Ned Colletti finally gets his present and Manny Ramirez gets his cake. Or something like that.  Manny is going back to LA at $45 mil for 2 years.  Another win for Boras, who will now have more funds to continue development on his arch-villian lunar lair.

The Dodgers were in a no win situation.  Without Manny, they are not clearly the class of the weak NL West.  Since making the playoffs is worth a haul of cash, Manny’s threat of retirement has to carry some weight.  On the other hand, there were clearly no bidders even at 2 years/$11 (I was offering Manny 2y /$10 to write for Nerd Baseball, or at least should have been).  I’m not sure it would have killed the Dodgers to hold out on 2y/$40 mil for a few more weeks of Spring Training.

Money aside, I expect Manny to continue crushing the ball.  He can’t keep up 219 OPS+ he put up in LA last year, but his career average is 155.  Even if you ding him for being old, he could still easily be in the 140 range and be one of the best hitters in MLB.  His UZR was even respectable last year (better with the Sox than the Dodgers, which suprises me, since he supposedly dogging it with Boston).  For a comparison of how good Manny is at the plate, consider that the big free agent prize this year, Mark Teixeira, has a career OPS+ of 134 and a career high of 151, lower than Manny’s career average.  Sure defense is part of the picture with Teixeira, but with the bat, Manny’s peers are few and far between.