BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — The Boston Red Sox want to see less of Hanley Ramirez next season.
New Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski met with Ramirez and agent Adam Katz at the site of the general managers’ meetings and discussed the team’s plan to move Ramirez to first base.
Dombrowski wants Ramirez to drop some pounds.
“He’s not overweight 245. He’s big and huge 245. We would rather have a more svelte 230 type of weight,” Dombrowski said Monday.
Ramirez, 31, agreed to an $88 million, four-year contract with Boston last November and shifted from shortstop to left field, where he struggled. He hit .249 with 19 homers and 53 RBIs, his season cut short in late August because of a sore right shoulder.
Dombrowski said the team was “not giving him a mandatory weight, by any means.” The Red Sox want Ramirez to be “more athletic, more focused on hitting doubles, using the whole field, driving in runs than worried about hitting the ball out of the ballpark for 40 home runs.”
“Sometimes I think when you play left field or you play first, you put in your own mind that you have to be a power hitter, and that’s not the case at all,” Dombrowski said. “He’ll hit enough home runs.”
Dombrowski said he asked for the meeting, which took place Sunday and lasted about 45 minutes.
“I just wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page going into the winter time,” Dombrowski explained. “I said we’re counting on him for big things next year. We’re counting on him to be our first baseman. I asked if he thought he could play first base and he said, ‘I can play short, second and third base, I can play first base.’ He seemed comfortable with it.”
Ramirez’s shoulder is pain-free, according to Dombrowski. Dan Dyrek, Boston’s director of sports medicine services, met with Ramirez’s conditioning consultant, and Ramirez will be working out with Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz in the Dominican Republic.
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