Oh, lordy. Given his agent, get ready for the collusion accusations to fly. The fact that they are patently ridiculous will do nothing to dissuade him from trumpeting the charges.

David,
Off topic but of note, the Wilpons were defrauded in the breaking Madoff ponzi scheme. Perhaps Omar has signed his last FA for a while? If they are levered at the stadium/club level this will impact Met operations. The primary family business, real estate, is getting squeezed. Madoff had most of their "diversified" assets, which appear to be gone. Man oh man, do they need the C $20m stadium deal now. Stay tuned...

Manny's a retard - he's pissed because no one's offered him more than $45M for 2 years? Maybe he should think about the circumstances of his leaving the defending WS champs.

This is seriously nuts. It reminds everyone of the accusations made by Boston fans -- fairly or otherwise -- about his dogging it prior to his trade to the Dodgers. If this is his only card -- "I'll take my ball and go home" -- it's a pretty weak negotiating position.

I would love to be a fly on the wall in Scott Boras's office to find out whether Manny pulled this at his agent's suggestion.

I don't find it tough to believe no one offered more than the Dodgers. It seems rather incredible to think that Manny is worth that much money for this next season, let alone what he'd be worth to your club in the future years when his skills decline.
This doesn't factor in that Manny's so terrible in the field; that he really should only be used as a DH, especially factoring in down the line when his defense will be even worse. So this leaves fewer suitors to offer him a contract.
Honestly, Manny's fair market value for his on-field production seems more like $30mil/2 years. You'd have to factor in all the surplus revenue bump he may bring though, but don't forget about subtracting all the headaches he has historically brought to the team as well.

David:

I know we disagreed on this a month or so ago, when I noted that every team passed on Manny twice when the Sox put him on unconditional waivers. Given his age and his history, I just don't see any team giving him the kind of longer term (4 years) large contract that you thought he'd get.

I actually think the Dodgers' offer was about right. Apparently, Boras is still waiting to receive "serious" offers for the services of Manny Ramirez.

All I can say is that if any of my favorite teams were to offer him $50M/2 or $30M/1 I'd be really pleased.

I don't care if he's a clubhouse cancer, or a butcher in the field, or overpaid; it's not my money, LF defense isn't that important and his bat wins championships.

BTW, check out the last few world champions and their starting left fielders:
2008 - Burrell. Worse than Ramirez by a surprising amount.
2007 - Ramirez.
2006 - Taguchi. OK with the glove.
2005 - Podsednik. Surprisingly bad with the glove that year, considering his skill set.
2004 - Ramirez.

Now, I would not sign Manny to a 5 or 6 year deal. I'd happily sign him to an exorbitant 1 or 2 year deal, and there's probably some $60/3+option deals that would work.

Hopefully the GMs of my favorite teams are willing to wait a while and then swoop in with such an offer.

Well, it was Boras being Boras, who convinced him to make a fool of himself to leave Boston for more money. Except now nobody wants him even for the same US$ 20 million that he would have received in beantown for the next two years.

2006 was Chris Duncan, who was pretty bad, but probably not worse than Manny.

If this is a negotiating ploy, it will fall flat. If Manny is really considering quitting, all Dodger management has to do is whisper in his ear, "Manny, if you quit those SOBs in Boston will be laughing their asses off. We'll do arbitration, and you can have another big year here and run your value up some more." What's Boras going to do--talk Manny into retiring for real?