Blogs

Mike Sheets

The Decline of Manny?

July 18, 2007 1:38am CDT

Since the All-Star break, Manny Ramirez has hit .350 with two homers and eight RBI in five games. Those numbers are no doubt encouraging, but we still can't forget Manny's disappointing first half. In 303 at-bats prior the break, he hit .284 with 11 home runs and 45 RBI. Those totals aren't awful by any means, but as we all know, they are a far cry from the type of production we've come to expect from the aloof left fielder.

So despite his hot start in the second half, we still have to wonder: Are we finally witnessing the decline of Manny Ramirez?

Over the last three years, Manny has posted the following HR/AB rates:

2006: 12.8
2005: 12.3
2004: 13.2

This season, he's hitting one home run per every 24.8 at-bats. That, my friends, is not encouraging.

Teammate David Ortiz is having a down year of his own, but he at least has an excuse, considering we just recently learned that he's been playing with a torn meniscus in his right knee. The Big Man, as far as I'm concerned, gets a free pass.

Manny, as far as we know, is healthy. He's dealt with a few minor ailments at different times this season, but nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps he's still dealing with some of the same knee issues that bothered him late in 2006, but again, there have been no reports that this is the case.

On the surface, it's hard to find a reason for Ramirez's struggles. Manny has drawn 49 walks and struck out 57 times this season (0.86 K/BB rate). That mark is worse than his career average (0.73), but it's actually better than it was last year (0.98), so we don't find much help there. It's true that he's seeing slightly fewer pitches per plate appearance (3.9) than he has in the past (4.1 over the last three years), but the difference is negligible.

Looking closer, the one main difference we see in this year's numbers is the decline of Manny's flyball rate. In 2005 and 2006, Ramirez posted G/F rates of 0.92 and 0.90, respectively. This year, he sports a G/F rate of 1.02, which is surely at least part of the cause of his less-than-satisfying home run total. Still, he held a 1.02 rate in 2004 when he blasted 43 long balls, so we can't place all of the blame there.

Something interesting to note is that while Manny's home runs are down this year, he's on pace for 38 doubles, a mark he's topped just once in the last nine years. So he's still generating extra-base hits - just not necessarily of the longball variety. Hopefully, this is an indication that we'll start to see a few more balls leave the yard in the second half.

After looking at all of this, I don't think we can really say that, at 35 years old, Manny's decline has begun. Some players do experience a power drop-off in their early to mid 30s (Brian Giles, for instance), but given the skills Manny is still displaying this season, I think we can still count on getting upper-tier production out of the slugger for at least the next year or two.

There's no guarantee that we'll see "vintage Manny" from here on out - we could find out that he is in fact battling some sort of injury or has something mechanically wrong in his swing - but he looks to be a wise investment for the second half.

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