Quote:
Originally Posted by Triple Naitch
There's a lot more ground to cover in Tropicana than Fenway. Damon is better suited for there. Although Manny played better off the green monster better than anybody else has in a while.
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Manny directly benefited from an almost impossible level of luck in regards to playing left at Fenway. He had a fairly ridiculous number of balls take improbable bounces right to him while an inexperienced, clueless or poor runner tried to stretch out a double. His immediate predecessor was Troy O'Leary, who played left substantially better. His immediate follow-up was Jason Bay, who committed all of one error in his year and a half in Boston (including a goose egg in '09) and who had nearly twice as many assists in '09 - mostly legit, non-wall aided assists at that - than Manny averaged during his time in Boston.
Manny being such a piss-poor overall outfielder and Johnny's spaghetti arm have to be one of the key reasons why many Red Sox fans continue to hold Trot Nixon in an insanely high regard. Nixon was certainly well above average defensively, but standing next to those two in the outfield, he looked like the next coming of Willie Mays.