The Dodgers have three high priced players available this offseason: Derek Lowe, Rafael Furcal, and Manny Ramirez. While the Dodgers are a high market team with a lot of money, they cannot afford to pay all three of the players, especially with the current salaries they have on their payroll. It is obvious that they will likely talk with Ramirez and Lowe first, before attempting to sign Rafael Furcal, mostly because he is injury-prone. The Dodgers will likely need to find replacements at both second and short, but could give one spot to Tony Abreu, who did very well before hitting the disabled list. It has also been rumored that they would trade Matt Kemp to bring in Robinson Cano.
While the Dodgers would love to give out a long term deal to Derek Lowe, they may be hesitant because of their recent history in signing pitchers long term. They busted with Jason Schmidt and busted a while back with Darren Dreifort, so signing the 35 year old might not be the best idea. They could go out and sign Jon Garland, while making a trade for another solid arm.
Signing Manny Ramirez first would do wonders for the lineup, not to mention jersey sales. After the Dodgers acquired Ramirez, who hit .396 for the team, it also helped the guy hitting in front of him. Andre Ethier hit .377 with 9 HR after the team acquired Ramirez, so try to imagine numbers like that all season long. While I do think Manny has an attitude problem and a new deal could make him turn into the old, no hustle Manny, putting him in an NL lineup makes the Dodgers the favorites in that division.
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