Miscellaneous Thoughts

Trading Nomar was a shock but it wasn't wholely unexpected by me. The Raiders releasing Tim Brown - that's both a shock and completely unexpected. Now that he's basically free to sign with any team I find myself wondering how well he got on with Jon Gruden and if there is a chance he'll catch on with Tampa... I think that Joe Nathan of the Twins has been very underappreciated by the national media. Nathan leads the AL in save percentage (31 out of 32) and has been lights out with his 0.91 ERA (OBA just .184). You could make a good argument for him for both the Cy Young and MVP awards... Jason Kendall continues to be an enigma to me. He has an excellent OBP of .388 but his OBP is larger than his slugging percentage of .383. That's just strange... I find it interesting that the Cubs are batting Garciaparra in the two-hole. Many people have felt that is where Nomar should have always been batting when he was in Boston but his slugging percentage argues otherwise... Speaking of the Cubbies - they now lead the NL Wildcard race by one game... Didn't think I would find myself saying this but the hottest player in baseball just may be Mike Cameron of the Mets. Over the past seven days - he's hit .381 with 5 HR, 8 RBI and 2 stolen bases...