Jul 30, 2015; Boston, MA, USA; Boston Red Sox left fielder Hanley Ramirez (L), right fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. (C), and right fielder Rusney Castillo (38) celebrate after defeating the Chicago White Sox at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports
What do you do to hide Hanley Ramirez defensively?
The only guarantee is to place Ramirez at DH and let his right-handed bat do what it does best – power with runs batted in.
The experiment of Ramirez to left has not worked out as planned. Howard Hughes had more success with the Spruce Goose. I took a glance at the fielding metrics and there are several adjectives floating around that I will ignore.
Ramirez has never played first base. Now what kind of adventure would that be? I would speculate the disaster just would not happen – no baseball Y2K. Ramirez has devoted his baseball existence to the infield until 2015 and the switch would certainly be less traumatic for all than what has happened in left.
Any switch of Hanley would improve the outfield and if it was done in combination with Ortiz and Ramirez doing duty at both first and DH the pain may be certainly less than when a ball is hit into left.