Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

I think CC Sabathia will be traded but I don't think the Red Sox will be involved. Why give up a Clay Buchholtz or a Justin Masterson for potentially only half a season of Sabathia? Starting pitching is not a major concern for the Red Sox anyway with a front four of Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Tim Wakefield and Jon Lester followed by a pick your choice of Clay Buchholtz, Justin Masterson and Bartolo Colon as fifth starters. I think if the Red Sox do trade for pitching - then it will be for bullpen help and they won't be giving up too much in exchange. I'm guessing that just in the AL you'd have either Chad Bradford of the Orioles or Ron Mahay of the Royals available for the right price... Speaking of Clay Buchholtz - it looks like he's being very effective at AAA Pawtucket. He's 3-1 with a 1.87 ERA in 7 starts. It looks like he's also on a pitch count since he hasn't pitched past the 7th inning in any of his starts despite the low runs allowed. The idea is probably to keep him fresh for the second half of the MLB season. An idea I agree with... Is Jeff Kent a Hall of Famer? With one more RBI he will break his tie with Dave Parker and have 48th place on the all-time RBI list all to himself. Unless I'm mistaken - Kent has the most HR and RBI of any second baseman in history... If Kent sticks around for another year or two - he will most likely catch and pass Harmon Killebrew who is tied for 34th on the all-time RBI list with Rogers Hornsby (both players have 1584 RBI). Passing Hornsby would be important for Kent because Hornsby is considered the best offensive second baseman in history (although he played over 600 games at other positions - thus the reason Kent has more RBI as a second baseman). I won't argue that Kent was close to Hornsby with a bat (Hornsby had a career .358 BA and an OPS+ of 175) but passing Hornsby on the RBI list will be significant for Kent nonetheless... Speaking of Harmon Killebrew - today's his birthday! Happy 72nd birthday Killer. How screwed up is the Hall of Fame voting? Consider that Killebrew has 573 HR and in his first year of eligibility for the Hall he only got 59.6% of the votes. Killebrew had to wait 4 years to be voted in by the gasbags who call themselves baseball writers...