Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

Manny Ramirez needs just one more RBI to tie Mo Vaughn for 8th place on the all-time Red Sox RBI list with 752. By the end of the season Manny should pass Rico Petrocelli (773 RBI) and Jimmy Foxx (788 RBI) to move into 6th place on the all-time list. That's about as high as he'll get though because I think Bobby Doerr's mark of 1247 in 5th place may be too far out of reach... Win shares are normally a pretty good predictor for the MVP races but I find it interesting that despite his huge numbers - Alex Rodriguez is only tied for 4th in win shares in the AL (as of 6/15/07). Vlade Guerrero is first with 17 WS, Magglio Ordonez is tied for second with Orlando Cabrera with 16 and Ichiro, Victor Martinez and A-Rod are tied for fourth with 15 each... I have to laugh about all of the recent Barry Bonds trade talk on ESPN. Its especially funny because they normally don't even bother to mention that Barry has the right to veto any trade (because he's a 10-year veteran with the last 5 with the same team). You would think this was a salient fact to mention... The Red Sox released JC Romero. I'm surprised at this because you would think that a reliever with a 3.15 ERA would have some trade value - even if it was just for a player to be named later... For those who think that Curt Schilling has lost a step it is interesting to note that his career ERA is 3.45 while his ERA this season is 3.80 - just a shade below his career average. Schilling is again on pace to pitch over 200 innings this season. If Schilling wins in his start tonight against the Braves he will tie Rick Rueschel for 83rd place on the all-time wins list with 214...