Manny Ramirez is 40, and he hasn't played baseball in a year.

Seems like every Manny Ramirez update should lead with those salient facts. Manny is not a young man. And he's missed a year of baseball. Either of those things would be kind of a big deal when anticipating how a player will perform. Both of them together are deadly.

So it's not that much of a surprise the scouts who have watched Manny's time with the Sacramento Rivercats aren't besmitten. From Susan Slusser:

The A's do have one of the greatest right-handed hitters of all time at Triple-A Sacramento, but scouts and baseball executives who have seen Ramirez recently agree with Oakland's assessment that he is not ready for the majors. In addition, Ramirez has been bothered by left hamstring tightness that limited him to one at-bat in the past four games, but Ramirez is hanging in there, he said Sunday.

Manny's suspension is up, so the only impediment to him reaching the majors again is how well he plays baseball.