Illini Iceman

I'd pay money to do it if I could. In a year I'm done with Graduate school and out of this hell hole. Yeah, I forgot St. Louis is so awesome. The crime, the lack of anything fun to do, the fact that everyone from here thinks its the greatest place in the world, the fact that the first question you get asked when you meet someone is "Where'd you go to high school?" No jobs, shrinking economy, half the city's buildings are empty, blatant racism and horrible segregation. St. Louis sucks, everything about it sucks. There is not one redeeming factor about this place. How about the arch? Btw - why does any major league team still think Aaron Miles is worthy of a roster spot? It's rusting. The arch or Aaron Miles?

You know he wants Demp to get through this inning so he doesn't have to burn a pitcher or do a double switch since the pitchers spot leads off for the Cubs in the eighth. Plus it's Demster's birthday so you know he probably wants to give him the chance to get the win. Seems like the kind of thing Quade would do.

I'd pay money to do it if I could. In a year I'm done with Graduate school and out of this hell hole. Yeah, I forgot St. Louis is so awesome. The crime, the lack of anything fun to do, the fact that everyone from here thinks its the greatest place in the world, the fact that the first question you get asked when you meet someone is "Where'd you go to high school?" No jobs, shrinking economy, half the city's buildings are empty, blatant racism and horrible segregation. St. Louis sucks, everything about it sucks. There is not one redeeming factor about this place. How about the arch? Btw - why does any major league team still think Aaron Miles is worthy of a roster spot?

Mattingly loves bunting.

They already announced that Russell is starting Monday and they don't need a 5th starter again until May 14th. My guess is that if Wells isn't ready by then we will get Doug Davis until he is.

He is 0 for his last 18 so his 15 minutes might be winding down.

He had been fine apart from outings where he was left in way too long before today. Bad outings will happen against the Rockies' offense, and the others were basically Quade's fault. In his first start he had given up 4 runs after 5 innings to the Pirates In his second start he had given up 5 runs after 5 innings to the Diamondback. How soon did you want Quade to pull him in these two games? Asking him to get through 5 innings is too much? I will concede to you that Quade left him in too long in his third start against the Astros but honestly he knew that Quade needed him to go deep in that game since they had the Russell bullpen game the next day and against a week Houston lineup he couldn't even get through the seventh without running out of gas. In the start today he had given up 5 runs through 4 innings. He has had the advantage of playing against three pretty offensively challenged teams (PIT, ARI, HOU) and hasn't really had a good start yet except maybe the HOU start and in that one threw too many pitches early and ran out of gas.

I know it is early but Dempster needs to get his [expletive] together.

When the Lakers-Kings game started to get interesting, the Grizzlies started trying to make it a game. If the Lakers lose, Dallas is the 2 seed, and the 7 seed becomes desirable. Memphis was stalling as much as possible to wait for the outcome of the LAL-SAC game. Once the Lakers took over in OT, they went back to tanking. There's no way the Grizzlies were scoreboard watching like that. They were totally scoreboard watching. When the lead was around 30, the Lakers-Kings game was at 8 at half time. Memphis then closed to a reasonable gap, then saw the Lakers pull away again, and fell to 15 down again. When the Kings made their crazy run to take the lead late, Mamphis made a crazy run to get within 3 with 5 to play. When the Lakers tied it and sent it to OT, the Grizzlies stalled like crazy, taking timeouts at weird times, trying to make sure the outcome of the Lakers-Kings game was set before they had their final plan. And while teams are purposely tanking games Stern is busy lip reading what Kobe says on the bench.

Justin Bristow According to an article in this month's Vineline Fleira said the organization knew it was taking a chance on AJ Morris when they made the trade because he had a sore arm last year that forced him to the bullpen. Since then he has had shoulder surgery that could cause him to miss all of 2011. They still wanted him in the trade because they think he has good upside once he is healthy.

While he was with the Yankees, Mariano Rivera taught him how to get people out. And just brushing against Jeter a few times while walking past him in the dugout probably made Wood a winner.

How many teams have relievers 4-7 that are really much better than those guys?

based on the numbers he produced, definitely. considering that he's been caught using PEDs twice now, it's pretty reasonable to think that he's been using throughout most of his major league career. so would he have been a HoF player without them? hard to say. but for most of his career they weren't banned by the league and everyone was playing under the same lack of rules, so based on that i'd vote for him. Hasn't he actually gotten caught 3 times now? He got caught from that 2003 anonymous testing that ended up not being so anonymous, then in 09 he got caught with the masking agent, and now. He would have only gotten punished for 2 of them but 3 different times over an 8 year period he was caught using PED's. I'd say its pretty likely he was using them his entire career, putting all of his numebrs in jeopardy. He's gonna have a hard time making the HOF. If a proven steroid user makes the HOF, that will open the floodgates and then he'll get in. But until that happens he'll be standing on the sidelines like McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, Palmeiro and the rest. i'd say bonds (and to some extent clemens) are different cases because the numbers are so overwhelmingly good. bonds is the home run king, #3 all time in OPS+ and #2 in WAR among position players. clemens is #2 in WAR among pitchers and #10 in ERA+. i'd say you could make an easy case that even without PED use, those guys were HoF-caliber players. whereas some of the more borderline players - mcgwire, sosa, palmeiro - may not have been HoF players without "help." I think you're right. I also don't think the committee is going to see it that way. If they can keep an extremely deserving, decent guy out for kicking his heels a few times, what chance does an [expletive] who cheated have? Bonds will get in the hall of fame when hell freezes over. No way the writers let him in with the combination of the steroid issue and the crappy way he treated the media all those years.

Dempster seems to love Quade and he is also a buddy of Millar so I am going to go out on a limb and say Dempster fed him some of this information.

Trade him right now to the Yankees straight up for Prior.

I liked the Bradley signing at the time so I really can't rip Hendry for it now. Definitely wanted him more than Abreu or Ibanez.

Yawn. Non story.

I would like to see Jay Bilas's take on the VCU final four appearance. Maybe he and Vitale can also show us their final four projections again while they are at it.

I was thinking Silva + Samardzija + Baker + Stevens/Berg/Diamond/Coello/Maine for Michael Young, Chris Davis & $18 million. You don't seriously think the Rangers would do that do you? Hell why not throw in Augie Ojeda as well while you are at it. That would really sweeten the deal.

all useful big men. was Perdue and Longley ever on the same team? If I recall correctly they signed Longley then immediately traded Perdue for Rodman.

Guillen and Silva would get along great.

Where did that come from? The M's also sent 3.5 mill LAST year from the M's and Byrd's salary last year was 3 mill. I understand that it's all just a matter of accounting, maybe they're saying it like this to make it appear as if the current payroll is higher than it actually is? The quote makes no sense. If the Mariners paid $6M of Silva's salary this year and the Cubs spent it on Byrd they are still not paying $6M of Silva's salary. It's not like it only counts as salary relief if the owners take the money and put it in their pocket. Also, the comments Silva made are exactly why it is best to do what they are doing and just cut him loose. He would be a cancer in the bulllpen and probably suck anyway. It will be interesting who will be the first guy that gets a shot if the Cubs have an injury and need a temporary starter. The way Quade is talking it sounds like he is high on Coleman.

It damn well better not cost us Thomas Diamond.

If it is him or Looper for the last bullpen spot it may as well be him.

I have a feeling the 5th starter will be Looper and they will stick Cashner in middle relief instead of letting him start at AAA and improve his secondary pitches.