Morrison Takes Another Shot at Hanley

[Omar]

Haha! Come on guys! This isnt even debateable. There isn't anyone in baseball who would say Hanley Ramirez exhibits leadership qualities.

You can throw up stats and say he leads by example if you want, but then your taking it out of context. Nobody ever questioned his athletic ability.

The Marlins don't look to him for leadership or a veteran presence and frankly I wouldn't want my young guys going to him anyway. Hanley gets by on pure athleticism, most of those other guys have to work at it and I doubt you'd want his work ethic setting an example for the younger guys.

I'm fine w/Hanley not being a leader. But some of the posts in this thread about trading Logan cause of it are ridiculous. How many more guys do we have to get rid of to make Hanley happy?

1) Wes Helms and Jeff Conine would take that opinion. They don't qualify as everyone in baseball.
2) Leading by example is one of the best forms of leadership there is. In fact, that's one of the reasons why Uggla took exception to Hanley.
3) Realistically, how do you know what Hanley's work ethic is? His demeanor is not indicative of effort put in, necessarily.

[MiamiHomer]

Perry Hill said Hanley was the hardest working guy during spring training! But no, the body language police say otherwise.

[Mainge]

You do get by in baseball with pure athleticism. This isn't football. This isn't basketball.

You do not become the stud he is without hundreds of hours of work in the cage.

[Bobbob1313]

This idea that anyone can get to the absolute pinnacle of their profession without working hard is an utter fallacy, and sports fans need to get it out of their heads.

[Ramp]

It's a slap in the face to Hanley to suggest that he isn't busting his ass in the cages trying to get better every day.

Anyway, who have we jettisoned out of here because Hanley didn't get along with him? We didn't trade Uggla, and in fact we made him a very good offer. He left the Marlins.

[CrimsonCane]

Haha! Come on guys! This isnt even debateable. There isn't anyone in baseball who would say Hanley Ramirez exhibits leadership qualities.

You can throw up stats and say he leads by example if you want, but then your taking it out of context. Nobody ever questioned his athletic ability.

The Marlins don't look to him for leadership or a veteran presence and frankly I wouldn't want my young guys going to him anyway. Hanley gets by on pure athleticism, most of those other guys have to work at it and I doubt you'd want his work ethic setting an example for the younger guys.

I'm fine w/Hanley not being a leader. But some of the posts in this thread about trading Logan cause of it are ridiculous. How many more guys do we have to get rid of to make Hanley happy?

Ask the Spanish-speaking players.

Not hard working? What about the off-season when he put on like an extra 20-30 lbs of pure muscle? You don't think that takes work?

I'd definitely want my young guys to take cues from the guy who has been the best SS in the league over the past 5 seasons rather than some journeyman who "plays the game the right way" to the tune of a sub .700 OPS.

Also, it might be hard for you to understand this, but pure talent is never enough to get by at the highest levels of any profession. Hanley has achieved his success because he's worked hard to get where he is.

I can't stand that this "not a leader" nonsense is largely driven by the fact that Hanley is not White.

Imagine this:
You grow up in a poor neighborhood in the Dominican Republic where a month's salary in the US lets you live like a king for a year. You practically spend your entire childhood playing baseball in conditions that would make the worst little league fields here look like Fenway. The education system is garbage and there is little legitimate work opportunities for anyone. The only way out is through baseball. So, you play hours upon hours, day after day, trying to get noticed.

You finally make it and now you come to a country where you don't speak the language, you don't understand the culture, and the only chance you have of staying here and providing for your family is to keep being really good at baseball.

In the offseason, you often spend most of your time back home in the Dominican Republic hanging out with the same people who you've known your entire life.

Explain to me how any of those experiences allow Hanley to have anything remotely in common with a white blabbermouth from Kansas City who went to community college and always thinks he's the funniest guy in the room. Or a super serious veteran from North Carolina who has never met a subject matter that he doesn't think everyone else wants to see him weigh in on.

Reportedly (from Mike Lowell), Jeff Conine was one of the laziest players as far as pre-game warmups and stuff went. He often arrived late to practice. Something tells me, Wes Helms and Logan Morrison would've likely gotten along just fine with Mr. Marlin had they been teammates.

Hanley gets an unfair rap because fans apply white sensibilities to their judgments. It's similar to the double standards that everyone applied to Manny Ramirez. By the concensus account, Manny was a showboat who didn't "respect the game." Less frequently told are stories about how Manny was often the first player in the batting cages hours and hours before anyone else from the Red Sox arrived at the park. Or the fact that game theory experts studied Ramirez's plate approach and found that he has one of the most cerebral and strategically sound approaches in all of baseball. (They could find through analysis that Ramirez would often miss pitches early in counts when he knew he'd be off anyway to set up the pitcher to throw the same pitch again later in the count or in a different at-bat when he was ready for it.)

[Bobbob1313]

I always liked when Jay Marrioti (I think) referred to Vlad Guerrero as "a hitting savant." Hooray, latent racism!

[Beef]

So Morrison is kind of the like The League on FX.

[CrimsonCane]

Kinda, but Morrison needs more Rafi.

[dim]

I always liked Morrison's constant honesty. Still do. But I like it in the same way that I liked Ochocinco's honesty when he was with the Bengals. It's ok to call out other guys when your putting up 1000 yards receiving and 10+ TD's. It stops being ok when you are playing like shit.

Sometimes, there's a time and a place. Some of the Marlins PR guys need to tell Morrison to keep quiet a bit in certain situations.

[Party]

They did. Haven't you seen the censored tape over his Twitter avatar?

[Swifty]

That hypothetical Upton trade keeps sounding better and better (albeit incredibly unlikely now).

[Todd]

After clarification what Morrison said is not all that egregious.

[emkayseven]

It doesn't matter. You shouldn't say something that needs clarification, and you shouldn't say stupid things so often that people assume everything you say is stupid

[MiamiHomer]

Todd should take that advice as well.