There may be something duller than the annual Manny Ramirez trade rumors: a policy paper on the proper way to index cost of living allowances to inflation, the unpublished chapters of the new Dave Eggers novel, or outtakes from the critically acclaimed new Joanna Newsom record, which features a harpist declaiming neo-transcendentalist verses about unicorns and such. In baseball, though, there is absolutely nothing less interesting than the usual story — Ramirez wants to be traded, the Red Sox are eager to trade him, other teams are eager to trade for him, and … nothing happens. Who cares?

This year, the story is different and, even interesting — not on the merits, but because the context has changed. Rather than a boring story about a spacey jock and some accountants in the front office who dislike his productivity-to-salary ratio, this has become a story about how rapidly baseball is changing.

The Red Sox have, through the years, tried to rid themselves of their left fielder several times. In 2003, they put him on irrevocable waivers. Any team could have had him for nothing, but none took him because they would have been insane to do so. He was due $97.5 million over five years, and wasn’t worth it. The same year, Miguel Tejada signed a sixyear, $72 million contract. Who would want to pay $20 million a year for a left fielder with a bad glove when a younger, power-hitting shortstop with a good one was going for a bit over half as much? This, and not his irritating persona or inane trade demands, was basically the reason the Red Sox have constantly tried to get rid of Ramirez, and the reason they weren’t able to. He was monstrously overpaid, and everyone knew it.

Given the free agent market this fall, though, Ramirez suddenly is no longer the proud owner of a preposterously bloated contract that symbolizes a previous era’s excesses, but instead something of a bargain. Carlos Lee is 30, has slugged above .500 twice in his career, and has had an on-base percentage above .360 only once. He just signed a six-year, $100 million contract. Ramirez is 34, but has slugged below .600 twice since Lee came to the majors (neither time falling below .587), a period during which his OBA hasn’t fallen below .388. At his worst, he’s in a completely different class than Lee. If Lee is worth $17 million a year, Ramirez is worth something like $25 million a year.

So this is how things have changed. A few years ago, Ramirez — as prodigious a hitter as he was — had negative value to a baseball team. He was worth less than he was being paid. The Red Sox, were they to deal him, would not only have received no notable talent in return, but would have had to pay another team to take him. Rightly, they figured this was stupid. They have a lot of money, enough to vastly overpay a great hitter rather than make their payroll more efficient. With Ramirez, they won a World Series.

Now, though, Ramirez has positive value. The market has shifted so rapidly that he may actually be underpaid. At the least, if he were a free agent, someone would offer him a contract worth more than he’s now making. The Sox can demand valuable talent in exchange for the rights to his contract, get it, and then spend his salary on other ballplayers. That — and not the Sox’ agonizing over whether not having to deal with Manny being Manny is worth the possibility of David Ortiz being walked 500 times — is the story here. It’s why, if I were wagering on it, I’d say Ramirez will probably be dealt, and also why that might not be such a bad idea for the Red Sox.

As rumor has it, the Sox, if they trade Ramirez, will end up paying to injuryprone outfielder J.D. Drew and shortstop Julio Lugo what it would have paid him, a player who’s more or less in the Jose Valentin class of ballplayer. On its face, this is a mistake. In baseball, two nickels don’t make a dime, and Drew and Lugo together will almost certainly be less valuable over the next two years than Ramirez and a random shortstop. In the bigger picture, though, it makes complete sense. Unlike in the past, if they trade Ramirez, the Sox can now expect to obtain complete relief from future salary obligations, and can expect blue chip prospects as well. The latter will be the key to any deal. Given the way Ramirez’s value has changed relative to the market, the Sox have no really compelling reason to move him, so if they do, it will be for something of real value.

One implication of this is that if Ramirez is traded, it will be because some team is getting hosed. Another is that deals like Alfonso Soriano’s 8-year, $136 million contract really aren’t as bad as they look, assuming the player can hold some fair percentage of his value. In a few years, some 31-year-old .270 hitter with no glove is going to be getting $20 million, and Soriano’s contract won’t look so bad.

A final one is that the same story, in different contexts, can mean very different things. The Red Sox were, for many years, trying to get rid of Manny Ramirez because they were in a position of weakness, stuck with a significantly overpaid player they didn’t love. If they deal him now, it will be from a position of strength. By definition, baseball is a zero-sum game, and so increased Red Sox strength comes at the cost of increased weakness for their rivals. The very fact that there are any serious bidders for Ramirez means the Yankees’ position has eroded as salaries have exploded this fall. That’s how it goes when the game is a business.

tmarchman@nysun.com