Benito been bad

Bob Brenly says on CSN Chicago that Benito Santiago used to lean into batters at home plate when base runners got a good jump from first. The interference call would get would-be base stealers even if they had the bag stolen. That's brilliant, but is there anything Santiago didn't cheat at? First steroids, then obscure rules; Santiago played the angles.

Bay on banks of Mississippi?

Here's one that hasn't been ballyhooed enough in recent weeks: The Cardinals going after Pittsburgh's Jason Bay. While it looks like this might take a while, it could prove the Cardinals' feel the same as most critics of their own OF corps, which includes Rick Ankiel, Joe Mather, Brian Barton, Skip Schumaker and and All-Star Ryan Ludwick.

One executive with a National League team said he thought "it would go down to the wire'' whether Bay would be dealt.

"We're looking for what we deem appropriate value. We're not going to limit ourselves to guys who are close (to the big leagues),'' Huntington said. "Our goal is to maximize our return and find a good match.''

Bay in St. Louis could add some extra pop to the Cardinals lineup. He's having a good year: .291/62/17/46/6

Fantasy Impact: Can't see how this would do anything but improve Bay's fantasy value. You never know how a player is going to react to being traded, but entering a more potent Cardinals lineup should would only increase his offensive output. The only way his numbers would flatten out is if the Cardinals continue to platoon their corner OFs, including Bay, but he's a superior talent to anyone they're trotting out there.

Best record to wild card

Tampa's ugly 13-2 loss to last-place Cleveland leaves them just 1.5 games ahead of Boston in the AL East. The Red Sox won their last game, 18-5 against Minnesota.

We're just a couple of weekend sweeps away from having the team with the best record in baseball when the week began (Tampa) falling into second place in their own division by week's end.

Clark could move

The San Diego Padres will listen to offers for Tony Clark, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. It makes sense to deal the 36-year-old switch-hitter, as the Padres need to upgrade several positions (I don't think they'll get anything more than a mid-level prospect), but if they're actually clearing space for 31-year-old career minor leaguer Brian Myrow, that's odd. Myrow has a .188 average in 33 at bats in MLB. There's a reason he hasn't gotten much of a chance at this point in his career.

Analyzing Hart & Longoria selections

Fans voted Evan Longoria and Corey Hart to their respective All-Star teams with this year's final vote. I'm a bit surprised. Longoria is in his first season with the Tampa Bay Rays while Hart is in just his second season with Milwaukee. Neither is putting up Albert Pujols-type numbers, and they're not playing in the biggest of the big in terms of media markets. I guess word on good young players gets out faster these days with fantasy baseball and the internet. Here's a look at their ranking in the five most common fantasy stat categories (AVG/R/HR/RBI/SB) vs. the players they were up against:

NL:
Corey Hart (.292/47/15/57/13) - (3/3/4/3/1) Total: 14
David Wright (.288/59/17/70/10) - (4/1/3/2/2) Total: 12
Pat Burrell (.279/48/22/54/0) - (5/2/1/4/5) Total: 17
Aaron Rowand (.296/40/8/47/1) - (1/5/5/5/4) Total: 20
Carlos Lee (.293/46/21/72/4) - (2/4/2/1/3) Total: 12

AL:
Evan Longoria (.281/44/16/53/6) - (3/4/3/T3/2) Total: 15
Jermaine Dye (.301/52/20/53/3) - (1/2/1/T3/3) Total: 10
Jason Giambi (.256/45/18/54/2) - (5/3/2/2/4) Total: 16
Brian Roberts (.291/59/7/32/25) - (2/1/5/5/1) Total: 14
Jose Guillen (.274/41/13/65/1) - (5/5/4/1/5) Total: 20

(Players are listed in order they finished in the voting)

Low score wins in the "Total" column, so Hart finishes 3rd among NL final vote candidates. Longoria finishes 3rd among AL final vote candidates.

A quick note on the NL "Total" rankings - batting average was very tight between the NL players, so Hart could actually be the top-ranked player with a single day of good hitting vs. a bad day for the other guys. He's a solid choice, but I like David Wright better. Wright is fourth in average, and still ties Carlos Lee with 12 points. Wright doesn't hit as many homers as Lee, but his numbers across the board are very good in every category. I think Wright should've been the All-Star here, while Lee and Hart finish a close second. Fans gave Lee absolutely no credit for an outstanding first half.

As far as Longoria's selection, I think the fans did the right thing in voting him on to the AL roster. He only finishes 3rd in these rankings, but he also missed a large chunk of the season in the minors. Given that, he's still competitive in the R/HR/RBI categories, which is very impressive. Unless he wears out, Longoria is poised to have monster numbers at season's end. Maybe he is Pujols-like, afterall. I like Dye and Roberts second and third, respectively, but Giambi and Guillen had no chance.

Huston, not Houston

Huston Street, in an interview with Yahoo! Sports tells us why his first name is spelled with out the 'O' like the city of Houston.

My parents, like all people from Texas, are very proud of their state and wanted me to have a name that resembled it; they wanted me to have a "Texas" name but didn't want people to think I was named after the city, so they took the "O" out.

They could have named him Cody or something and that would've sufficed. I actually like Huston better.

How much of their time did they waste talking about third grade? Ridiculous.

Sid the Mechanic

Sidney Ponson has an explanation for his one bad start sandwiched in between two solid outings for the Yankees. His mechanics were off. In between his second and third starts, Ponson worked on not allowing his left shoulder to fly open, and it led to success.

"My mechanics were way better than it was last start," he said. "My sinker was sinking downward instead of side to side and I got myself in a couple of jams. But I was lucky enough to get out of them."

Fantasy Impact: Ponson falls into the Jose Contreras category for fantasy play: good enough to consider, but make sure he's hot when you pick him up. If Ponson can keep his shoulder in for another outing, however, there's no harm in giving him a try over other options.

Moustache to stay

Jason Giambi says he has no choice. He's keeping the moustache. Apparently he thinks growing it during his long early-season slump helped him get back to hitting the ball.

I think Giambi needs a new gimmick. He's hit no home runs in his last six games, and his average dropped 12 points to .256. Full beard time, perhaps.

No Bonds offer

Even after the Diamondbacks expressed general interest in Barry Bonds, no contract is coming from Phoenix or any other Major League city. I don't expect Bonds to play baseball again.

Was it Peter Gammons who said, "Bonds has more baggage than O'Hare airport" recently? For anyone that's visited Chicago, Midway airport has a lot of baggage. O'Hare is insane.