Manny being money

Dodgers GM Ned Colletti offered Manny Ramirez a contract worth somewhere in the $22.9 to $27.5 million range per year. While that's a ton of money, especially for a player who turns 37 in May and was unceremoniously run out of Boston in the middle of a pennant race, in this case it is worth it.

"If you saw the bid, it's nothing that we're embarrassed by," Colletti said at the GM meetings. "Manny was close to that number, anyway — closer to that area than the last place he's been."

Most likely, the Dodgers offered Ramirez a two-year contract worth just over $50 million. Colletti said the Dodgers also offered an option year, but declined to specify the exact length of contract.

"We said, 'Think about it for a while. It's not going to be there forever,"' Colletti said. "Things are always subject to change, and it depends on what else we do, to some extent. I've been asked a few times here if we're going to wait to see what happens with this before we do anything else. But I'm not sure we're going to have the luxury to do that. If there's something else that comes about that we feel we need to do, and the timeliness is there to do it, we'll have to do it."

The Dodgers would be smart to tie up a slugger for the next two seasons. Ramirez is something they haven't had in a long time (he hit .520 in the playoffs!), and even if he does decline the Dodgers would only be on the hook for a couple of seasons. That's nothing.