Former Gator Manny Ramirez
We’re about two and a half weeks into the 2011 baseball season, but in many ways, things look very much like 2010. The Naturals are once again tied for first place, although not with the Darkhorses who are off to a slow start, but rather the rejuvenated Moonshiners. Last year, pitching dominated like it hadn’t since the pre-steroid era. That trend has continued early this season. And finally, Manny Ramirez continues to be in the news for all the wrong reasons.
Let’s start with Manny. His sudden retirement has probably been the biggest story of the early season. Facing another performance enhancing drug suspension, he elected to retire instead. The Tampa Bay Rays signed him this off-season in hopes of riding one last surge from one of the best hitters of the last two decades. Instead, Ramirez recorded only one hit in 17 at bats prior to his sudden retirement. Similarly, the Gators felt he had a little left in the tank as they decided to protect him this past winter. This past week, the Gators released the best player in franchise history, ending the longest tenure of a DTBL player and team in league history.
The Gators drafted Ramirez in the 8th round of the 1995 draft, possibly the biggest DTBL draft steal ever. He helped lead the Gators to a championship in his DTBL rookie season and then again in 1998. His name litters the league record books. He is the all-time RBI leader with 1746. He ranks third in career home runs (528) and runs scored (1467). His career batting average of .314 just misses the top ten. He also holds the league’s single season RBI record with an incredible 165 in 1999. Ramirez hit 30+ home runs with 100+ RBIs in nine straight seasons from 1998 through 2006. He even had four seasons with a batting average over .330. An amazing hitter, but unfortunately, all of these numbers will be considered tarnished by three separate PED related suspensions and/or positive tests.
With the Gators release of Ramirez, this leaves another Gator, Derek Jeter, and Alex Rodriguez (Kings) as the longest tenured players with a single DTBL team. Both were drafted by their respective teams in 1997. They are the only two players who have been on the same team since before the turn of the century. Interestingly, last year’s Gators squad had four such players on their roster: Ramirez, Jeter, Billy Wagner and Pedro Martinez. Although Martinez did not make an appearance for the Gators (or any MLB team) during the season.
In other news, the Moonshiners have been in first place for a good portion of the season so far. Their huge draft day trade with the Jackalope has paid early dividends as Jered Weaver has already won four games and leads the league in strikeouts too. The only other pitcher with four wins is his Moonshiners and Angels teammate Dan Haren, who leads the DTBL in ERA and WHIP. So Moonshiners hurlers lead every pitching category except saves. The Naturals are keeping pace as well and currently find themselves exactly where they finished 2010: tied for first place. The Naturals have been led by Troy Tulowitzki and his seven home runs. I don’t have the full statistics in front of me, but Tulo’s numbers since late August of last season have been absolutely ridiculous.
In the first week of the season, there were rumors of changes to the stitching and/or other physical attributes of the baseball due to an early surge of home runs and scoring in general. Those rumors have been put to rest since then as pitchers have continued to dominate. Six of the ten DTBL teams have ERA’s below 3.40, which is a very respectable mark. It is too early to make any comparisons to totals from previous seasons, but I think it is fair to say that the juiced ball talk during the first few days of the season was probably a bit premature.
There are a couple league records that are likely to fall this season. I should have mentioned these before the season started, but better late than never. First, Choppers relief pitcher Mariano Rivera is on the verge of becoming the league’s all-time save leader. He needs just three more to tie Trevor Hoffman with 560. He already leads the league this season with seven saves. The long-time Cougar has been traded twice the past two years. Next, Alex Rodriguez has a chance to break the DTBL career record in both home runs and RBIs. He sits 14 home runs behind Barry Bonds and with Manny Ramirez’s retirement, ARod needs 56 more RBIs to catch Manny. I completely neglected to mention another career record which was broken last season. Juan Pierre passed Kenny Lofton on that list during the 2010 season. Now if only he could catch fly balls in the 9th inning…