Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

I had forgotten this but in 1992 the San Francisco Giants were sold to Tampa Bay investors who planned to move the team to St. Petersberg. How different baseball history would have been if the the other owners didn't block this move... Nice piece on Brian Roberts by Denis Gorman... Happy 29th birthday to Edgar Renteria... Manny Ramirez leads the AL in slugging with a .582 mark but right behind him at .579 is Cleveland's Travis Hafner who may just be the most under-rated slugger in all of baseball. Hafner is hitting .314 with 18 HR and 65 RBI for the Tribe. BTW - Manny's and Hafner's SLG would be good for just 8th and 9th place respectively in the NL... The Red Sox don't have a single pitcher in the top 20 for ERA in the AL. I tell you having Pedro Martinez spoils you in terms of expectations from your ace. Just wanted to mention that one of the things people were always praising Jason Varitek for was his ability to handle the pitching staff. I think this is a myth. Varitek (or any catcher for that matter) has a minimal effect on the performance of the pitching staff. Otherwise Captain Varitek would have at least one starter in the top 20 in ERA and the team's overall ERA wouldn't be so crappy... Aaron Sele signed a minor league deal with Texas. I'm rooting for him to catch on with the big club just because he's only one loss behind Zack Greinke of KC for the league lead in losses (13 vs. 12) and I like Greinke. Jake Westbrook also has 12 losses - how did that happen?... Randy Johnson is 11-7 with a 4.29 ERA for the Yankees. Let me remind you again that Roger Clemens was just 14-10 with a 4.60 ERA in his first year in the Bronx. People who expected 20 wins out of Johnson this year were expecting too much... Tim Wakefield only having 5 wild pitches is a testament to how good Doug Mirabelli has gotten in catching the knuckleball. Jose Contreras leads the AL with 16 wild pitches... John Smoltz is 3rd and Pedro Martinez is 5th in the NL for innings pitched. Weren't these guys supposed to have questions about the health of their arms or shoulders?... Tom Glavine is second in the NL in hits allowed with 172. Glavine is lucky to pitch half his games at Shea otherwise he could be looking at an ERA over 5. Glavine this season has a 3.90 ERA at pitcher friendly Shea and a 5.37 ERA on the road. Glavine is at 270 wins but him hanging on for 300 may start to hurt his chances for the Hall of Fame if he starts to drag down his career numbers like ERA...