Editorials

Don Mattingly Says Hanley Ramirez Didn’t Respond During 2014 Season

Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ first step towards remaking the roster that won 94 games and a second-straight NL West title was walking away from Hanley Ramirez after the oft-injured shortstop turned down a qualifying offer.

Although the Dodgers reportedly were open to re-signing Ramirez, the likelihood of him returning to Los Angeles in 2015 and beyond greatly diminished when he rejected the one-year offer. As such, Ramirez went on to sign with the Boston Red Sox and the Dodgers eventually replaced him by trading for Jimmy Rollins.



While Ramirez thanked the Dodgers, their fans, and manager Don Mattingly after his decision to join to the Red Sox, he failed to reply to text messages Mattingly sent both during the year and this offseason, according to Steve Dilbeck of the LA Times:

I texted Hanley and I didn’t talk to him either, though there were a number of times during the season I tried to get a hold of Hanley and never got a response.”

Ramirez isn’t the only former Dodger to spurn Mattingly, who also said he never received a response from Matt Kemp after the trade with the San Diego Padres.

There was a general sense last season Ramirez was frustrated, perhaps angered, by the fact he never signed a contract extension from the Dodgers and instead was essentially left to earn a new deal; something that most wouldn’t fathom to be the case following the 2013 season.

Former general manager Ned Colletti said in September he believed the contract situation weighed on Ramirez, which Mattingly corroborated in October after the Dodgers were eliminated from the postseason.

Ramirez finished the season batting .283/.369/.448 with 13 home runs and 71 RBIs. While he was far from the same hitter who struck fear in opponents during the 2013 season, Ramirez led all shortstops in several offensive categories.

Nonetheless, the Dodgers opted to go with an upgrade defensively in Rollins, who also provides flexibility moving forward as 2015 is the final year on his contract — a key factor with Corey Seager’s forthcoming rise to the Majors.

Staff Writer

Staff Writer features content written by our site editors along with our staff of contributing writers. Thank you for your readership.

11 Comments

  1. DM confirmed that he had a little trouble handling the egos in the club house……guess he isn’t Joe Torre after all……

  2. Did Kemp and Ramirez think they were being professional and/or helping their careers by refusing to have a dialog during and after the season with DM? These were two of my favorite players until we got toward the end of this past season. It was very apparent they had bad attitudes. Mattingly doesn’t need to manage these arrogant millionaires. They need to move on to other organizations where they may still have a little left to their once great careers.

  3. Hanley cost Kershaw his perfect game and was an arrogant error machine.. have fun in Boston hopefully they have a great team doc you’ll be visiting him often

  4. Hanley and Kemp were wonderful leaders–when things were going good for them. When they struggled they acted like distracted buttheads. Not doing the little things…like letting teammates know when to they had to slide home, things like that. The New Management sought to squeeze out the bad attitudes and bring “team” guys on board (oops, there went $10 million Brian Wilson).

  5. What’s the point of this article and why on earth would a former player who was handed a gift-wrapped job that he wasn’t qualified for or deserved, feel the need to put clubhouse business out in the public?

  6. Don’t disrespect. Don Mattingly ever those mediocre players should bow down to Donnie Baseball !!

  7. Mattingly is a horrible manager, you can’t consider his playing career we are talking about a manager that can’t grasp situations. He also threw guys under the bus which is not a good thing.

  8. When people need to communicate the most, why do they rely on texting? Whatever happened to speaking face to face?

  9. I was so sick of all the drama that these two spoiled brats were putting Donnie & the team through! Both of them being completely healthy did NOTHING to help during the playoffs! And Hanley’s costly errors don’t help…it always seemed like his head was somewhere else. If they put a real effort into winning against the Cards in the playoffs, maybe they would have gotten treated well in their contract negotiations & they could have stay with the Dodgers! But nope, they did this to themselves! Good riddance I say!

  10. HANLY HE NEED TO GO,BUT KEMP, MATTINGLY DONT LIKE,LIKE OTHERS PLAYERS. MATTINGLY DONT HAVE A GOOD RELASIONSHIP WITH PLAYERS THATS WY MATTINGLY HIS NOT GOOD FOR DODGERS AND HIS BATTING COUCH. IF DODGERS CONTINUES WITH THIS MIND, DODGERS TREAD PAST ALL STAR GAME ZAC,GONZALEZ,URIBE,ANDRE,AND ELLIS AND POSIBLE CLAYTON K.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button