BigbadB

omg Yeah dude, we wouldn't give them up for Bedard or Haren so it's obvious we would do it for Blanton. They wanted Bruce for Bedard. Beane is willing to deal for only Cuetto. Cuetto is only a pony, dude. Blanton is a horse. Can't win without the horses, dude. I think Reds44 is assuming you are making up these comments. "Dude" and "Gotta have the horses" are straight from Baker's mouth. I just browsed Cincinnati's 40 man roster, Juan Castro looks an awful lot like Jose Macias. Thanks to Dusty, he's going to get lots of playing time. Dude is versatile!

In 2002 the Cubs had 5 of the Top 50, 7 of the Top 80. And one of them will likely never throw the ball the same way he did before Dusty got his hands on him.

That's okay. Admittedly, I was okay with the Cubs hiring Dusty back when he was first hired. I laughed at Giants fans who came to Cub.com and NSBB and warned Cub fans about what we were getting with Dusty. Boy, did I learn the hard way. We have no idea what we are talking about? Firsthand experience, my friend, firsthand experience.

It wouldn't be too far off to make that claim, but they do have a lot of question marks going into the 2008 season. The health of Sheffield, Maggs, Pudge and Guillen being the biggest. But, when your #9 hitter is a platoon with career numbers that look like this: Thames: .263 .333 .512 .845 Jones: .294 .342 .483 .825 There should be reason to celebrate what will undoubtedly be an explosive offense.

I'm sorry, but the bolded part is comical. "I have never been to France, but I can only guess that the wine here is far more superior" I'm not saying that NSBB is not a superior site but it is hard to make such a statement if you have never been there and goes to show that some people have a strong bias against the OH in general. While it is true that I have never been there, I have been given a wine tasting of OH (with the quotes that have been copied to this site) and I'm not impressed. Strong bias against the OH in general? Please. I'm a Cub fan hanging out at what I consider to be the best Cubs forum on the planet and I'm jealous of an Orioles message board that I've never even visited? Nice try, but you're way off base.

That sorta sounds like the deal Baltimore wanted for Bedard that never materialized.

There hasn't been a player in the history of the game who has been so studly that no pitcher could get him out. Curtis Granderson just finished his 2nd full season at the major league level. A speedy CF with 84 XBH's is awesome, whether he can hit a lefty or not. The league leaders in XBH's in 2007 were Matt Holliday (92) and David Ortiz (88), and whether they dominated both RHP and LHP to get to those numbers really doesn't matter, because what you end up with is a very solid season's worth of production, no matter where it came from. Would it be nice if Granderson could hit lefties better than he does? Sure. At the expense of how tough he is against RHP? No. I'm not even sure he'll repeat his 2007 season, and he's certainly not my favorite player. But, if you ask me today if I could find a spot on the roster for a speedy 84 XBH CF who can't hit lefties at all, I will answer yes, I have a starting job that just opened up, and I'd trade or cut whoever was blocking him. Jacque Jones couldn't hit lefties when he was on the Cubs. But, he didn't hit righties very well, either. Jacque only got 99 XBH's in 2 full seasons in Chicago, so the Cubs are better off without him. I hope Pie can be a guy like Granderson or Sizemore. But, I'd trade Pie for either one of them right this moment.

Honestly, I wish we had never heard of OH or bigbird or Peace or whoever else supposedly has insider status at OH. After this whole Roberts/Bedard fiasco, I long for the days of reading about trades AFTER they happen. Granted, a lot of this is on MacPhail and Angelos, but I honestly don't care about OH, the people who go to OH, the posts that are brought back here from OH or anything else Orioles related. THIS IS NSBB, not OH Jr. I have never visited OH, but I can only guess NSBB is a far more superior site, even if we don't have anyone who sweeps the floors of Hendry's secret war room. It was fun for awhile (like a day or two), but it's real old at this point.

You think 92 wins will be enough to beat out either the Red Sox or Yankees, whichever one doesn't win the East? Before they ever start worrying about NY and Boston, they should probably worry first about Cleveland and Detroit. :wink:

Uh oh, a bloody glove, er... bloody syringe. It's not looking good for the Rocket.

Holy crap! Somebody get that kid to a McDonald's! What is that? Flyweight or Featherweight?

Beckett Dice-K Wakefield Buchholz Lester Still better than the Yankees.

How much did Baltimore pay for Sammy?

You mean your Grandfather's barber? LOL.

He sucks very much.

Every hour on the hour for the next 24 hours I plan to announce that it is 3:00, and I will be right twice out of 24 attempts. May I be an insider now, too?

:shock: You rang? well, you do suck... BANNED. Nah. He owed me that one. I got him pretty good in Transactions about a week or so ago.

:shock: You rang?

Sounds like the next Joel Guzman. Considering he's already 6'3", he'll probably be a third baseman or corner outfielder within the next three years I still haven't figured out how Glaus lasted at SS as long as he did.

I count 8 WCIU games. I don't understand why the WCIU games can't still be shown on the MLB EI package.

Not a bad list, but I would think that Hoffman's saves will set the bar making it tough for Wagner to get in unless he extends his career for several more years. Also, the offense at SS these days will make it tough for Vizquel, IMO.

Nothing to worry about here. Just do it. I took over a keeper team a few years back and there isn't anybody left on that team as of today. You are taking over a team that has been abandoned (for whatever reason), so what you do with the team once it is yours is all on you. The keeper league I joined has 16 teams and 10 minor league spots for each team, which could potentially roster 160 minor league players. If you don't know of 160 minor league players you wouldn't mind holding on your roster, you don't have to. You don't have to have any players in your minor leagues. But, once you join the league, you'll find yourself learning more about the minors and the players in the minors to help give yourself an upperhand when contructing your team for future years. Keeper leagues can be a lot of fun. To give you an idea, here is my current minor league team: Position Players: Geovany Soto, Jacoby Ellsbury, Vladmir Balentien, Andy LaRoche, Ian Stewart Pitchers: Adam Miller, Eric Hurley, Max Scherzer, Carlos Carrasco, Dan Moskos Several of these guys will likely graduate to the majors this year (Soto, Ellsbury, Balentien, LaRoche, Miller, Hurley and Scherzer) which will allow me to restock my minor leagues via trade or free agent acquisitions. Minor leaguers (those who qualify to be minor leaguers like the one's listed above) do not count towards the cap restrictions for the major league team. If you have heard of all or most of the guys in my minor leagues, then you already know enough guys to have a well stocked minor league team, or it won't take you long to learn about them when you see the value it brings to your team. Not knowing much about owning a keeper team isn't what will concern the other managers in your league. In fact, they will enjoy watching you finish in last place if you value guys like Craig Monroe or Corey Patterson. The important thing the other managers in your league will want is someone who will manage the team all season long. Most of the other managers in that league will be happy to help you get started also. But, chances are pretty good that you won't be overly impressed with the team you inherit. I sure didn't like mine. But, through trades, drafts and drops, I like my team going into 2008. At the end of each season, teams have restrictions on how many points your team can have going into the next season. There are usually restrictions on how many players you can keep from one year to the next also. There are also exemptions for some players who have limited major league experience. To give you an idea of how that works, here is my keeper team for 2008. C- 1b- Conor Jackson (exempt) 2b- Rickie Weeks (points towards cap) SS- Stephen Drew (exempt) 3b- Edwin Encarnacion (exempt) OF- Matt Holliday (LOTS of points toward the cap) OF- Milton Bradley (points towards the cap) OF- U- SP- Brandon Webb (LOTS of points toward the cap) SP- Pedro Martinez (points toward the cap) SP- Matt Cain (exempt) SP- James Shields (exempt) SP- RP- RP- In our league, you can't keep anymore than 10 players on your major league roster and your point limit is 2000. My guys add up to about 1920 points or so. With my minor leaguers, I basically have someone to fill every hole on my roster except the RP spots. All I need to do with the draft is improve at the positions that need the most improvement, like a better 1b to replace Conor Jackson. Because of the cap, there are generally pretty good players that get dropped off teams to meet the cap requirement that become available in the draft. Right now, and not every team in my league has dropped all of their players, guys like Carlos Pena, Todd Helton and Carlos Delgado could be available to draft with my first pick. Or, I could elect to draft a solid 5th starter like Tim Hudson. Or knowing Milton Bradley could be on the DL to start the season, I might want to go with Curtis Granderson if he's still available with the 7th pick. Bottom line, keeper leagues are fun and they are much more stable than your basic free leagues that owners abandon at the beginning of the season when they don't like who they autodrafted or abandoned when they found themselves out of the running by midseason. Keeper leagues give you a foundation for future years and everything you do this season can have an effect on next season. Just go for it. It's $10. You can find that under your couch cushions.

Spot on. San Diego isn't a secondary team for me, but most everyone who lives here is a Padres fan. They are on tv every game, and being a baseball fan in general, it's easy to find myself tuning to a Padres game, which generally starts several hours after a Cub game is long over. They have good broadcasters who make the game entertaining when the product on the field isn't so entertaining. If the Cubs didn't win (and they never do), I'd be fine with the Padres winning it all. It would be good for the people in this town to finally have something to cheer about. I never gave a crap about the Padres before I moved here. Now, I follow them because it's hard not to.

Alcohol.

His 2007 line against lefties of .225/.269/.494 is downright awful. And there's one less lefty in that division this week (Santana). I think the Tigers will come out of this okay. I didn't say the Tigers didn't do alright with this signing, I just said, Granderson now needs to hit lefties at a better clip, to be worth the money he's getting. When your lead off CF is hitting 84 XBH's per season and posting a 136 OPS+, who cares how well or bad he hits lefties?