TruffleShuffle

Hendry is a bozo? In other news, dwarves are small!

The Bears are very good, but dude, the Lions do suck. They suck every year. They'll continue to suck every year.

he makes a good point here

yes, you're drunk

How well supported were the Smokies, locally? The Cubs do deserve a minor league affiliate that gets pretty good fan support, at least better than the club in Jackson got. For a AA affiliate of a major-city ballclub, it was pretty pathetic.

At minus three, I REALLY like those odds. MINUS 3?? That's [expletive] insane. I don't know how much it matters. When you get to a line that small, it's pretty much a pick'em line. Yeah, Notre Dame is favored, but only by a field goal. I think they'll have no problem winning by more than that.

This is the kind of information that needs to be thrown at the Cubs management on a daily basis.

So on SportsCenter, John Kruk trashed A-Rod, telling him to quit talking and stop throwing the team under the bus. Uh, what about Jason Giambi basically slamming A-Rod to a member of the press? Gotta love how the Yankees rallied around Giambi when it became publicly known that roids made him a great player, but they've sold out a guy who is probably clean and is the defending AL MVP. Shut up Kruk you fat, worthless sack of crap. "You don't throw your teammates under the bus" - sounds like advice for A-Rod's teammates as much as A-Rod himself. Now on Baseball Tonight, Tino Martinez says he kept telling A-Rod last year to stop overthinking things, just swing the bat and not worry about what the fans and media were saying. Uh, Tino - he was the AL MVP last season. He had his best-ever single-season OPS+. He really wasn't struggling, and I don't think he needed you telling him what to do and what not to do.

Morons like Sullivan are part of the reason that the general public lets Hendry get away with nonsense like placing more emphasis on BA w/RISP than on OBP.

The usage pattern of Schmidt really concerns me. He threw 115+ pitches in three consectutive starts - in April - and then had four 120+ pitch outings in May and June. His ERA in the first half of the year was 2.78 and is 4.67 since the ASB, and he has been much more hittable. In 2004, he averaged over 115 pitches after three early-season starts in which he was coming back from an elbow injury. He's 4th in Pitcher Abuse Points, and I have to think that he was close to the most abused pitcher in 2003, 2004 and 2005. Felipe Alou has not been kind to him, and I really would worry about how much mileage Schmidt has left in that arm.

Yeah, I was going to ask the same question

Even though MSU has dominated them in that series for basically a decade? And the game is at MSU? Yep. The players haven't been at those schools for a decade. Neither have the coaches. Basically, I think ND just needs to win the game a lot more. Plus ND isn't "bad enough" to be a 2-2 team, and Michigan State really isn't a 4-0 team. They struggled against Idaho... they just aren't that good a team, IMO. None of my explanation may make any sense, but it's a gut feeling and I feel confident about it.

Problem is, none of those guys are good hitters. The offense can survive with one playing SS, but with any combination of the three at SS/2B just makes for too little punch in the lineup.

Oh yes... their games against PSU last year and four years ago still make my blood boil. There was a game several years back in which the ball was jarred loose when the Illinois runner landed, but it was ruled a fumble. Then on the ensuing possession, Michigan RB Anthony Thomas clearly fumbled the ball but was ruled down. It was late in the game and was really mind-boggling. And yes, Iowa was boned over repeatedly during the first half last year. The refs may not favor Michigan consciously, but they seem to have an extrodinary amount of blown calls go their way, especially in close ballgames.

Notre Dame will win and cover the spread at Michigan State. I haven't been this certain about a game in some time.

OBP is more important than SLG

I can't speak to how DKWG feels about stats. But, if one believes BA to be insignificant relative to OBP and SLG, then it would be inconsistent for that same person to value BAA over OBPA and SLGA.

ERA+: 1. Webb 161 2. Carp 159 3. Oswalt 147 4. Arroyo 140 5. J. Johnson 135 6. Zambrano 126 Cain is outside the top 10, at 115.

That's good that he leads the league in BAA, but his 78 walks mean he's only in a tie for 6th in OBP against. That's a more important stat.

VORP among NL pitchers: 1. Chris Carpenter 68.9 2. Brandon Webb 67.5 3. Bronson Arroyo 63.8 4. Roy Oswalt 62.6 5. Jason Jennings 52.8 6. John Smoltz 50.7 7. Jason Schmidt 47.1 8. Chris Capuano 46.6 9. Carlos Zambrano 46.4 10. Josh Johnson 39.7 11. Derek Lowe 38.8 12. Aaron Harang 38.7 13. Dontrelle Willis 38.5 14 (tie) Aaron Cook 38.3 Matt Cain 38.3 Don't really see where Cain fits in this discussion. Yeah, he has pitched very well since the All-Star break and helped the Giants get back in the playoff race, but a 3.75 ERA is just too far inferior to the other guys.

Agreed. Very well put. Four solid arms and Prior. Now the debate becomes what is a solid arm and which of the Cubs "rookie" arms fit that description, if any. I'm in the camp that wants one really good FA starter and one veteran 5th starter type, maybe along the lines of Wade Miller, if he shows he is ready. I think hoping for Zito/Schmidt and someone like Padilla is very unrealistic. Heck, the teams that sign Zito and Schmidt should consider themselves lucky because there will be 28 other GMs who will have lost out. So really just getting one of those top of the rotation guys is unrealistic. Still, I'm hoping for one of those and another veteran arm to compete with Guzman, Marshall and Mateo for the 5th spot and give the Cubs another experienced and moderately successful pitcher should Prior (or anyone else) go down with injury. whats withh all the padilla love? the last 3 years he is 29-30 with an era over 4.50 and has averaged around 150 ip with no cg's. i would rather see marshall and mateo get a shot than to spend $ on this guy. He pitched well last year in the second half after struggling with a lingering biceps injury from the previous year. And, his numbers aren't spectacular this year, but a 4.27 ERA is a good year at a hitter's park like the one in Arlington - whatever it's named this year. If he makes all his starts and pitches better than league average, that's worth something.

I don't think it matters what number you lay on Hill. Personally, I've thought that he could be a #2 if he reached his potential, and that seems reasonable now. But, the most important thing is to have five solid arms that you can count on in the rotation - or at least four solid arms and Prior. Hill has proven that he belongs in the rotation next year, and I feel pretty good about him health-wise... at least as good as one can feel about a Cub pitcher.

I think the Kool-Aid was spiked. It made many of us delirious. I'm a little pissed that I picked them to have the fewest wins (74), and I'm still not going to get any points for it because I'll be off by more than 10. Right. Sad to think that the entire category is a wash due to the Cubs' total suckitude To make it even stinkier, an entry could be within +/- 10 games ... so it's really a twenty-game swing. Well, I said 74 and the Cubs now have 61, so it's probably likely that I'll get some points. The Cubs have to go just 3-9, which is doable even for a lousy team like them. After all, the magnificent Rich Hill has 2 starts left!

Where is Rich Hill?