LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers are still trying to bring back Manny Ramirez. Only the enigmatic slugger doesn’t like their latest deal.
He rejected their third offer — for one year — that would have made him baseball’s second-highest paid player behind Alex Rodriguez.
That leaves Ramirez unsigned three months after deciding to test his value in the recession-plagued free agent market, with the Dodgers the only team to have confirmed making any offers.
“We have interest in signing Manny,” general manager Ned Colletti told the Associated Press in an e-mail Tuesday. “We don’t have a deadline but these situations can change in an instant and either side can change them in an instant.”
Team owner Frank McCourt said the team still wants Ramirez back, but “at some point, we have to move on,” he was quoted by MLB.com, which attended McCourt’s hospital visit to cancer patients along with the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday.
The latest deal — a one-year, $25 million offer — was rejected Monday. It would have given Ramirez the second-highest average salary behind New York Yankees third baseman Rodriguez’s $275 million, 10-year contract.
“We came up with what we thought was a creative proposal to give him a lot of money, and well deserved in a challenging economy, and give him flexibility if he feels it’s important to test free agency next year,” McCourt told MLB.com. “I don’t see long-term contracts happening in this market we’re in.”
Ramirez, who turns 37 in May, is believed to be seeking a four or five-year deal starting at $25 million per season.
“We’d love to sign Manny,” McCourt told MLB.com. “But we have to be prudent with our decisions. This is about winning now, but also in the future.”
Colletti initially tried to re-sign the left fielder, offering a two-year, $45 million deal with a buyout or a club option that was ignored by Ramirez’s agent Scott Boras and later withdrawn by the team.
“The agent is challenging to work with and we’ve tried hard,” McCourt told MLB.com. “We’ve made three efforts and we still have not received a specific number from the agent, and I don’t know what to tell you. At some point, you have to move on and start to get ready to win a championship.”
The Dodgers’ second attempt involved salary arbitration in December, but Ramirez said no to that, too.
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