TruffleShuffle

the devils officially have a horseshoe up their ass. and martin brodeur is overrated.

Comparing their projections for this year, less than 3 runs. From '08 Blanco to projected '09 Bako, it's about 6 runs. In that instance it's hard to complain about it, but at the same time I wish they had gotten someone who either had the potential to be really productive(even flukishly) over those at bats(like Valentin, or even Toby Hall), or someone younger with a strong defensive reputation(Hall again?). Or they could've just let Hill do it. wait toby hall has a good defensive reputation?

yeah but it never works that way unless the player on the "bad" team is overwhelmingly good. In all honestly, one would have to wonder how often the best player in the Big Ten plays on a subpar team. Basketball is a five-person sport and one player carries great influence. Not to say the team with the best player invariably wins the league championship, but I'd posit it would be exceedingly rare for the best player to play for a mediocre to poor team. Agreed I think you take Harris of Michigan though and they are almost IU bad. come on. they beat ucla, duke and illinois and pomeroy has them rated #78. IU is rated #210 and the best team they've beaten is either TCU or cornell. they shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath of bad-ness. Yeah, but I think most of that is because of how good Manny Harris is. Plus ask Raisin, for some odd reason Howland who is normally an awesome coach suddenly gets his [expletive] on when it's against that 1-3-1. I think he could use my rec league team and give UCLA a game with it. they also beat duke. indiana couldn't come within 20 of duke. and i missed the part where you said if you take harris off michigan and they're IU bad, but if you take away any team's best player they're probably not gonna be that good. if penn state lost talor battle they'd probably win 1 game the rest of the year (indiana).

i think he's pretty useful as a role player, and he is good insurance in case laroche flops. i actually think this is a good move for the pirates, not that it really matters since they're the pirates.

i'm pretty confident he won't have much of a career too, but it's a lot easier to say that now after he completely lost it for an entire year. if you thought he was going to be a complete flop before last season then you should seek out a career in baseball, because you know more than pretty much everybody.

yeah but it never works that way unless the player on the "bad" team is overwhelmingly good. In all honestly, one would have to wonder how often the best player in the Big Ten plays on a subpar team. Basketball is a five-person sport and one player carries great influence. Not to say the team with the best player invariably wins the league championship, but I'd posit it would be exceedingly rare for the best player to play for a mediocre to poor team. Agreed I think you take Harris of Michigan though and they are almost IU bad. come on. they beat ucla, duke and illinois and pomeroy has them rated #78. IU is rated #210 and the best team they've beaten is either TCU or cornell. they shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath of bad-ness.

interesting stuff. i did find the anger about the heilman trade from nsbb folks a little puzzling, since we gave up a lousy middle infielder who was out of options and a young pitcher who has gotten shelled in the big leagues so far, and we got a guy who was very good from 2005-07. i think he can be pretty useful, moreso than what we gave up to get him.

yeah but it never works that way unless the player on the "bad" team is overwhelmingly good.

fare thee well, rich. i will fondly remember that two-year stretch when the demons left your body and allowed you to be really good.

nope, the last miss put them down at 29.4%. under 30% shooting + 36 points total = mega fail.

is illinois going to get to 40 in this game? holy crap.

So basically, this means that if Hill does good there, we get something decent, but if he sucks up the joint, we get garbage? Thats the dumbest thing Ive ever heard. How about I go out and buy a lottery ticket, and how much I pay hinges on if I win. Just keep the damn guy, and if he sucks, let him go. If Baltimore still wants him then, more power to them. So you think those 6 weeks of spring training are going to pretty much tell the tale, huh? it's a guy whose control pretty much disappeared overnight, so yeah, 6 weeks probably could tell the tale.

it's more because he's an adequate (read: not nearly as bad as you think he is) cheap option on a team that has a lot of high-priced players, and because there are no other good options at that position. also, ronny cedeno still sucks.

wow he's even more fragile than i thought

Maybe this year you won't get swept out of the first round. At least the Brew Crew mustered a win against the eventual champs. Welcome to the Forum. Please take note that this is a Cubs' forum and you're not going to last long here if you decided to talk smack. so i can't post a response like "congrats on that one playoff game won, i hope you can enjoy it throughout your next 25 year playoff drought"?

I was wondering why Hill's name was not listed to begin with. Could be had cheap, has MLB experience and had success, only needs mental tweeks. Why not take a flier on him when he could start 30 games this season for them. he has hardly any value right now.

cards fans probably do have a little more of an inferiority complex. the small city/big city is probably part of it, but i think cub fans tend to just be focused on finally winning a world series rather than beating the cardinals. cub fans definitely hate the mets more than met fans hate the cubs. met fans really couldn't give a crap, mostly because most of the bad things happening in that rivalry have happened to the cubs.

actually it was just great foresight.

i don't know that we have plenty of good candidates. marshall and zambrano will probably get hurt for at least a little time this year, and harden everyone knows will get hurt as well. we probably should've just kept marquis in the first place.

i also think there should be an exception for guys traded within the last year - the brewers should not get compensation for losing sabathia IMO.

ahhhhhhh.... bad times, bad times

:-))

that is one bear of a stretch. nationally-ranked g'town, then a relatively easy one with seton hall, but then four more ranked teams followed by 3 ranked teams and a road game against cincy. oh well, that's the big east this year (plus a random roadie against ucla)

actually that's kind of the problem, they can't shoot threes but they continue to attempt to do so.

mike patrick was silent for a few seconds there... i think he has to compose himself and hold back the tears.