David Ortiz is probably the only person in the entire world that was good enough friends with Manny Ramirez to back him publicly on a regular basis.

And now even he’s saying that Manny needed to go.

“Everything started one day that I told Manny: ‘Hey look, look at the numbers that you have put up your whole career, and you have never been able to win an MVP, there’s a reason why,’” Ortiz said. “And the media is our family.”

He urged Ramirez to “pull yourself together and start getting connected with the media because that’s how you express your feelings and people get to know more and Manny’s good things, that people don’t know about Manny. And he agreed with me.”

The outsider looking in says Manny should’ve gotten his act together and stayed in Boston. Scott Boras looking in probably thinks he made a pretty good decision, one that will pay $45 million over two years.