First and foremost I do not want to sign Manny Ramirez. He has a terrible attitude and personality and will be toxic for the A's clubhouse. He will take away at bats from our young guys AND on top of all that, we can't use him until 50 games into the season. That being said the A's organization doesn't care what I think and they're going to do whatever they want. In case you haven't read the news, it seems like all other teams dropped out of the race and he is Oakland's for the taking.

It will only be a matter of days if we decide to sign him, so what type of contract do you think we should offer. If you look at his stats: http: www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/ramirma02.shtml , you can see that he is a phenomenal hitter. Even though he is now off of steroids and Oakland isn't very hitter friendly, he will still probably lead the A's in a lot of categories if given a full season and will still be very impactful with a partial season. Since we are the only team that will give him an offer we can pretty much make it really cheap. As I was brooding about signing him, I thought to myself, 'if were gonna do it we my as well go all out'. So this is what I decided we should offer him:

1yr/ 1mm with a 2nd yr option for 3mm.

2nd year option! Oh no! My reasons are this: He had a 2mm contract from TB in 2011 (even though he "retired"), so since he is only playing a partial season he can get 1mm from us. Then the 3mm option for the next year makes him less upset about only getting 1mm this year.

The next year plan: If he ends up hitting almost as well as he did in 09/10 for the games he plays with us this year (which is absolutely possible), then I think we should bring him back (as long as he isn't a dick). Having someone hit as well as he does and we only pay him 3mm would still be a huge discount to us. By next year Barton probably won't be re-signed and either Allen, Kila, or Carter will be at first. Then one of them can also be traded come the off season. This way Manny in 2013 won't really be taking any AB away from the young guys. If Manny doesn't perform this year then we don't pick up his option. It's a weird dynamic, but it just might work. So if we're going in for Manny with a low ball offer this year, we my as well stretch that low ball offer over to an option for next. What do you think?