TruffleShuffle

i remember him from his duke days, he'd play 8 minutes and get 4 fouls.

a lot of people do. i had them finishing 10th and AO had them 9th. they're not talented enough to be considered up with the top 6 teams in the conference so they're back in a pig pile with teams like LA, st. louis, edmonton, dallas, etc. they'll be close but if they get in they'll almost certainly end up playing the winner of one of the divisions. indeed he does, which is why i picked gustavsson as one of the calder finalists. i think he ends up starting for them during most of the second half of the year.

So are we just going to give the win to the Pirates or what? no i assume it is just canceled and not to be made up.

i feel like chicago, detroit, vancouver and san jose are pretty much locks to make the playoffs... it wouldn't shock me if calgary, st. louis or anaheim miss out although i do think they all get in. agree for the most part, although i think there's a gap between the top 4 in the east (pitt, philly, boston, wash) and the rest. though carolina is still a good team and who knows about jersey, they won the division last year and with lemaire back they could always get 110 pts while winning 50 games by one goal.

from ken tremendous' twitter:

hopefully he will enjoy beating penn state four times in his career.

my picks for this year: eastern conference: atlantic: pittsburgh philadelphia new jersey new york rangers new york islanders northeast: boston buffalo montreal toronto ottawa southeast: washington carolina tampa bay florida atlanta playoff seedings: 1. washington 2. pittsburgh 3. boston 4. philadelphia 5. buffalo 6. carolina 7. new jersey 8. tampa bay ----- 9. new york rangers 10. montreal 11. toronto 12. florida 13. atlanta 14. ottawa 15. new york islanders first round: washington def. tampa bay pittsburgh def. new jersey boston def. carolina philadelphia def. buffalo conference semis: philadelphia def. washington pittsburgh def. boston conference finals: pittsburgh def. philadelphia western conference: central: detroit chicago st. louis columbus nashville northwest: vancouver calgary edmonton minnesota colorado pacific: san jose anaheim los angeles dallas phoenix playoff seedings: 1. san jose 2. detroit 3. vancouver 4. chicago 5. anaheim 6. calgary 7. st. louis 8. edmonton ------ 9. los angeles 10. columbus 11. minnesota 12. dallas 13. nashville 14. colorado 15. phoenix first round: san jose def. edmonton st. louis def. detroit vancouver def. calgary chicago def. anaheim conference semis: san jose def. st. louis vancouver def. chicago conference finals: vancouver def. san jose stanley cup final: pittsburgh def. vancouver awards: hart: ovechkin, crosby, getzlaf norris: pronger, lidstrom, green vezina: luongo, brodeur, thomas selke: m. richards, zetterberg, kesler lady byng: who cares, probably someone from the red wings though calder: hedman, gustavsson, varlamov adams: boudreau, mclellan, ruff

i accuse everyone pitching for the cardinals of being on steroids and doctoring the baseball.

yeah and carlos pena hadn't become good yet and bonderman was something like 20 years old. mostly that team was a combination of washed-up veterans (higginson) and young guys who wouldn't pan out (most of the offense and bullpen), and the starting rotation was a bunch of AAAA pitchers. that team was brutal. a team obp is Godawful for a national league team; for a team with a DH it's horrific. they also had 764 strikeouts in 1438 IP, which has to be one of the worst k-rates in modern baseball and goes to speak for the complete lack of quality arms. their "ace" going into the year was nate cornejo, who had a spectacular 2.1 K's per 9 IP. earl weaver could've squeezed about 50 wins out of that club, i think.

the royals should be very glad they signed him before this season, because there's no way in hell he'd take that deal now.

our schedule starts out carolina, new jersey, washington, pittsburgh. wtf? aside from the bruins it's basically the who's who of good teams in the eastern conference.

last week i combined two things i know a lot about - sports and weather - to make $1.50 on centsports. i bet the under on the penn state-iowa game (41... this was basically free money with two good defenses, conservative old joe paterno, and rain all day) and then the under on the pats-falcons game (another rainy one).

i don't understand why lou couldn't tolerate wuertz' chronic wildness but he'll run marmol out there in every situation. wuertz was always a pretty good pitcher; you shouldn't let a half-senile manager dictate player personnel decisions.

jae-hoon ha was the guy who didn't hit for any power and didn't walk at all this year, right?

aaron hicks was #1??? come on.

wake forest -1 michigan st -2 kentucky +16 syracuse +6.5

please God no. no. okay.

i guess the velocity isn't great, and maybe he doesn't have much projectability, but i don't see why a LHP who sits around 90, has a plus slider and plus command, can't be a good major league pitcher. cliff lee's fastball averages about 90 and he's one of the 20 best starters in the game.

yeah that's why i don't want rowand. unless he magically reproduces his 2007 season he's going to provide, at best, average defense and average offense, which means that we're no closer to having a legitimate offense than we were this year.

professional baseball is not an individual sport nor is it charitable.

big ten is ranked behind the big east and acc... ouch.

oh you mean an agent is trying to make his client sound good and accentuating what he does well so that the client will make as much money as possible when he hits free agency? WHAT AN A-HOLE.

Do you think Tommy Hanson will be successful next year? please tell me this is a joke.

unless that player is completely destroying team morale!!!

he's also 36, declining, and has a huge contract. the enormous drop in k's this season is pretty telling also. as for the "stays healthy, eats a lot of innings and gets a lot of ground balls", well, you don't pay 15 million a year for that for a guy under contract until age 39. you could say those same things about crappy pitchers anyways, like jason marquis. either way, i don't see how you can possible make the argument that he's "really good" when you consider his age and the season he's having. he'd have to bounce back in a huge way next season for that, and at age 36 he's much more likely to continue this decline than turn it around. you're drawing conclusions off of one year of data, much of which is influenced by an anomalously-high babip. in 2008 he had his best k/bb and fip since he was closing games for the red sox in 2000; it would have been as silly to say that he's improving last year as it is to say he's declining and is likely to keep declining based off a down year following his best year as a starter. as for the "enormous" drop in his k-rate, it's gone down by 1 per 9 innings which is not enormous, and it's basically the same as his k-rate in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006. the bigger concern is his GB/FB ratio, which has gotten worse each of the last two years.