After the Tampa Bay Rays lost Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena to free agency this off-season, the Rays decided to go with older, less expensive veterans as replacements. The team signed two cornerstones of the 2004 Red Sox squad that won its first Word Series in 86 years – Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon.

The concept was that the two would be reinvigorated by moving to their home state of Florida and provide leadership to the team’s young players.

Ramirez, whose “Mannywood” empire crumbled in Los Angeles after serving a 50-game suspension in 2009 for violating MLB’s drug policy and generally mailing it in last season, has already gotten his new club acquainted with his “Manny being Manny” quirks.  He missed a March 30 exhibition game for “personal reasons,” with Manager Joe Maddon  adding that “there was something he really had to do today.” Don’t you miss this, Dodgers fans?

On the other hand, Damon, who landed with the Detroit Tigers last year after playing a high-stakes came of free agency “chicken” with the New York Yankees, has been behaving himself.  However, he has already missed one game, after being scratched from Sunday’s lineup due to tightness in his calf.

And it looks as though the two players may have started to settle into pre-retirement mode.

After three games Inside Edge Scouting Services reminded me that in three games Manny was hitting just .083 (1-for-12) and after two games, Damon has yet to get a hit in eight at-bats and had struck out three times.  On top of that the Rays started the season out by getting swept by the Orioles while both these players could be pushed for playing time by power-hitting outfielder Matt Joyce who had previously been relegated to the bench by Crawford.

No matter how Manny and Damon fare in 2011, one thing is for certain: no matter how poorly they may be performing at the outset, their jobs should be much safer than that of current closer Kyle Farnsworth.  Yes, you read that correctly – he IS still in baseball and someone DOES think he can still close games.

This sure puts Crawford’s early struggles with Boston into perspective, doesn’t it?  Unless you’re a typical overreacting Red Sox fan, of course.

Used with permission of the author.

Chris Lardieri runs the “West Coast View” column for Sports Climax. A veteran to the keyboard, Chris also covers the Los Angeles Dodgers for Examiner.com and has written about Major League Baseball for Inside Edge, a scouting company that provides content to ESPN Insider and Yahoo Sports. Follow Chris on Twitter for more sports observations.

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