Edgar Renteria was supposed to return to the Giants, but it sure seemed to be taking a long time. Now, after this story, there’s very little chance that Brian Sabean will have much interest in bringing back the guy who hit the game-winning home run in the Giants’ last game.

“That offer from the Giants was a lack of respect. A total disrespect,” Renteria told ESPNdeportes.com Thursday from Colombia.

The disrespect Renteria was shown in the form of a 1-year, $1 million offer from the Giants to back up Miguel Tejada. The same Tejada who’s older than Renteria and will be making $6.5 million to play baseball for the Giants next season.

People who are comparing Pat Burrell’s somewhat surprising acceptance of a similar $1 million offer from the Giants are missing the point. Not that he deserves any more money than Burrell next season, but Renteria isn’t comparing himself to Burrell. He’s comparing himself to Tejada, who was in that group of great young shortstops in the 1990′s that also included Derek Jeter, Nomar Garciaparra and Alex Rodriguez.

You’d think Renteria would take into account his own injury history and the fact that he raked in $18 million from the Giants while Juan Uribe played far more games at shortstop at a fraction of the price. But this is Renteria we’re talking about, a guy who was cocky enough to tell teammates he’d hit a home run in Game 5 of the World Series. He still considers himself among baseball’s elite, which isn’t all that surprising coming from a 5-time All-Star who’s put up numbers like .333/.391/.508 in 16 World Series games.

Most of all, he considers himself the better player than Tejada. And when healthy, that’s probably the case. But if Renteria gets a chance to prove that in 2011, it’s probably going to be in Florida. Or with the Dodgers, if they keep on bitin’.