Should I trade A.J. Burnett and John Danks for Manny Ramirez?
This trade will not hurt my pitching because I have Josh Beckett, Ricky Nolasco, Ricky Romero, Wandy Rodriguez, Joe Saunders, Gavin Floyd, Aaron Cook and Tommy Hanson. — Michael Tung, Rockville, Md. SW: Hey, you already know where I stand here: I’ll take the hitter. Oh look, you’re also getting the best player in the deal in Ramirez. Looks like this proposal follows two of my guidelines for trading. To be fair, I wouldn’t always trade pitching for hitting, but you have a workable starting five in Beckett, Floyd, Nolasco, Rodriguez and Saunders. You can survive with them well enough, especially since you can work in Hanson, Romero and Cook during two-start weeks. If you have any shortcomings offensively, you should patch them up before you worry about your pitching. And Ramirez should get back to playing at an elite level right away. People who say he’ll be a different player now say so because they want him to fail. He cheated, and they want him to lose all significance because of it.
