What the Hell Happend with Aramis Ramirez?

Well, this for one: I couldn’t find a better picture of Ramirez getting injured via GIS for some reason - this just looks like Lou is blessing him. Here’s what we expected of RODRIGO! going into the season, contrasted with what we got PlayerPosPAwOBAUZR/150WAR Ramirez (ACB Average Projection) 3B 600 .378 2.2 4.1 Ramirez (Actual, as of 9/23)3B 317 .396 -6.8 2.4 Despite battling a few nagging injuries that left him day-to-day in April Ramirez was hitting the ball quite well, posting a .421 wOBA in 56 PAs in the month. However, less than a week after he recovered from a calf strain which was juuust mild enough to keep him from the DL, he dislocated his shoulder 5 days later, shutting him down for just under 2 months. He started off a little rusty, but still managed to post a .426 wOBA in the month of July. It seems that for the most part the injury hasn’t affected his swing, as he’s out-hit is projections this year even with the injury and a few minor dings, but there’s a good chance that it did affect his defense a little. He’s had a few bad games out there in the past month or two, but if I could break down UZR on a month-to-month basis I would not be surprised if he’s been significantly worse since the injury. We’re not talking Braun levels of hamfistedness here, but there has definitely been a decline here, whether it’s due to aging or the shoulder or Milton Bradley’s clubhouse presence hexing Ramirez’s glove (dying laughing). He had one great year with the glove in 2007 that was definintely an outlier, and this number seems to be a fairly reasonable one. Aside from the great rate stats listed above, Ramirez has compiled some impressive counting stats as well in his shortened season. Extrapolate his 61 RBIs in 317 attempts to the 600 PAs we predicted going into the season and that’s 115 RBIs, and suddenly there are less complaints about the Cubs lack of an ‘RBI guy’. Ramirez has been lucky - he has a BABIP of .338 to go with a LD% of 21.4%, the second-highest of his career, though he has had some bad luck with IFFB of 12.8%. Ramirez has hit 14 HRs this year, again in line with his usual ~30 HR seasons that he’s put up in his Cubs career. Along with the Ted Lilly contract, this is still looking like Hendry’s best FA signing of his career. Yes, Ramirez wasn’t technically a FA and signed an extension, but from what I remember the Cubs locked him up before he could test the market. He probably would have been paid more by the Angels, who have coveted him for some time and seemed ready to back the truck up for him. The fact that he took a home-town discount to stay here has largely been forgotten by the media and the fans. Ramirez makes $15.75mm next year, which is ~ 3 WAR. There’s little doubt in my mind that he will earn that contract again. The big question really is whether or not Ramirez’s decision to rest the shoulder in the offseason instead of getting surgery will have an effect on his performance going forward - next year and the rest of his career. I don’t fault him for trying to avoid that kind of major surgery during his career.