The Red Sox put Hanley Ramirez on the 15-day disabled list. (Source) My question is, why? What do they gain out of it?
Since it’s already past September 1, they can bring up any player on the 40-man roster, so it can’t be that it was done to make room for another player. Furthermore, since players on the 15-day disabled list are still on the 40-man roster, it wasn’t done in order to clear a spot to add another player to the 40-man roster.
Obviously, they want to make sure that he’s available for the playoffs in case the Blue Jays, Yankees, Rays, and Orioles are all wiped out by zombies in the next few weeks.
Is it possible that there is something contract-related going on? Perhaps some money kicks in if he’s on the active roster for a certain number of days, and the Red Sox are trying to prevent that?
You don’t believe the explanation given? From your linked article:
“Both president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and manager Torey Lovullo indicated that the move was done in order to avoid the “temptation” of putting Ramirez out there before he’s ready.”
If some kind of bonus contingency was at play, they could just sit him. They feel like it’s not worth it to put him out there and risk further injury, so if he’s on the DL that won’t be an option.
He’s been battling a sore shoulder (no doubt incurred in his season-long efforts to learn how to catch a fly ball), so it’s medically legitimate. He’ll be moved to 1B next season, but this isn’t a good time to start. He’s not going back to the outfield. As long as he’s on the DL, there’s an excuse for why he isn’t playing, when the real reason is he sucks defensively at any position he’d get to play, he hasn’t hit worth a damn this year, and they need to see if Castillo and Bradley really are major leaguers.