[Lefty Noob]

Rumors have been flying that the Boston Red Sox are going to trade Manny Ramirez, with possible suitors including the San Francisco Giants and the San Diego Padres. In fact, the Boston Globe is saying that "the Sox are likely to offer salary arbitration to free agent outfielder Trot Nixon by today's deadline, according to a source with ties to the team... Those scenarios presume a trade of Ramírez, with the San Diego Padres still looming as the No. 1 landing spot for the righthanded slugger."

So trading Manny and replacing him with Trot Nixon - solid plan?

[EmpireWF]

I don't think the Padres are the #1 suitors at this point but the LA Dodgers are. They Dodgers have tremendous prospects to offer up such as the big 1B James Loney, RP Jonathan Broxton, 3B LaRoche (Adam's brother, forgot his first name), SP Chad Billingsley...etc.

But according to reports, the Dodgers haven't officially said they're interested. They've gotta be though.

[MVB]

According to MLB.com, Manny Ramirez will probably not be traded during these winter meetings.

Out of respect for privacy and protocol, Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein never likes to mention players who might be on the trading block. So in the case of star slugger Manny Ramirez -- who is perpetually on the market, it seems -- Epstein developed a clever code when discussing the status of the left fielder with reporters on Monday's opening day of the Winter Meetings.


"There's definitely an active trade market for elite position players, but there's only so many to go around," said Epstein. "Our perspective in the past has been we're not going to trade elite position players without getting fair value. We've proven that in the past. We've walked away from deals for elite guys and gotten consistent performance out of those players. That's still the dynamic now."

In other words, Epstein will not trade said elite position player -- i.e., Ramirez -- without substantial compensation in return.

Epstein also set an unofficial deadline for trading his high-profile elite position player. If Ramirez is going to get traded this winter, it will likely happen here at these Winter Meetings.
"Realistically," said Epstein. "I mean, everyone is leaving Thursday and it's taken up a good deal of our time. I think once we get beyond that, we'll be confident that we've flushed through every opportunity and we can always listen. [After Wednesday], it's not going to take up much of the team's time and energy, and at that point, we'll strictly be listeners."

So if no great deal is offered to the BoSox by tommorow, then Manny stays in Boston like he should.