Baseball whispers: Two managers to resign were lowest paid in majors

It’s no coincidence that the two managers to resign in midseason, Jim Riggleman and Edwin Rodriguez, were the lowest-paid managers in the majors. Riggleman, in his third season with the Washington Nationals and 12th as a manager, was earning $600,000, sources say. That’s more than $200,000 less than Chicago Cubs hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo. Riggleman may wish he had handled his situation differently, but you can see why he said he never felt “respected� by team owner Ted Lerner. . . . The group of pre-1980 players who were awarded pensions in a deal announced by MLB and the players’ union on April 21 still haven’t received any money. An MLB spokesman described the delay as a question of “legal/logical� issues. Come on, these guys aren’t getting younger. . . . More than any other team, the Tampa Bay Rays are huge fans of radical realignment. They would volunteer if MLB was looking for a team to move from the AL to the NL (rather than the other way around). Team President Matt Silverman says “it can’t get any worse� for the Rays than competing against the Yankees and Boston Red Sox in the AL East. . . . The Cincinnati Reds are the NL Central team making the most noise about the unfairness of being in the majors’ only six-team division.