The Rays are counting on Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon to help them remain competitive in baseball’s toughest division.
The free-agent outfielders officially became the newest additions to the defending AL East champions yesterday, signing one-year contracts to fill a couple of holes on a roster depleted by the departure of several key players, including All-Star Carl Crawford and slugger Carlos Pena.
“We’re not going out there right now to just fill out a 162-game schedule,” manager Joe Maddon said during a news conference in St. Petersburg, reuniting Ramirez and Damon, who were teammates in Boston from 2002-2005, helping the Red Sox win the 2004 World Series.
“Our goal is to repeat as division winners this year, and then moving on from there,” Maddon added. “These two guys definitely make us more solvent. There’s no question.”
Damon agreed to a $5.25 million deal that includes a chance to earn $750,000 in bonuses based on attendance. Ramirez gets $2 million from the cost-conscious Rays — well below the $20 million he made last season with the Dodgers and White Sox.
Both players said the chance to play closer to home — Damon lives in nearby Orlando, and Ramirez resides in Pembroke Pines in South Florida — played in the decision to join a team that has not adbandoned hope of continuing to compete with big-spending Yankees and Red Sox for AL East supremacy.
“We wanted this to happen ever since my departure from Boston years ago,” said Damon, who played with the Yankees from 2006-2009.
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The Steinbrenner family, as part of a renovation project at the Yankees’ spring training stadium in Tampa, have decided team co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner
will use the office of his late dad, George Steinbrenner
. Hank previously had an office on the first-base side of the ballpark
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Shortstop Alexei Ramirez
and the White Sox OK’d a new contract that guarantees $32.5 million in new money over four years through 2015.
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Willie Mays Aikens
, who went from World Series star to federal prison inmate, was hired as a minor league coach by the Royals.
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Orioles reliever Alfredo Simon
was denied bail and will remain in jail in the Dominican Republic on an involuntary manslaughter charge.
The 29-year-old pitcher is expected to stay in jail for a year while officials investigate a fatal shooting on New Year’s Eve.
