Stark over at ESPN.com wrote an excellent article on the on-again, off-again nature of Manny Ramirez this season and the dangerous precedent a $100M contract would set within MLB.

Here is a snippet:

Life sure is beautiful these days on Planet Manny. Uhhh, a little too beautiful.

Hey, we couldn’t be happier for those Los Angeles Dodgers, who are selling about 30,000 tickets a day now that they’ve moved their home games to Planet Manny. But we’d like to ask one little question of all those people in L.A. who are showering their man Manny Ramirez with so much love:

What the heck are you cheering for?

For a man who decided his personal net worth was more important than an entire franchise and all the people who played with him, covered for him, depended on him?

Sheez. How sad is that?

“It really bothers me,” one GM said this week of the Manny-mania lovefest that has unfolded in L.A. “What he did in Boston was criminal. Now he goes there, and everything’s OK? No, sir. It doesn’t change the fact that how he got there was criminal.”

Read the entire article HERE.

Watching the Phillies complete the series sweep against the Dodgers last night (nationally televised, no less) I did a double-take. Sure, I knew Manny Ramirez hadn’t delivered an RBI for the Dodgers in the previous six outings and that Dodger hitting was in a slump overall, but I really believed that they were all trying. And then…I saw a shot hit to the left field corner and Manny Ramirez jogging…yes JOGGING to go get it.

Not only have the Dodgers slid back into pre-Manny form, it appears that Manny has also slid back into pre-Dodgers form.

Even Torre commented on the phenomenon, calling Ramirez “tired”.

Now, all of the Dodgers woes can’t be placed at the feet of Manny Ramirez. Nor can Manny take credit for all of L.A.’s success since his arrival. However, Manny does seem to be a pretty reliable barometer of the team’s current and future performance. That barometer is currently pointing toward failure as the Dodgers approach a crucial series in Arizona against the first-place NL West D-backs.

Not all is lost, however. Basides the Diamondbacks, the Dodgers won’t play an above-.500 team. Perhaps the less-mediocre team will carry the day. The Dodgers are only 65-55 with 31 games left after all