Hanley DFA'd (5/25 Update)

chawson

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Holy cow dude calm down. It can just as easily be a rabid fan base that expects all star performances from all their players and says mean things about them regardless of their skin color when they don't perform. I couldn't tell you which is which since it was two lines of text but that seems like a hell of a conclusion to jump to .
He seems pretty calm to me.
 

AB in DC

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It's odd that the coach would have the confidence to bat someone regularly in the three-hole, but the GM would think him worthless enough to drop him. Is there any precedent of a team DFA-ing their 3-hole hitter? Did DD get so tired of watching AC bat him third that he took matters into his own hands?
That was my first thought as well.

I really wish Cora had just benched him weeks ago. Now we're stuck with a bench of Holt plus three guys who can't hit (Vazquez/Leon, Nunez, and Swihart). Would have been nice to hang onto a 708 OPS bat a little longer.
 

Pinchrunner#2

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Finally. For over 80 millions the Red Sox got one above average season and three below average seasons. In other words a combined 1,2 fWAR. Waste of money is an euphemism in this context. Hopefully Swihart gets more AB. Doubt it though.
 

DeadlySplitter

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It's odd that the coach would have the confidence to bat someone regularly in the three-hole, but the GM would think him worthless enough to drop him. Is there any precedent of a team DFA-ing their 3-hole hitter? Did DD get so tired of watching AC bat him third that he took matters into his own hands?
The prevailing theory now was Cora/DD gave him one last shot to prove his worth with all the 3 hole lately
 

ConigsCorner

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Theo wasn't all that great at it either. I doubt many GMs are. Big Ticket FAs are usually bad signings.
Theo signed Bill Mueller, David Ortiz, Kevin Millar, Mark Bellhorn, Keith Foulke, and robbed Schilling from the Dbacks. This gives him a pass in my mind. Nearly 50% of the lineup of the 25.

Then again, the vastly underrated Dan Duquette signed Manny Ramirez & Johnny Damon, fleeced other teams for Derek Lowe, Jason Varitek, & Pedro Martinez, signed Tim Wakefield & Hanley Ramirez, and drafted Nomar Garciaparra. Not bad.
 

strek1

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The prevailing theory now was Cora/DD gave him one last shot to prove his worth with all the 3 hole lately
I agree. It makes more sense to me now why he stuck with him so long. He was trying hard to jump start the guy because he knew the FO was thinking about doing this.
 

Adrian's Dome

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It's the typical "brown people don't work hard" dogwhistle we've been hearing since the days of Manny, and it's complete bullshit.
Or, maybe, just maybe, it's because his on-field production sucked, and when someone's on-field production sucks, it's pretty easy to equate that to "not working hard", no matter if it's true or not.

Or, alternatively, when someone's on-field production is good, but it doesn't "look" like they're trying hard and they don't play through injuries, so people think they're dogging it...see: JD Drew.

But hey, let's go with "everything is racist" for 500, Alex.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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Or, maybe, just maybe, it's because his on-field production sucked, and when someone's on-field production sucks, it's pretty easy to equate that to "not working hard", no matter if it's true or not.

Or, alternatively, when someone's on-field production is good, but it doesn't "look" like they're trying hard and they don't play through injuries, so people think they're dogging it...see: JD Drew.

But hey, let's go with "everything is racist" for 500, Alex.
Name me a white player that was accused of not working hard due to shitty on-field results. Beckett got crap for going golfing on his off-days, and.....?

JD Drew was never accused of dogging it. He was accused of being too passive at the plate, which is a different accusation.

In sports the "not working hard" accusation is nearly always applied to brown folks.
 

AB in DC

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Not to go all V&N here, but if a false criticism just happens to match a known, negative stereotype relating to the person being criticized, you don't get the benefit of the doubt.
 

Rovin Romine

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really?

I think the fondness for him and surprise on this thread is much weirder.

the guy has been an absolute bum in 3 of his 4 seasons here....and not an especially diligent or hardworking bum. He has been a disastrous signing.
Hanley worked hard, was shuffled about without complaint, and was injured in part because of that; he also has far more indications that he's a positive clubhouse presence as opposed to a neutral or negative one. This is "casual fan" knowledge.

Or, maybe, just maybe, it's because his on-field production sucked, and when someone's on-field production sucks, it's pretty easy to equate that to "not working hard", no matter if it's true or not.

Or, alternatively, when someone's on-field production is good, but it doesn't "look" like they're trying hard and they don't play through injuries, so people think they're dogging it...see: JD Drew.

But hey, let's go with "everything is racist" for 500, Alex.
I don't think anyone who has watched more than a few Hanley games can seriously argue he's not into both winning and playing (specifically) for Boston. So, absent a mea culpa (rare on-line) our new poster has clearly staked out two strong possibilities.

1) Mouth-breathing uninformed "fan," who can't bother to distinguish between efforts and results.

2) Racism based (or tinged) argument re: the same. Black folks have natural talent to succeed and don't work hard; failure is a result of not trying.

Which will he choose?
 

cornwalls@6

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It's the typical "brown people don't work hard" dogwhistle we've been hearing since the days of Manny, and it's complete bullshit.
Meh, could just easily be reactionary, irrational moronic fan/talk radio stuff, lasting out at an underperforming player( which, lets face it, Hanley has been). Remember when Clemons was fat and lazy, and JD Drew was a p***y?
 

Adrian's Dome

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Name me a white player that was accused of not working hard due to shitty on-field results. Beckett got crap for going golfing on his off-days, and.....?

JD Drew was never accused of dogging it. He was accused of being too passive at the plate, which is a different accusation.

In sports the "not working hard" accusation is nearly always applied to brown folks.
Bullshit Drew was never accused of dogging it. You can't be serious. You're just calling it "being too passive" because he's white and somehow that makes him different. Who's playing the race card here besides you?

Literally nobody gives a shit that Hanley has brown skin. Everybody does care that his production sucked, some people chalk it up to injuries, some age, some think he didn't try hard enough (which I think is also bullshit, but people are entitled to think what they want.) Nobody knows the real reason, but again, let's start throwing racial accusations into it.
 

Jerry’s Curl

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Makes a lot of sense. Pedroia cannot play multiple games at 2B every week so he can DH some. Moreland deserves more time at 1B. Hopefully Swihart can start getting some starts and can hit a little.
 

benhogan

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Name me a white player that was accused of not working hard due to shitty on-field results. Beckett got crap for going golfing on his off-days, and.....?

JD Drew was never accused of dogging it. He was accused of being too passive at the plate, which is a different accusation.

In sports the "not working hard" accusation is nearly always applied to brown folks.
Your generalization is mostly correct but off the top of my head Lowe, Foulke, Mirabelli caught some flack for lazy/bad off-field habits.

If anything Hanley worked out too hard in the offseason/got too built up and may have lost athletic flexibility.
 

Adrian's Dome

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Not to go all V&N here, but if a false criticism just happens to match a known, negative stereotype relating to the person being criticized, you don't get the benefit of the doubt.
I don't give the benefit of the doubt to people who whip out the race card out of thin fucking air, but sure. Okay.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
I'm puzzled by all the attempts to find hidden agendas and angles here (he was about to get nabbed for PEDs! it's about getting Swihart more PT! it's about cleaning out Cherington remnants!) when this has to be in the top 5 most obviously sensible (albeit a bit hard-boiled) moves a Red Sox GM has made in this decade.

They released Hanley because he was sucking, was a poor bet to get a whole lot better, and would have cost them a boatload of money if they'd kept him. They needed to get rid of somebody to clear a space on the roster anyway, and releasing Hanley solves two problems at once.

I don't give the benefit of the doubt to people who whip out the race card out of thin fucking air, but sure. Okay.
It's never thin fucking air. That's rule number one.

I think ISCSINARTIAR should join TINSTAAPP on our acronyms list: if someone can say it's not about race, then it's about race.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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How about we let the guy accusing of Hanley of being lazy/not-hard-working defend himself and cool it with the V&N stuff? If he's got some empirical evidence that Hanley wasn't a hard worker or didn't try enough, then it shouldn't be that hard to post it.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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Bullshit Drew was never accused of dogging it. You can't be serious. You're just calling it "being too passive" because he's white and somehow that makes him different. Who's playing the race card here besides you?

Literally nobody gives a shit that Hanley has brown skin. Everybody does care that his production sucked, some people chalk it up to injuries, some age, some think he didn't try hard enough (which I think is also bullshit, but people are entitled to think what they want.) Nobody knows the real reason, but again, let's start throwing racial accusations into it.
I don't give a shit about his skin color, and you don't either. The POINT IS that the "not caring/he's lazy/doesn't work hard" tripe was unveiled here about .01893471839109 seconds after he was DFA'd, and it's a long and deplorable pattern that brown athletes face that crap when while athlete never face it to that extent.
 

Adrian's Dome

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I'm puzzled by all the attempts to find hidden agendas and angles here (he was about to get nabbed for PEDs! it's about getting Swihart more PT! it's about cleaning out Cherington remnants!) when this has to be in the top 5 most obviously sensible (albeit a bit hard-boiled) moves a Red Sox GM has made in this decade.

They released Hanley because he was sucking, was a poor bet to get a whole lot better, and would have cost them a boatload of money if they'd kept him. They needed to get rid of somebody to clear a space on the roster anyway, and releasing Hanley solves two problems at once.



It's never thin fucking air. That's rule number one.

I think ISCSINARTIAR should join TINSTAAPP on our acronyms list: if someone can say it's not about race, then it's about race.
Oh, okay. Guy 1 says "he was a lazy bum", guy 2 says "you're only saying that because he's brown!!!" and guy 2 is the rational one? How about they're both equally idiotic? The proper response would've been to show how Hanley tried to learn two foreign positions and was relatively successful at one of them, and show how he kept in shape. Not start a race war.
 

Adrian's Dome

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I don't give a shit about his skin color, and you don't either. The POINT IS that the "not caring/he's lazy/doesn't work hard" tripe was unveiled here about .01893471839109 seconds after he was DFA'd, and it's a long and deplorable pattern that brown athletes face that crap when while athlete never face it to that extent.
THE POINT is that YOU started this with your bullshit assumption. The only thing that came out in .01893471839109 seconds was the race card the second someone said he was lazy.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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THE POINT is that YOU started this with your bullshit assumption. The only thing that came out in .01893471839109 seconds was the race card the second someone said he was lazy.
SAYING HE WAS LAZY FLIES AGAINST ALL REPORTING SINCE HE'S BEEN HERE AND IS IN FACT THE REAL RACE CARD BEING PLAYED. THAT'S MY ENTIRE POINT.

Fucking A.

Take it to my PMs if you want to discuss this further.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Bullshit Drew was never accused of dogging it. You can't be serious. You're just calling it "being too passive" because he's white and somehow that makes him different. Who's playing the race card here besides you?

Literally nobody gives a shit that Hanley has brown skin. Everybody does care that his production sucked, some people chalk it up to injuries, some age, some think he didn't try hard enough (which I think is also bullshit, but people are entitled to think what they want.) Nobody knows the real reason, but again, let's start throwing racial accusations into it.
I dunno if his comment was racist or not, but yes, there are tons of people who care that Hanley has brown skin. Are you a racism denier? Have you been paying attention to America the last few months?
 

normstalls

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In my opinion with huge contracts come big expectations. When players don't deliver even close to what they are being paid, some folks get frustrated by that and may, rightly or wrongly, equate lack of production with lack of effort (regardless of said player's nationality).

His horrendous base-running sure didn't help his cause - that poor effort the other day when he cost the Sox a run by dogging it being the most recent example.

He was a fun guy and seemed to be a great teammate, I'll miss him, his personality and his monster hacks...but I think the Sox got better today.
 

JimD

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He's such a mixed bag.
2012 - Valentine Disaster, last place finish + Punto Trade.
2013 - WS, Farrell's first year, crap draft, signed Devers.
2014 - regression/hang-over, last place finish, crap draft, signed Moncada.
2015 - FA blunders, last place finish, drafted Benintendi.
To be fair, about twenty-three other MLB teams and their fanbases would gladly take that run right now if a world championship was sandwiched in the middle.
 

Dropo's moose

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The bold and correct move by Dombrowski.

DD just went all Danny Ainge on us. These are the kinds of moves this team needs to make, no possible way they should have let that vesting option vest.

Somewhere today, IT4 softly weeps for HanRam.

Amen!

You could look at it one step further, the 19 free agent class is loaded with some fine talent outside of the Top dogs. I understand Betts XB are coming due, none the less the historic Free-Agent class is historic!
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Amen!

You could look at it one step further, the 19 free agent class is loaded with some fine talent outside of the Top dogs. I understand Betts XB are coming due, none the less the historic Free-Agent class is historic!
The free agent class may be historic, but the Red Sox are unlikely to be a factor in it even with avoiding Hanley's $22M option. Aside from re-signing Kimbrel and maybe Pomeranz, I don't expect them to spend much at all on free agents next winter.
 

benhogan

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It goes back further than Cherington when it comes to free agent signings. Brian MacPherson had a tweet thread today where he pointed out that since 2008, the Red Sox have signed 16 players to multi-year free agent contracts and only two of them have finished their deals in a Red Sox uniform: Chris Young and David Ross. All the rest, except David Price and this year's signees who are obviously still playing, were dealt or cut before their contract expired. Among those being Hanley, Sandoval, Dempster, Gomes, Victorino, Crawford, Lackey, Cameron, and Scutaro.

The last free agent player signed by the Red Sox to a contract of more than two years who played out the whole thing in Boston: JD Drew.

Free agency hasn't worked well for the Sox for years, dating back to before Ben Cherington. Maybe it's not entirely on him.
You're still justifying Ben Cherington's signing of Pablo and Hanley? oh hilarious
 

AimingForYoko

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As an unabashed Hanley fanboy, I hate this. I understand the economics, but I'll miss him. I do think that Moreland will pumpkin, and I feel strongly that this team's best chance this year was with April Hanley's bat in the playoffs. But May Hanley has been terrible and if they were going to cut him, it had to be during a cold spell.
This is where I'm at. I will miss Playoff!Hanley terribly.
 

Rovin Romine

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To be fair, about twenty-three other MLB teams and their fanbases would gladly take that run right now if a world championship was sandwiched in the middle.
Hence, "mixed bag." I'm not saying I'd undo it for an alternate history where the team was, on average, more competitive but didn't win the WS. But, those were some truly crappy years clustered around that glorious 2013 run. (And even then - imagine if they missed on Moncada and were thus currently without Sale? We'd be more likely be looking at 2013 followed by 5 years of disaster. . .)
 
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Marco

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This is factually untrue. By all accounts he spent a ton of time working on improving his fielding in LF, and when that didn't work he spent a ton of time working on improving his fielding at 1B to the point where he was actually pretty solid there.
this is a man with the skills to play SS most of his career.....yet couldn't figure out how to be even playable at the easiest positions because he couldn't put the work in to learn decent routes in the OF or how to position himself to receive throws at 1B.
 

TheoShmeo

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By all accounts, Hanley spent a lot of time working on his hitting, watching video, etc. He sure looked like a guy who cared on the bench. Hell, I loved his goofy, happy persona this year, and will miss that. What I will not miss is him at the plate.

To wit:

Jon Couture (@JonCouture)
5/25/18, 12:16 PM
Last calendar year (5/25/17 to today), Hanley Ramirez:

.241/.310/.419 (.730 OPS), 50 XBH in 139 games.
 

Marco

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Off to the "lurkers to dump" thread.
dump me for calling a player lazy, and pointing out that he was a disastrous signing? ok.

maybe you should dump the front office that just DFA'd him too, those big meanies.
 

pinkunicornsox

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The free agent class may be historic, but the Red Sox are unlikely to be a factor in it even with avoiding Hanley's $22M option. Aside from re-signing Kimbrel and maybe Pomeranz, I don't expect them to spend much at all on free agents next winter.
This might be a topic for a new thread, but I think avoiding Machado and Harper and saving their bullets for Sale and Betts is the right way to go. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they get new contracts worked out with the two of them next off season that kicks in 2020.
 

Dropo's moose

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The free agent class may be historic, but the Red Sox are unlikely to be a factor in it even with avoiding Hanley's $22M option. Aside from re-signing Kimbrel and maybe Pomeranz, I don't expect them to spend much at all on free agents next winter.
There is still work to be done to afford a potential deal with a Top Tier FA next winter. Outside of the Top 5 or 6 players in next yrs free agency there are still several other players who would be considered an upgrade to the current roster. I believe this is the start. We saw the Yankees clear payroll last season and still contend. Would Dombrowski due the same? I don't know.
 

chawson

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The free agent class may be historic, but the Red Sox are unlikely to be a factor in it even with avoiding Hanley's $22M option. Aside from re-signing Kimbrel and maybe Pomeranz, I don't expect them to spend much at all on free agents next winter.
I can see them bringing back both Kimbrel and Kelly, but Pom seems dangerous. And I can't imagine why else we'd jump through all these hoops to retain Brian Johnson unless the plan were to give him the #5 slot.

I agree there's no position players next offseason that make sense. (I can't bear another round of Machado speculation.) What DD needs to do is find a way to take on salary to acquire prospects or young players.
 

Rovin Romine

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As an unabashed Hanley fanboy, I hate this. I understand the economics, but I'll miss him. I do think that Moreland will pumpkin, and I feel strongly that this team's best chance this year was with April Hanley's bat in the playoffs. But May Hanley has been terrible and if they were going to cut him, it had to be during a cold spell.
Hanley had a torrid April in 2015 - .999 OPS, 10 HR, and then fought injuries/mechanical issues the rest of the season.
In 2016, he started slowish and finished hot.
In 2017, he was consistently average, and faded in the final month.

I wouldn't want to guess what Hanley's performance will be like going forward; it could be good Hanley or bad Hanley.
 

Al Zarilla

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As an unabashed Hanley fanboy, I hate this. I understand the economics, but I'll miss him. I do think that Moreland will pumpkin, and I feel strongly that this team's best chance this year was with April Hanley's bat in the playoffs. But May Hanley has been terrible and if they were going to cut him, it had to be during a cold spell.
Just thinking about what Belichick or Ainge would do and I think Hanley would have been gone by now with them too. Salary of course is a big part of it with all of our teams, but Hanley’s negative WAR over 2017-2018 (either BWAR or fWAR) and all the $$ he would get had to be the end.