Three up, three down: Could there be a second round of Mannywood? Are the Indians invisible?

A look at what’s trending in Major League Baseball this week:

THREE UP

Mannywood, the sequel? It was 10 years ago that the Dodgers traded for Manny Ramirez, but “inherited” might be the better verb, since the Red Sox so desperately wanted to dump him that they paid off his entire contract. The deal worked out great that year, with Ramirez hitting .396 with 17 home runs in two months, and charming Times columnist T.J. Simers by inviting him to sit in his lap. The best player expected to be traded this July, Orioles shortstop Manny Machado, could have a similar effect -- at bat, not in Dylan Hernandez’s lap -- but the Dodgers’ business plan frowns upon trading elite prospects even to get a player of Machado’s stature, particularly when the player is two months from free agency. Machado appears more likely to land in Arizona, St. Louis or Philadelphia; the Dodgers appear more likely to trade for pitching.

Walk this way: Should a guy who signed for $60 million in free agency last winter be labeled a bust if he is batting .224? Ten years ago, maybe. In an era where batting average has become less important than on-base percentage – get on base, no matter how – Carlos Santana is having a quietly impressive season for the surprising Phillies. He ranks third in the majors in walks, behind Mike Trout and Bryce Harper. In this strikeout-happy era, he has 20 more walks than strikeouts, the biggest such margin in the majors. He also is one shy of the team lead in home runs. Santana, of course, is best known here as the prospect the Dodgers sent to Cleveland in 2008, only because then-owner Frank McCourt would not approve a trade for third baseman Casey Blake unless the Indians paid off Blake’s contract.

Grade A closer: Blake Treinen opened last season as the Nationals’ closer, lost his job within a month, and was sent to Oakland in a trade for A’s closer Sean Doolittle. Treinen could return to Washington this month, representing the AL in the All-Star game at Nationals Park. His 0.84 ERA is the lowest of any major league closer, and he has given up just one home run to the 170 batters he has faced. Not bad for a guy who grew up in Kansas and never had private pitching lessons as a kid. He learned with a Roger Clemens ball – not a personalized ball, but a mass-produced one, imprinted with markings to indicate where Clemens put his fingers for each pitch. “I just grabbed that little Roger Clemens baseball and said, ‘I’ll start throwing like that,’” Treinen told the San Francisco Chronicle.

THREE DOWN

Indian summer: No sooner had LeBron James taken his talents to L.A. than NBC Sports posted a story with this headline: “The Browns are now tasked with filling void left by LeBron James in Cleveland.” That triggered this tweet from Indians infielder Jose Ramirez: “Are we invisible?” The NBC story did appear on a site called Pro Football Talk, but that is an awful angle even by the standards of clickbait. The Browns, whose chief strategy officer is former Dodgers general manager Paul DePodesta, went 0-16 last season, 1-15 two season ago. They last participated in a playoff game since 2003; they last won one in 1995. The Indians, with the largest divisional lead in the majors, are on pace for their sixth consecutive winning season. Not to say it’s been a while since the Browns did that, but Richard Nixon was president.

Do or do not: There is no try? Don’t dare suggest that to the Rays, who gave us the reliever-as-starter (“the opener”) this season and followed with the catcher-as-closer this week. They took a core sabermetric claim – the save is overrated; any major league pitcher should be able to hold a three-run lead for one inning – and applied it to a catcher in the bottom of the 16th inning, in a game in which they had built a five-run lead in the top of the 16th. They had reliever Jose Alvarado warming up, but the lead got so big they tried catcher Jesus Sucre instead. Sucre gave up three consecutive hits and a long out, and the Rays had to rush in Alvarado. We like Phillies manager Gabe Kapler’s idea of a prepared position player working an inning to save the bullpen in a blowout loss, but pitchers and their valuable arms should not be treated as lab rats.

Miami blues: That the Dodgers outdrew the Marlins on July 4 is no surprise. That the Dodgers’ triple-A and double-A affiliates also outdrew the Marlins on July 4 might be. Independence Day generally guarantees a good crowd, but this was the Marlins’ attendance: 7,572. The team was outdrawn that day by all 15 triple-A teams, four double-A teams and seven Class A teams, among them the Columbia (S.C.) Fireflies, Greensboro (N.C.) Grasshoppers and Lansing (Mich.) Lugnuts. Before you offer the obvious retort that Miami is fielding something akin to a minor league team this season, consider this: the NL team with the fewest victories is not the Marlins. It’s the Mets.

bill.shaikin@latimes.com

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