Hanley Ramirez 2011: Knocking on .250's Door

[McKeon]

Who?

Well, in the line-up:
Bonifacio- .291 is up from .265 in 2010
Infante- .253 is down from .321 in 2010
Morrison- .253 is down from .283 in 2010
Ramirez- .249 is down from .300 in 2010
Sanchez- .285 is up from .273 in 2010
Stanton- .255 is down from .259 in 2010
Cameron- .148 is down from .259 in 2010
Buck- .222 is down from .281 in 2010

[MiamiHomer]

Shouldn't use batting average to determine that.

[McKeon]

Bonifacio is having a career year, but that really isn't saying much.

Other than that, Infante's numbers are down across the board.

Logan's Homers and RBIs are up, but so are his strikeouts. Not to mention OBP, SLG, 3Bs and Runs Scored.

Hanley- Is up from .200 to .250, but is still at .250, 10 HR, and 41 RBIs...

Stanton- Is playing at the same pace as 2010, still having a good year production wise. Wish we could cut down the Ks.

John Buck- The guys hitting .222, 10 HR, and 33 RBIs. He hit .281 with 20 HR and 66 RBIs, and did it in only 118 games. He's played in 90 already this season.

[MiamiHomer]

From the Twitter feed of Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez earlier this season:

Ramirez announces his arrival this day by referring to himself in the third person and saying he is "en la casa" -- in the house. One of his followers writes Ramirez’s casa is actually Apartamento 208 — Ramirez’s batting average at the time. Ramirez responds that he lives in Apartamento 70 — that number being his contract’s worth, in millions.  

Baseball is a quiet, slow game framed by poets and literati who describe it with words like “pastoral.” It is country-club golf with fewer divots and more Dominicans. The participants in America’s game — players, broadcasters, executives — spend a lot of the downtime talking about respect. Respect the game, the veterans, the unwritten codes, the umpires. Respect your opponent, your elders, your fans and your place in the game. It is all very adult. And then, if there is any hint of blasphemous disrespect, the players will start throwing baseballs at each other.

So here comes a strutting talent like Ramirez into this church. He is wealthy and stylish and immature and uneducated, new money at an old-money gala, playing their game his bejeweled way in what he still calls their country. He doesn’t seem to respect whatever he is supposed to respect very well, and this seems to infuriate just about everyone in this pastoral world.

This is true in his own clubhouse, where he has been confronted by not one but two teammates; in his own front office, where he has been ripped publicly by not one but two assistants to the president; and even in the owner’s box, where emotional Jeff Loria once felt so insulted by Ramirez that he became livid and yelled about wanting him traded. (Loria wanted Ramirez to cut his hair and went to discuss it in the clubhouse; Ramirez turned his back to the owner and got on his cellphone.)

Manny being Manny

We’re used to rap sheets with diva wide receivers in football, but it isn’t very common in our pastoral sport. This is why another gifted Ramirez, Manny, was so alternately comical and mortifying in his infamy — comical when hitting .330 and winning championships, mortifying when throwing the traveling secretary on the floor and getting traded. That Ramirez was a mystery, too, but usually felt like a goofy, harmless one because he smiled more and slumped less than this one. He, too, was questioned about caring and body language, but the criticism wasn’t so public, and it wasn’t coming so often from co-workers on his side of the scoreboard.

“I don’t know the message Hanley is trying to send, but it is the wrong one,” said old-school Hall of Famer Andre Dawson, Marlins assistant to the president. “Plain and simple, he has taken his antics to a whole other level. Just watch how he goes about his business every day. What he has essentially done is distance himself even more from his teammates and people around the league.”

Said outfielder Logan Morrison: “Do I question his motives sometimes? Yes. We don’t want anyone in here who feels they are greater than the team. Sometimes it comes off like that with him. Specific examples, I don’t want to get into that. Just not talking to teammates. Or talking down to them.”

Morrison confronted Ramirez, loudly, earlier this season. That kind of outburst is rare under any circumstances but especially so directed from a young player like Morrison toward an established All-Star like Ramirez. Asked if it was hard to do that, Morrison said, “No, it wasn’t very hard. This isn’t the Yankee clubhouse.” He added, “I don’t think Hanley would do the same things he does in the Yankee clubhouse.”

Ramirez’s old manager, Fredi Gonzalez, left saying to anyone who would listen upon being fired, “That’s what happens when you [expletive] with Hanley.” Ramirez does the wrong thing, gets punished and then pouts about the punishment in a way that makes the punishment backfire — all while backed with guaranteed dollars from Apartamento 70.

Ramirez has had his best month of the season in July — on base almost 40 percent of the time, slugging .527. It is the first month this season that he resembles his career averages. He said, defending himself, “I was hitting .202 a few days ago. Now I’m at .245. This game requires patience.” Still, all the time, someone from the other team will come over to a Marlin and ask, “What’s up with your shortstop?” His talent is that obvious, his body language and reputation that bad. Unsolicited, a player volunteered recently to ESPN’s Tim Kirkjian that the Marlins would never win with Ramirez at the core of their team, which is an excellent quote but also patently ridiculous.

Baseball is an individual sport masquerading as a team sport, though it tries very hard to disguise itself with antique and mathematically inefficient sacrifice bunts. Still, an alarming amount of negative voices surround Florida’s most expensive and important player, voices that echo even during his best month of the year because of a perception of his own making. A .350 batting average mutes them, but .250 makes them howl.

Asked about being criticized by teammates and opponents alike for his style and effort, Ramirez shrugs his big shoulders and said, “Their opinion. Only one who judges me is God. Babe Ruth isn’t in here. I’m going to be me. No watching TV. No newspapers. I don’t have ears for that, good or bad. I’ve been doing the same thing for six years. I’m superstitious. Nothing will change me. I play hard and to win.”

Not cashing in

There is this feeling — and it is very easy to do this when a guy you don’t like is hitting under .250 — that Ramirez has cashed in. The theory is that, coming from poverty, coming from a country where major-league money is the ends and baseball greatness is merely the means, he treated the $70 million contract as a destination, not a starting point. Ramirez stares through questions about this with a couple of argument enders:

“I hit .342 the first year of that contract,” he said, the implication being that it is pretty impossible to lead the league in hitting if you don’t care or work. Then he added: “What about future big contracts? I don’t care about those? This was my first big contract.”

Ramirez denies the accusations and said he doesn’t even understand them, which leads to some fascinating subtext. Can something like body language get lost in translation? If your style is flashy and loud, and your batting average isn’t, can the former be used against you to explain the latter? Especially in this pastoral world where something as benign as pimping out a home trot gets a baseball thrown at your neck?

Baseball is really, really hard. Dan Uggla and Jayson Werth don’t get questioned about not caring when they are terrible upon signing big contracts, as they have been. They have the right style and look, Werth’s being homeless millionaire hipster chic. In fact, they’re more likely to have their troubles explained away with exactly the opposite reaction — that they’re struggling because they care too much and are squeezing the bat to sawdust trying to live up to new contracts.

The guys who get hit with this criticism, even when playing with injuries, tend to look more like Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes or B.J. Upton — smooth, easy, talented and ... not white Americans. This is the burden of not merely being talented but looking it, too. You can make the game look easy, even when it isn’t, and you can look like you are not trying very hard, even when you are.

To be fair, J.D. Drew and Jeremy Hermida got some of this criticism, too. It comes with obvious tools. But Drew was always hurt, and Hermida simply wasn’t that good. Sometimes, when failing and flailing in a very difficult sport, you look like you don’t care. Baseball is cruel to even the muscled that way. Sprinting hard to first base on a routine ground ball, while usually useless, can push some of this perception away. That’s about the only purpose it serves, but Ramirez could use some of that at the moment.

A matter of race

But what about, say, a Lance Berkman? Any reason he got the benefit of the doubt the last few years? Veteran Astros broadcaster Milo Hamilton caused a baseball stir when asking a leaner, likable Berkman why he was playing so much better this year. Berkman said it was because he was in much better shape after an offseason of hard work. Hamilton wondered aloud why Berkman hadn’t been in better shape with, you know, the Astros. The white American, even the fat ones, seem to get more benefit of the doubt.

Throw in bad body language, a history of arriving barely on time and one public play that ended up getting Gonzalez fired (Ramirez, embarrassed, trying to look cool, loafed chasing a baseball he had kicked into the left-field corner) and you have a reputation that is hard to outrun. But Ramirez doesn’t agree with or seem to care about the perception, which is why Morrison said, “Always run hard and always hustle. There’s a past history with him, and that let’s people ridicule all they want. Deal with it. There’s never a question of effort or enthusiasm with [Albert] Pujols. It sucks, but he has to live with it.”

Marlins options?

So what do you do if you are the Marlins? Trade him and watch him be great somewhere else? A Marlins front-office source said “15 teams” have called about Ramirez’s availability recently. This front office has had a terrible run over the past few years, missing on trades and first-round picks. The Marlins, surrounded by so much public distrust, can’t have a repeat of the disastrous Miguel Cabrera trade while entering a new stadium. Even with drinking problems and weight issues, Cabrera is one of the best hitters in baseball, and the Marlins got next to nothing for him.

And then there’s this:

Yunel Escobar was viewed as poison in Atlanta. Pouty. Toxic. He isn’t as good as Ramirez, not nearly, but had the same reputation. From Cuba, he felt like an outsider in the South, speaking very little English. And he was surrounded on Opening Day by a white left fielder from Florida, a white center fielder from Florida, a white right fielder from Georgia, a white third baseman from Florida, a white second baseman from Texas, a white first baseman from Florida, a white catcher from Georgia and a white ace from Michigan. And the manager was Bobby Cox.

Maybe the Braves were right. Maybe Escobar was a monumental jerk. But there is plenty of room for misinterpretation when there is that much difference between two worlds, between pastoral and poverty. Of the voices criticizing Ramirez the loudest, it probably is worth at least noting that none of them are Latin peers. The Braves sent Escobar away, and now he is having the season of his life in Toronto — a season that still isn’t as good as even Hanley Ramirez’s average one but is better than most at that position. The Braves, meanwhile, say they are happier to have a toxin-free clubhouse, even though they replaced Escobar with “team guy” Alex Gonzalez, who is among the worst offensive players in baseball.

When Gonzalez was a Marlin, people questioned how much he cared, too.

Why?

Bad body language.

Hanley Ramirez undone by perception of his own making

[Ramp]

love how our front office continues to shit all over him

[Swifty]

Running off a fat Miguel Cabrera went so well, let's go after a disinterested Hanley Ramirez!

[Beef]

Some of LeBatard's stuff is becoming Jason Whitlock style predictable

[Cambridge]

Are my eyes deceiving me or has Hanley lost a number of pounds since the start of the season?

[emkayseven]

Since it's you asking I feel the need to ask: do you mean weight or money?

Anyway I haven't noticed but I also haven't looked

[Mainge]

Late May:

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=14023335

Last weekend:

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=17379307

Can't tell really.

[MiamiHomer]

Hanley needs surgery.

[jOOj]

Dr. James Andrews performed an "open repair" of Hanley Ramirez's left shoulder on Thursday.
The shoulder surgery was deemed a success and Ramirez is fully expected to return to 100 percent health by the start of the 2012 regular season.

Get well soon!

[Party]

That is the bad shoulder repair. Yikes.

[Swifty]

I thought an open repair just means the doctor doesn't know the extent of the damage before the procedure and instead evaluates the necessary steps intraoperatively...?

[AdamRavs]

I had the same thing.. Essentially they go in and clean up the shoulder.. The recovery sucks but he has plenty of months to get healthy.