Manny Ramirez

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Manny Ramirez

2020 Hall of Fame Ballot Series: Manny Ramirez

Five facts about Manny Ramirez:

Manny Ramirez was named to twelve All-Star teams. He received MVP votes eleven times and finished in the top 10 in MVP voting nine times.

Ramirez had a career batting line of .312/.411/.585. His OPS (.996) is the ninth-highest in MLB history.

Ramirez batted over .300 in eleven seasons. He hit 30 or more home runs twelve times and had 100 or more RBI twelve times. He did all three - .300, 30, 100 – ten times.

Ramirez led the major leagues in the three Triple Crown stats once each, each in a different season. He led the league in batting average in 2002 (.349), in home runs in 2004 (43), and in RBI in 1999 (165). Ramirez’s 165 RBI in 1999 were the most in the major leagues since Jimmie Foxx drove in 175 runs in 1938.

Ramirez played in the postseason in eleven seasons. In 111 postseason games (493 plate appearances), Ramirez batted .285/.394/.544 with 29 home runs, 78 RBI, and 67 runs scored. Ramirez was named World Series MVP in 2004 as he batted .412/.500/.588 in the Boston Red Sox' historic four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals which broke Boston's 86-year World Championship drought.

The first two tables below present Manny Ramirez's career as measured by Player won-lost records, in and out of context.

Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWORL	pWOPA

Basic Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1993	CLE	21	22	0.4	1.3	-0.8	-0.9
1994	CLE	22	91	10.6	8.6	2.5	1.6
1995	CLE	23	137	19.3	13.3	6.9	5.3
1996	CLE	24	152	22.1	17.3	5.8	3.9
1997	CLE	25	150	19.9	17.8	3.0	1.1
1998	CLE	26	150	22.1	17.6	5.5	3.6
1999	CLE	27	147	23.6	16.3	8.3	6.3
2000	CLE	28	118	17.6	12.1	6.4	4.9
2001	BOS	29	142	18.8	14.7	5.4	3.4
2002	BOS	30	120	16.9	12.3	5.7	4.0
2003	BOS	31	154	21.5	16.1	6.5	4.5
2004	BOS	32	152	21.1	17.1	5.1	3.2
2005	BOS	33	152	23.5	18.4	6.4	4.5
2006	BOS	34	130	18.6	14.0	5.5	4.0
2007	BOS	35	133	17.1	15.8	2.3	0.7
+– 2008		36	153	24.4	15.2	10.3	8.3
	BOS		100	14.5	9.6	5.8	4.6
	LAN		53	9.8	5.7	4.5	3.8
2009	LAN	37	104	12.9	11.9	1.5	0.3
+– 2010		38	89	9.5	7.2	2.9	2.0
	CHA		24	1.3	1.5	-0.0	-0.2
	LAN		65	8.2	5.7	2.9	2.2
2011	TBA	39	5	0.1	0.4	-0.3	-0.4
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,301	320.0	247.6	88.9	60.2
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			111	15.2	12.3	3.6	2.2
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,412	335.2	259.9	92.5	62.4

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1993	CLE	21	22	0.7	1.1	-0.4	-0.5
1994	CLE	22	91	10.0	9.2	1.4	0.4
1995	CLE	23	137	17.8	14.8	3.9	2.3
1996	CLE	24	152	21.8	17.6	5.2	3.3
1997	CLE	25	150	20.5	17.3	4.0	2.2
1998	CLE	26	150	21.6	18.1	4.4	2.5
1999	CLE	27	147	23.1	16.8	7.5	5.6
2000	CLE	28	118	17.3	12.3	6.1	4.6
2001	BOS	29	142	19.0	14.4	6.0	4.0
2002	BOS	30	120	17.3	11.9	6.6	5.0
2003	BOS	31	154	21.0	16.6	5.5	3.6
2004	BOS	32	152	21.1	17.1	5.1	3.1
2005	BOS	33	152	22.9	19.0	5.1	3.1
2006	BOS	34	130	18.4	14.3	5.1	3.6
2007	BOS	35	133	17.1	15.8	2.3	0.7
+– 2008		36	153	22.9	16.7	7.5	5.5
	BOS		100	13.3	10.8	3.3	2.0
	LAN		53	9.6	5.9	4.2	3.5
2009	LAN	37	104	13.7	11.0	3.3	2.1
+– 2010		38	89	9.1	7.7	1.9	1.0
	CHA		24	1.5	1.3	0.3	0.1
	LAN		65	7.6	6.3	1.6	0.9
2011	TBA	39	5	0.1	0.4	-0.3	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,301	315.5	252.2	80.3	51.6
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			111	15.2	12.3	3.6	2.2
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,412	330.6	264.5	83.9	53.8

This is Manny Ramirez's fourth year on the Hall-of-Fame ballot. I have written articles about the Hall-of-Fame candidates every year in which Manny Ramirez has been on the BBWAA ballot. Much of these earlier articles are somewhat obsolete due to changes to my Player won-lost records over time. But, for the sake of posterity, these old articles are linked at the end of my general article on Player won-lost records and the Hall of Fame.

Vote Prediction

In his three previous times on the Hall-of-Fame ballot, Ramirez's vote total ranged from 93 to 105 votes and from 22.0% to 23.8%. The latter of both of these came in his first year on the ballot (2017); the former of both came in his second year on the ballot (2018). In 2019, he received 97 votes (22.8%).

Certainly, there is no obvious trend in those three numbers. In addition, Ramirez's Hall-of-Fame case is incredibly straightforward: he batted .312/.411/.585 in his career with 555 home runs and 1,831 RBI. He is in the top 25 in MLB history in OPS+ and RBI; by traditional or sabermetric stats, he has overwhelming Hall-of-Fame caliber batting credentials - if you accept his statistics at face value. Nor was his - let's say, "indifferent" - fielding something that was difficult to assess in real time. I would venture to say that the overwhelming majority of Hall-of-Fame voters have a fairly solid grasp of the value of Manny Ramirez's statistics.

Ramirez could benefit from a clearer ballot, but for the most part, it certainly seems like the voters have largely made up their mind about him. Taking into account the clearer ballot, my prediction for Manny's vote total this year will be his highest previous total, 23.8%.

Player Won-Lost Records and Manny Ramirez

In 2008, Manny Ramirez came in fourth in NL MVP voting. Laid out in the context of his overall career, this doesn't look too surprising. Ramirez received MVP votes eleven times in his career with four top-4 finishes. There were, however, two things surprising about Ramirez's 2008 MVP finish. First, 2008 was the only season in which Ramirez received votes for the National League MVP. Second - and related - Ramirez finished fourth in NL MVP voting, despite having played only 53 games (229 plate appearances) in the National League.

In those 53 games for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Ramirez batted .396/.489/.743 with 17 home runs and 53 RBI. The Dodgers were 54-54 and 2 games out of first when they acquired Ramirez. They went 30-23 with Ramirez and won the NL West by 2 games.

Player won-lost records think that fourth place was probably too high a finish for Ramirez in the NL that season - although adding in his time in the American League, Manny ranks first in total pWins over either positional average or replacement level in the major leagues that season. And Manny Ramirez's 53 games with the Dodgers really were excellent, even as measured by Player won-lost records, worth 3.8 pWOPA or 0.0711 pWOPA per game.

The next table shows the top 25 player-seasons by non-pitchers since MLB integration, ranked by pWOPA per game played. Player seasons are divided by team - so, for example, Ramirez's 2008 performance in Boston and his 2008 performance in Los Angeles are considered different seasons for the purposes of putting together this table.


	Top 25 Seasons since 1947, ranked by pWOPA per Game (non-pitchers only) (min. 20 games)
	Player	Season	Team	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWOPA/G
1	Gary Gaetti	1998	CHN	37	5.7	2.6	3.1	0.0828
2	Barry Bonds	2001	SFN	153	28.3	15.2	12.3	0.0801
3	Mickey Mantle	1957	NYA	144	24.8	12.6	11.5	0.0796
4	Barry Bonds	2004	SFN	147	23.7	11.4	11.5	0.0785
5	Barry Bonds	2002	SFN	143	24.5	12.6	11.1	0.0776
6	Ken Griffey Sr.	1973	CIN	25	4.1	2.1	1.9	0.0770
7	Oscar Gamble	1979	NYA	36	5.8	3.0	2.7	0.0756
8	Ted Williams	1953	BOS	37	5.9	2.9	2.8	0.0754
9	Adeiny Hechavarria	2019	ATL	24	2.9	1.2	1.7	0.0718
10	Manny Ramirez	2008	LAN	53	9.8	5.7	3.8	0.0711
11	Larry Doby	1954	CLE	153	27.0	15.0	10.9	0.0711
12	Ted Williams	1948	BOS	137	25.9	15.2	9.6	0.0699
13	Barry Bonds	1993	SFN	159	27.5	15.4	11.1	0.0697
14	George Brett	1980	KCA	117	18.5	10.3	8.1	0.0695
15	Mickey Mantle	1961	NYA	153	26.0	14.6	10.6	0.0693
16	Barry Bonds	2003	SFN	130	21.2	11.4	9.0	0.0690
17	Roy Campanella	1953	BRO	144	19.9	10.4	9.8	0.0684
18	Bobby Avila	1954	CLE	143	24.8	15.3	9.7	0.0681
19	Gregg Jefferies	1988	NYN	29	4.7	2.7	2.0	0.0678
20	Jackie Robinson	1951	BRO	153	25.6	15.5	10.3	0.0676
21	Joe L. Morgan	1972	CIN	149	25.7	16.1	10.0	0.0672
22	Mickey Mantle	1955	NYA	147	24.6	13.9	9.9	0.0671
23	Mickey Mantle	1962	NYA	123	19.9	11.2	8.1	0.0661
24	Dick Allen	1972	CHA	148	23.3	12.1	9.7	0.0655
25	Willie Mays	1962	SFN	162	29.6	18.1	10.6	0.0653

That strikes me as a fun combination of all-time great players, fluky short seasons, and fluky short seasons by all-time great players.

Article last updated: December 17, 2019

2020 Hall of Fame Ballot Series

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