BigbadB

What? Jim Hendry get ripped off? Never.

That seems pretty close to me, also. I might put Cincinnati in the top 5 if they had a different manager who would play the guys who should play. I think the Brewers have to get the edge offensively over the Cubs. Depending on who wins the 2b job in Colorado, I might have to bump Colorado ahead of Milwaukee and the Cubs, and maybe even Phily. Back to Milwaukee: This should be Corey Hart and Rickie Weeks' busting out party season. Bill Hall moving back to the infield where he likes to be will probably be a huge boost to his numbers. Once Mike Cameron gets off of his suspension, he will have a ball hitting balls out of the yard in the NL Central. Oh, and then there's Fielder and Braun. With all of those potential 20+ HR guys, to get 57 XBH's from your SS as well is just icing on the cake. Kendall is the only offensive player on the field who doesn't have 20+ HR potential. The Cubs will have to beat Milwaukee on the mound. And the Cubs definitely have a better pitching staff at this point.

The rule on the DL is as follows. You can place a player on the DL to meet the deadline of the 16th - however, if that player starts the season not on the DL, you must drop him. To clarify, you cannot later move him off the DL. ie only put players you are sure will be on the DL or are willing to risk losing onto your DL. Thanks. Still a bit confused though. For example, Randy Johnson hasn't pitched in a game in ST yet. I won't know whether he will be DL'd until closer to the start of the season. Chances are good he will start on the DL. If I DL him and he doesn't go on the DL, do I have to cut him, or do I just have to cut someone when moving him to my active roster? I ask because I honestly don't know whether he'll be ready to start the season and he ended last season there. Milton Bradley is another one I'm not sure about yet and he was one of my keepers. My intention isn't to hide players on the DL. It's that I don't want to drop other guys off my roster if they aren't going to be ready to start the season. Thanks for the help.

Question about the DL, Juan. We have to have rosters set by the 16th, and DL guys won't be placed on their respective DL's by then. What are we to do with DL candidates?

I don't know all the details. I just know that it's been confirmed that Meph was behind NSBBLOL.

Yes.

My pitching ranks right up there with the best, IMO. I do have some injury concerns throughout my line up, but I have some depth. Webb Cain Pedro Vasquez Randy Johnson James Shields Daniel Cabrera Johnny Cueto Adam Miller My offense reaks of break out years (Rickie Weeks, Stephen Drew, Edwin Encarnacion, Conor Jackson) and a comeback player of the year threat (Vernon Wells), and hopefully they do just that. I was really hoping a better 1b would be available than Pena with the 7th pick, but if he does what he did last year, I'll win some games this year. I'm probably going to have to decide between Sheffield or Milton Bradley as my last roster spot.

If Wuertz, Marmol, Eyre, Howry and Wood are the main late inning relievers for this team, color me not worried about blowing saves in ST.

I'm only assuming Shnsajax did it. If that team was truly unoccupied, I would think Juan would have replaced that team well before the draft.

Which team is unoccupied? I was under the impression that Shnsajax was still managing his team and that he did make his necessary cuts on the 17th of Feb.

Then people outside of the SEC should feel honoured to be watching to BEST COLLEGE FOOTBALL CONFERENCE in the nation. And if anybody still thinks RB from Illinois is better then Jones, then.......I must be loopy. It wouldn't surprise me....if Jones gets taken in front of the RB from Illinois. You might want to open the door a little bit to football outside of the SEC conference once in a blue moon. It's just plain silly to put Jones ahead of Mendenhall. Mendenhall may not even be available by the time the Bears pick at 14. His stock continues to rise. Mendenhall is probably the only guy I wouldn't get pissed off about the Bears drafting rather than picking an offensive lineman. But, like I said before, I'm not sure he'll still be available at 14.

I'd put Hart in AAA and stretch him back out as a starter. Dempster or Marquis could slot into the long relief role. I'd give the upper hand to Lieber to grab that last rotation spot. Dempster seems like a good candidate for long relief, since it would allow him to slowly develop back into a starter. Personally, I think Marquis will be traded. Cedeno will probably be traded and Murton could possibly be traded.

You do realize that Cedeno has zero options. With your proposed line up, you've essentially cut Cedeno to put a minor league signee in the utility infielder role. Cedeno either has to make the opening day roster or be involved in a trade. Cedeno has more value than either Cintron or Fontenot, and quite possibly more value than Theriot.

BRILLIANT! Yeah, but what does he do between games? :D

It just referred to Hendry saying that he hasn't had any serious talks in over a week. Type faster. :wink:

Sounds like normal wear and tear for a 28-year-old. Haha.

All it says is the same thing that was recently published in the paper: "Despite rumors that claim that a Brian Roberts deal to Chicago is imminent, Cubs GM Jim Hendry told the Chicago Tribune: "There have been no active talks in any trade situation in the last five to six days." The Cubs still hope to add the Orioles second baseman via a trade before the start of the regular season, but there has been no recent progress in the proposed deal."

So Theriot/SS moving from 2nd to 7th 'saves' ~80 PA over a season from a terrible hitter. I think it's also handy to know the 17PA/slot difference. How dare you bring up baseball discussion in this Rants forum. Oh, wait......

Wow, a shocking turn of events......... Not.

It has been widely reported that Jim and Andy actually did reach an agreement and then Peter Angelos stepped in and did what he does best, he got involved. Also, would someone please, please, please, show me just one article besides Ken Rosenthal's in the beginning of January that even remotely sites any credible source of the Indians saying they are interested at all? Because all I can find is the Rosenthal piece, which is two months old, and there hasn't been one whisper anywhere else that I can find of them still having interest. When I look now, all I find is knucklehead O's fans making this junk up in forums. Someone please link an article or real rumor to this somewhere. Of course, now that I've said this, the Indians are tayloring Roberts' Indians jersey as we speak probably. IMHO that would be fine with me, I'm tired of MacPhail holding a ransom over us. Let's just move on, I'd much rather see Hendry go after Chone Figgins. I really don't know the seriousness of discussions between Cleveland and Baltimore. But, until a deal is done, any one of the other 28 teams out there could swoop in with a better offer to get the deal done. I'm not saying Hendry should give up the farm for Roberts, but the longer this drags out, the more likely someone will do just that. Not that I wanted Ivan Rodriguez when he was a free agent, but when the Cubs and one other team were casually tossing figures at Pudge, nothing really excited him to the point of rushing into a signing. Florida came out of nowhere and gave him a contract offer he couldn't refuse. Detroit kind of did the same thing with Cabrera. The Dodgers and Angels were only showing casual interest in Cabrera, and both teams really would have loved to have him and Detroit basically made a phone call and the deal was done. It's like they came out of nowhere.

I couldn't disagree more. You can't take deep routes out of the play book and turn Grossman into and dinker and dunker. Grossman's biggest strength is the 15-20 yard pass. And he needs to throw the occasional deep ball as well. What they need is to do a better job blocking. I think the problem is the Bears idea of a passing game was often either throw a bomb or dump it off. They need to work on that intermediate game, but keep the deep game as a threat as well. Yea, I was scratching my head on that one too. Take out the deep routes with Grossman in? Huh? I love how when we can't protect the passer, somehow everyone decides it should reflect back on the QB in some way rather than just fixing the actual problem, which is........we can't protect the passer. When the line can't protect the quarterback, it's time to look for plays that give the QB shorter periods of time holding the ball. The line problems didn't just develop overnight. It's been a continuous problem. And Rex plays the QB position like a deer caught in the headlights. I like Rex to a degree. He just needs time to throw and he needs to feel like he has time to throw, and until he has time to throw, he's just not going to be a good quarterback.

I couldn't disagree more. You can't take deep routes out of the play book and turn Grossman into and dinker and dunker. Grossman's biggest strength is the 15-20 yard pass. And he needs to throw the occasional deep ball as well. What they need is to do a better job blocking. I think the problem is the Bears idea of a passing game was often either throw a bomb or dump it off. They need to work on that intermediate game, but keep the deep game as a threat as well. Yea, I was scratching my head on that one too. Take out the deep routes with Grossman in? Huh? Scratch your head all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that Grossman is horrible in the pocket. He hears footsteps when there aren't any footsteps around, and that's because the line has been very inadequate since the first time he stepped into a huddle in a Bears jersey. He telegraphs just about everything he does. Each play there is a set primary receiver and he rarely ever looks away from his primary receiver. That's where his tunnel vision comes from. Teams figured out how to stop the long pass by pressuring the QB more and and playing looser on Berrian and not letting him get behind the defense. Taking the deep routes out of the playbook was only a figure of speech. Grossman just isn't very good dropping back into the pocket. He's clueless when it comes to stepping forward in the pocket. A lot of that is because of the weak offensive line. And when I said they need to work on the short game, I was referring to short and intermediate pass plays, which includes the 10-15 yard pass plays. Anything to prevent him from standing there waiting for long pass routes to develop.

I think the Bears will be okay with the passing game. I've always wanted to see them utilize the TE's more because both are very good pass catchers and Clark still has the edge on Olson running routes, but Olson appears to be improving in that regard. Booker is a good possession receiver. Between Bradley, Hester and maybe a later round draft pick for a Wesley Welker type receiver and I think the passing game will be okay, especially if they can grab a running back with good receiving skills. If you look at San Diego, they made due with Chris Chambers, who is a lot like Booker, and Vince Jackson. San Diego's strength receiver is Antonio Gates. I'm not so sure Mendenhall will be available when the Bears pick, but if he is, I'd definitely grab him. If not, take a lineman. But, I would also be shopping the free agent wire to improve the line anywhere I could. I have major concerns with the current running game. The only way to improve the passing game is to have a running back that can keep the defense guessing. I'm tired of 3rd and 9. If Grossman is going to be taking snaps, we need possession receivers for short range gains. Right now, a deep threat is the biggest question mark, but one the Bears seem to always have a problem with. Of course, the Bears have always been more of a ball control offense, anyway. While it was very nice to see Berrian get behind the defense as often as he did in 2006, once teams started playing him differently and put more pressure on Grossman, the deep game pretty much went to hell, making Berrian a non factor. It's a lot of holes to fill on offense. Not sure if they can fill them all. But, because Grossman is back for another year, they need to fill the holes to Grossman's strengths and hides the Bears weaknesses, which will mostly be on the line. Shorter pass routes and possession receivers and a potential break away running back is what I think it will take to get this team back to the playoffs. Waiting for the big play receivers to get open is Grossman's weakness. He's pathetic sitting in the pocket and he has tunnel vision. With Grossman at QB, you might as well take all the deep routes out of the play book. Heck, Hester might just be the Wesley Welker type receiver the Bears are looking for. He has the elusiveness to get a lot of yards after the catch off of short pass plays.

I'm going to crack up laughing at Hendry when Roberts puts on his Indians uniform next week. Because he will have proven that he can't even work a deal with his former employer for a guy who doesn't want to be in Baltimore, for a guy who Baltimore would rather not pay to play for Baltimore, and to a team that can use all the help they can get.

Bet your bottom dollar that the sun will come out tomorrow.