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.