Manny Being Underrated?

Manny Ramirez was humbled this winter. The dreadlocked one pulled in over $23 million last year and has career earnings topping $200 million, but he inked a one-year, $2M deal with the Tampa Bay Rays after a 2010 season sullied by three DL stints and a power outage. Even compared to his DH brethren signing single-year deals on the free agent market — Jack Cust, Hideki Matsui, Vladimir Guerrero, Jim Thome — Manny got less money.

Ramirez’s stock is similarly down in fantasy leagues. MockDraftCentral lists Manny’s ADP 42nd among those with outfield eligibility, and 156th overall. Jason Kubel, Ryan Ludwick and even Carlos Lee place ahead of Ramirez. Is it possible that Manny is actually underrated at this late point in his career? To answer that question, let’s review Ramirez’s injury-marred 2010 and try to project whether he could have a quality year in the land of cowbells.

Manny logged just 320 plate appearances between the Dodgers and the White Sox last year, serving two DL stints for a calf strain and another for a pulled hamstring. His plate discipline remained superb, as Ramirez walked 14.4 percent of the time, but his prodigious power was absent. Manny posted a .162 Isolated Power, his lowest mark in meaningful big league playing time and barely above the .145 MLB average.

Perhaps due to his lower body injuries, Manny didn’t turn on the ball with the same authority last season. Here are his spray splits from 2009 and 2010, as well as the MLB averages for right-handed hitters:

Ramirez pulled the ball less often in 2010, hitting more to center instead. On pitches that he did pull, his wOBA dipped .150 points, from .593 to .443. That’s still above the .419 big league average for righty hitters, but not by all that much. An uptick in grounders hit to the pull side (from 50.5 to 61.9) certainly did him no favors.

While Manny’s pop was modest, he was still an excellent hitter overall — Ramirez batted .298/.409/.460, good for a .382 wOBA that ranked in the top 25 among batters with at least 300 PA. Hampered by a bad hammy and calf, Manny still managed to be a major asset at the plate, if not the absolute terror we came to know from his days in Cleveland and Boston.

What might 2011 hold for Manny? Here are Ramirez’s projections for the upcoming season:

ZiPS: .249/.374/.436, .187 ISO
PECOTA: .268/.379/.458, .190 ISO
Oliver: .283/.385/.481, .198 ISO

Chances are, Ramirez’s average falls. His near-.300 figure last year came with a .354 batting average on balls in play, high even by Manny’s standards (.339 career BABIP). Still, the ZiPS batting average seems exceptionally low and would entail a big drop in BABIP. All three systems foresee more extra-base thunder, with Oliver being the optimist.

While the Trop isn’t known as a favorable venue for righty power hitters (94 HR park factor, according to StatCorner), I think the Oliver forecast is entirely reasonable for Manny. To be sure, there’s risk with a 38-year-old player with bad wheels. But as a DH in Tampa, Ramirez won’t go anywhere near leather. He qualifies as an outfielder in fantasy leagues, but he won’t tax his hammies and calves trying to track down flies with the Rays. Could he still get hurt? Sure. His chances of staying healthy increase in the DH role, however.

Manny Ramirez is no longer the hitter who routinely put up slugging percentages north of .600 during his peak. But that doesn’t mean he’s finished. With better health as Tampa’s DH, he should easily provide more value than the Kubels, Ludwicks and Lees of the world.