Papi weighs in on Manny, Sox

[ChiTownBull]

By Tony Massarotti

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - Updated: 06:14 AM EST

HOUSTON – David Ortiz said he has not spoken with Manny Ramirez recently, but he knows this much: If the Red Sox trade Ramirez this offseason, they will need to replace him.

    And that is no easy task.

    ``I don't know what his (mindset) is right now,'' Ortiz said of Ramirez at Minute Maid Park last night.

    ``But if you let a guy like that go, you've got to get a guy like this.''

    A guy like this would be Braves outfielder Andruw Jones, who led the majors this season with 51 homers. And it was Jones who was by Ortiz' side prior to Game 4 of the World Series, when the players were named the 2005 Hank Aaron Award winners for their respective leagues.

    Ortiz, suspiciously, kept an extremely low profile following the Red Sox' season-ending loss.

    ``(In 2003), it hurt more than this year, not because we won the World Series in 2004 but because we had a better team that year than we had this year,'' Ortiz said. ``This year, from the very beginning of the season, you could see that our team didn't have the consistency to win the World Series.''