Random Thoughts - Baseball Edition

Sam Perlozzo is out as Baltimore manager and the first candidate and perceived first choice of management, Joe Girardi, quickly declines consideration for the job. My take: Girardi's decision had less to do with his perception of the on field talent and more to do with Baltimore's dysfunctional management team starting with owner Peter Angelos who has turned a perennial contender into a laughing stock.

Next manager to be fired? Jerry Narron of our local Cincinnati Reds. I'm not normally an advocate of firing a manager mid-season as the incoming guy won't have the benefit of Spring training to put his stamp on the team. However, Narron has displayed such poor judgment that for the good of the team he needs to be canned. When he pinth hit Juan Castro for Josh Hamilton on Wednesday the team owner should have fired him immediately following the post game news conference where he justified the move by asserting the light hitting Castro hits that pitcher (Alan Embree) well. Castro has one career at-bat against Embree which occurred during the 2001 season nearly 6 years ago.

Is Baltimore snake bit? The day after the managerial change, their most talented position player and best trade bait, Miguel Tejada, gets hit by a pitch which breaks his wrist.

Best line of the week: Chris at A Large Regular commenting on Milton Bradley being released by the Oakland Athletics had this to say about Bradley's durability: "This guy makes JD Drew look like Cal Ripken."

Without watching them play I couldn't understand why the Phillies did not have a batter record with the talent on that team. Well, I watched them play a couple games this week and I could easily see part of the problem. The right side of their infield, Chase Utley at 2B and Ryan Howard at 1B, was awful defensively. They misplayed several chances that a high school team should routinely handle.

4,000 hits a realistic goal? Last weekend ESPN made an issue of Derek Jeter being slightly ahead of Pete Rose in career hits for his age 32. Dan at Baseball Crank takes a closer look and thinks an important factor was overlooked.

But a few cautions are in order. First of all, Jeter is 32; Rose averaged 201 hits per year from age 33-39 and played regularly until age 42 and semi-regularly until age 45.

Jeter has only been on the disabled list once in his career, but history suggests durability is not a hallmark of middle infielders. For example, a few years ago I thought Robbie Alomar was a lock to go well past 3,000 hits and all of a sudden his skills went away in a flash and he retired well short.