TruffleShuffle

Bonds, ARod, Clemens, and McGwire won't make the HOF. That is certainly something to be gained. mcgwire is at least borderline but you aren't gaining anything by keeping out bonds, arod and clemens. they're three of the all-time greats with or without steroids, and it's just embarrassing to the voters and the hall itself if those guys aren't elected.

i'm not sure that manny is worth $25m because, as kyle said, he's terrible defensively. so is dunn but dunn isn't getting $20m from anyone, probably not $10m either.

Just kicking around some thoughts in my head here... How much say should a manager have in offseason transactions? How much say should the manager have in call-ups and demotions? how much say should a manager have in allotting playing time throughout his roster. the reason i'm asking is because there's a sense that jim hendry has cobbled together his teams largely with the input of his managers, or at the very least he has attempted to appease his managers by shedding players that the managers don't like and bringing in the types of players that the manager is looking for. my gut tells me that this isn't a good way to run a team, but is it really better to saddle a manager with players that he doesn't like? just as a hypothetical, if jim hendry really likes felix pie and thinks that he's the CF of the future, can he just tell lou piniella that pie is to be in the lineup just about every game, rather than falling back on reed johnson against LHP and when pie is struggling for a few games? it makes me think about what other strong managers/GMs have done. what was the balance of power between bobby cox and john schuerholtz, for example?

Quote from thread: I was also into Westbrook a bit. He just got hurt. I also liked Cliff Lee. You also loved Khalil Greene. And JR Towles And guaranteed us Marquis would have ERAs in the 6s. even mozart wrote a few duds.

they must be bad if they're worse than whoever wins the patriot league this year. though they do have us (since we're leading the PL) playing uconn in the first round. bend over.

tyler colvin lite.

i feel like the red wings are doing an experiment where they see how awesome their forwards/defensemen have to be to overcome bad goalies.

You really have an easy stretch coming up don't you...I wouldn't be surprised if there like 16-9 they'll be back in it @UCLA tomorrow, vs Louisville next Thursday, and two weeks from tomorrow, @UConn. It ain't happening. ha wow...wait when do you guys play the easy stretch of the Big East? Seton Hall or Providence? I feel like every other day you play one of the top 6 teams. they have providence coming up. they already beat seton hall and lost to st. john's. they play uconn and louisville twice, both excellent teams, but get st. john's twice, and they're bad. so i'd say that notre dame has a little harder than average big east schedule and they've had a lot of their hard games bunched up in the middle. they have a pretty tough schedule but they have a mediocre record because they just aren't that good. Well I didn't think they were great...and they kind of gave themselves a hard non-conference game, but still I didn't think they'd be playing this bad so far they didn't really do themselves any favors with their OOC schedule either. they either played hard games or the sisters of the poor. i'm not saying you need to play brutally hard games every time but you can bring in some quality teams from conferences like the mountain west, atlantic 10, missouri valley, horizon - games that you should win against teams that will end up with respectable RPI's. some of notre dame's OOC opponents: south carolina upstate: 5-16, 25th (out of 31) rated conference loyola marymount: 1-22, 13th rated conference furman: 4-17, 25th rated conference south dakota: non d-i delaware st: 5-18, 30th rated conference savannah st: 12-11, independent (rated 317th in the nation by pomeroy) playing that many games against horrible teams will make your OOC schedule and your RPI look a lot worse than playing a bunch of games against teams with RPIs anywhere from 50 to 200.

You really have an easy stretch coming up don't you...I wouldn't be surprised if there like 16-9 they'll be back in it @UCLA tomorrow, vs Louisville next Thursday, and two weeks from tomorrow, @UConn. It ain't happening. ha wow...wait when do you guys play the easy stretch of the Big East? Seton Hall or Providence? I feel like every other day you play one of the top 6 teams. they have providence coming up. they already beat seton hall and lost to st. john's. they play uconn and louisville twice, both excellent teams, but get st. john's twice, and they're bad. so i'd say that notre dame has a little harder than average big east schedule and they've had a lot of their hard games bunched up in the middle. they have a pretty tough schedule but they have a mediocre record because they just aren't that good.

ENOUGH ALREADY. The bottom of the Big East is awful. They are going to have a lower percentage of teams make the tourney than the Big Ten, and possibly the ACC or Pac 10. They're still a good conference, but this talk about how deep they are, when half their teams might not make the tournament, with 1/4 of them not even belonging in major conference ball is annoying as hell. i'd say the acc is the best/deepest conference.

man that was a pathetic effort by penn state, cornley played great and nobody else showed up. i also blame the refs, bad luck, penn state's coaching staff and michigan for playing out of their minds.

penn state let cammeron woodyard get off the bench and he responded by firing up an airball on a wide open three, and then bricking a 5-foot runner. back to the bench, pal.

there aren't many guys i like out there but i do like juan cruz. however he will walk people and lou hates that.

so because you don't like lane kiffin, al davis got it right? al davis is a senile, paranoid old man who has run the raiders into the ground. i don't see how anyone could say that anything he does is a good move.

yeah that'd go great: mlbpa: hey there's collusion against our client and that's why he hasn't been signed. owners: we call frank mccourt. mlbpa: uh oh owners: mr. mccourt, did you offer manny ramirez a contract? mccourt: yes i offered him 25 million to play for us in 2009, it would've made him the second highest paid player in baseball. owners: thank you. mlbpa: ......

he's old

that's like the penn state classes recently. people kiss the asses of larry johnson sr., tom bradley and mike mcqueary for their recruiting efforts but you'd think that a program like penn state wouldn't be getting beaten in recruiting by ohio state and michigan year after year.

i finally watched an entire sixers game from start to finish, and they lose on a last-second three by ray allen, when even the announcer is saying during the timeout "pierce is going to drive the ball and either take the shot or kick it out to ray allen." the most obvious situation in history and they leave the #2 three-point shooter of all time wide open. nice job a-holes.

Come on. The other team self-destructs and gives you a chance ton win and the best you can do is throw it to Lewis Jackson with 6 seconds left and tell him to create? I used to think Chris Kramer was the most annoying person in the Big Ten. Now I can't decide if it's him or his mom. Either way, I wish she would stay and watch the next game in her trailer so I don't have to see her screaming like a lunatic every game. i didn't see the play but generally they aren't going to call something at the end of regulation and a tie score unless the guy really got mugged.

right

the biggest thing that scared me about schmidt was the Pitcher Abuse Points - i remember him throwing 140 pitches against the cubs like 3 months after minor elbow surgery. felipe alou rode him hard and he'd had some elbow problems in the past; that was the biggest negative about him. meche i was very opposed to, but he's all right. not a guy i'd like to hand 5 years and $55M to, however.

Those "stats" are horrible. They are especially horrible for OF. If you've got better ones, feel free to volunteer them. *crickets*

i would be concerned about abreu because he's been losing his speed and power pretty quickly the last couple of years; he wasn't that great last year even though it was his walk year. i'm just not sure how good he'll be, even though he'll still get on base at a good rate.

Lol, it's more that they are on and we aren't. We have the same record. We played the same teams in a couple of spots. We both beat Kent State. You guys did at home and by more. We both beat Jackson State. We won by more. We both lost to MSU at MSU. We kept it close, they blew you out. We have the same record, but you are a lock. Explain that to me. Oh and we are ranked higher. rankings are pointless, but their RPIs are basically equal. the only reason i could see having kansas on the list is because they're 7-0 in the big xii; illinois is 6-3 in the big ten and if they finish at .500 or worse in the conference they could miss the ncaa tourney. kansas there's pretty much no chance that they finish .500 or below in the big xii.

you be quiet