BigbadB

Fergie Jenkins was also on that team with Ernie and Billy. Jose Cardenal might have been Latino, but as the snot nosed kid I was at the time, I always just associated him as black as well. All of those guys were gone by the time Madlock got traded. Madlock was about the only guy worth watching at that time.

That equates to minus runs scored during the regular season since the air is thin in AZ.

Denver is still in cap hell, and even a guy like Tannehill or Minshew are going to cost 8 figures. Fields could make a little sense for them.

I get that WR is becoming a premium position of need on teams given how air attack is the best weapon of choice for offenses, but I'd be shocked if all three of those guys are gone at 9. Williams, Maye and Daniels are pretty much givens in the top 8. Harrison Jr. is also a given. There's only 4 more spots in that top 8, and one of them is probably Nabers or Odunze. You have 3 premium OT's and a top 10 TE in Bowers, and the Chargers seem like the perfect fit for Bowers. They drafted Quentin Johnston last year. There is a possibility someone trades into the top 10 for McCarthy. All of this said, not one single defensive player has been mentioned and there are some special defensive players that are worthy of top 10 status. But, if there really is a run on them in the top 8, I'm in agreement you trade down and pick up an extra pick somewhere and then grab a WR with one of those two picks. I'm also curious what Poles might do at WR in free agency. They clearly need one free agent to give the rookie time to develop. Whether they go big with a Pittman/Ridley type free agent or go Samuel/G. Davis type of lower tier WR will be interesting. I can see Scott and St. Brown back next year, but they need two holes filled via free agency/draft. Considering the desperate need for weapons on offense, I'd be surprised once again if they signed a second tier type WR and then waited until the 3rd round or later to address the position in the draft if they did miss out on the top 3.

This trade will look really bad if they don't find a decent replacement and Wilson goes on and has a pro bowl caliber season with someone on a league minimum contract. Tampa? Minnesota?

Yep. They will get a pick back for trading Fields, and likely better than a 5th. At the very worst, Fields for one year and 1.6m is a nice bridge back for whoever that same team drafts. Trading for Bates kinda makes me think they will be signing another Center as the starter. I've read that the dude from Miami might be that guy. He's coming off an ACL injury, and Bates is your insurance guy. May not be much to it, but I've read that it may not be all that popular to have a rookie Center snapping the ball to your rookie QB. I also don't think you trade back either one or nine to make up for the lost 5th rounder. You get one of those top 3 WR's if you can.

How has no one mentioned Matt Murton?

Buyers or sellers at the deadline? Haha.

I regret never getting fitted or taking lessons. I bought a really nice set of Taylor Made woods and irons and I've "gotten by" on those. My biggest problem was always my swing. The way my swing works, I pretty much have to be perfect at the contact point, because I never take dirt after contact. My arc is designed (by me) to reach the point of contact at the base of the ball and it's immediately ascending back up on follow through. I have tried to adjust to take dirt, but never have been able to do it successfully. Basically, if I miss the exact point of contact, my club either bounces before the ball, digs in before the ball or I blade it. Muscle memory makes it where I hit the contact point more often than not, but it's probably the biggest reason I never took my game to the next level.

It's kind of funny how the Fields/Williams debate is looking more and more similar to the current status of our two biggest political parties. The Bears fan base is splitting right down the middle and leaning one way or the other to the extreme. I have followed about 6 or so Bears sites on Facebook and I guess because I have so many of those, Facebook decided that I should have more showing up in my feed that I'm not subscribed to. So I have a dozen or so or more pages posting a lot of nonsense, and the comments are cringe worthy. I mean, sometimes the most reasonable comments are from the idiots wanting to give you 5 grands.

Last time I looked, it was ruled a hit. Did they change it to an error? It was a hard hit ball to the opposite side of his glove hand on a bit of a weird hop. Definitely playable, but if they did rule it a hit, the official scorer felt it was also not a routine ball that was misplayed. Forgiveable in my opinion since it's early spring. I was a bit concerned about his throw to 2nd on a double play grounder, but Hoerner being a gold glover managed to turn an errant throw into a double play anyway.

Where were you seeing gun results? I haven't noticed the game score graphic showing pitch speeds so far in Spring Training.

I have so many amazing golf stories from my time in San Diego, but have yet to take my clubs to a golf course in Central Illinois when I moved here in November of '21. I still take my clubs with me to Cali when we drive out there, which is sometimes 2 times a year. My reasons are unselfish for the most part. Reason #1 is my wife went through hell before we moved back here. Her only remaining family members that she grew up with (brother and father) both died during Covid. Neither died of Covid, but the depression she suffers for their passing is very tough for her to deal with, and it didn't help that she couldn't be there with them at their final moments. Then I up and moved her away from the rest of our immediate family by moving to Illinois where she knows no one outside of my group of friends and family. The reason itself is that I just don't want to leave her alone to go off and do fun things while she's at home being lonely and thinking about things that aren't fun at all. Reason #2 is my friends here aren't golfers and aren't starting any time soon. My one friend who loves golf really can't. He's got osteoporosis really bad to the point he can break a bone just walking. He wants me to take him out, but I can just see him breaking an arm by making too much contact with the ground or some such other bad swing issue. He's going to make me do it, so sometime in the next couple of months when it's warm enough out, I will take him out. Reason #3 is I just don't really want to spend the money now that we are on a fixed income. Saving the money to allow for more trips to California to see the kids and grandkids is higher on the list of priorities. I haven't been good at golf for the most part, having only hit the '70's twice and mostly mid '80's at the highlight of my best golf since I took it up. It doesn't bother me to still shoot high '90's on a really hard course and from the blue tees, but hitting 100 still happens on a rare occasion and I absolutely hate that. Having now been away from nearly weekly golf every week of the year in SoCal and Vegas to only golfing once a year when I'm back there, I can proudly say I scored below '90 on some hard courses each time I was there. You don't loose that muscle memory that easily I guess. I've played some amazing golf courses like Pebble Beach, Spyglass, Spanish Bay, Wolf Creek, Torrey Pines, Del Mar Country Club, San Diego Country Club and Ram's Hill just to name a few, and all of that will likely just have to live in my memory bank now as I drift farther away from a game I enjoyed a lot because the competitive group I golfed with made it fun. The famous par 3 green overlooking the ocean at Pebble Beach has been my cell phone background picture since I first snapped that photo on the course, June 19th, 2012. Favorite course I ever played was Wolf Creek in Mesquite NV. Course I played that makes me sad, is Trump National in Los Angeles. I played it for free, but it makes me sick to think I did anything anywhere with the Trump name on it.

No protection at all on the knee? Hmmm. Not sure that's a good idea.

I'm not believing anything until it actually happens, but I wonder what Atlanta might be giving up if that ends up being true? Atlanta has a 2nd rounder and two 3rd rounders. One of those 3rd rounders becomes a 2nd rounder if Calvin Ridley extends with Jacksonville. You have to think the conditional pick won't be in play. That leaves Rd 2 pick 43 or Rd 3 pick 74. Atlanta might be trying to move that Rd 3 pick along with a conditional the next year. But, a deal this quickly makes me think Poles might have his sites set on that Rd 2 pick.

Bulls won a fun one last night. Doesn't make up for the dumb loss the previous night, but such is life for this team.

All of the belly aching about giving Bellinger his 200m can finally end. The Cubs won this deal, but Boras will still claim a victory, since it's a 25m+ per year contract that is player friendly. It's the way it was always going to go down. Everyone is happy.

first thing I noticed about the jersey's yesterday. My guess is they went small to try to make Crow-Armstrong fit better. Didn't work. When I pointed it out to my wife, she suggested they just do Crow-Armstrong all the way around the number. I guess that isn't much worse than a half circle.

My bar tab was over $400 that night. I was in San Diego at that time and it was just the wife and me along with a friend from San Jose sitting there together in the center of the bar with the biggest big screen tv directly in front of us. The owner of the bar saved us those seats. While no one else was a Cubs fan, we pretty much knew everyone else in there and the place was packed, and everyone was pretty much cheering for the Cubs on our behalf. As most were Padres fans, they too knew our pain and suffering as fans. It will always live as the greatest game I ever saw, and it was worth every penny of that hefty bar tab. Once I have a better data plan for my internet (my satellite internet sucks balls), I'll rewatch the full game again at some point. For now, my DirecTV recording doesn't count towards my data, so it will help get me primed for baseball season.

There are other minor league affiliates within driving range of Peoria, but I'm half an hour from Peoria alone, and if I'm having someone come all the way out from California to take in a minor league game, half an hour might be the max I want to drive him since my home is specifically designed for entertaining. $40 a ticket isn't out of my price range. I was just blown away that tickets start at that price. That's way different than I remember them being. But, then again, I'm old enough to remember dollar beer night at the old park in Peoria.

Wasn't Montgomery going to cost a draft pick if they signed him? I find it extremely unlikely that Cubs brass sat there this long this offseason, then proceeds to sign two of Boras' clients.

I had that game saved on my DVR on my tv for the longest time. Never did watch it again, but figured I would at some point. I moved since then and all saved DVR material was lost since I couldn't continue with my previous cable service where I was moving to. I guess I'll have to record whatever they show this Saturday morning. Thanks for the info. Should be a fun watch sometime Saturday, or maybe an even warmer Spring Day since it already seems like Spring in my part of the world.

Same thing for minor league ball. After the wife and I spent about $3000+ on one set of Bears tickets and one set of Cubs tickets last year along with a few other surprise costs, we told ourselves we needed to pull back the reins a bit. A buddy called from San Diego wanting us to do Cubs in Wrigley or Petco this year, and we told him it will have to be Peoria Chiefs this year. I googled tickets for a Peoria Chiefs game and the tickets start at $40 a seat. Holy crap.

This is probably going to continue to be the model when you have teams doing what the Dodgers are doing now. There are 30 teams and only one can win the World Series each year, and no matter how much you do to improve your team, it still won't be as much as what the Dodgers do. Hell, the Mets and Padres just went out there and tried to buy a World Series over the last handful of years and didn't do squat. Spending money doesn't guarantee you anything.

None of those first round trades are happening. Poles said he'd have to be overwhelmed, and those trades won't overwhelm anyone. I would do any of the Fields trades. I feel like Poles will want to get a 2nd back from someone for Fields, just to either further erase the Claypool trade or to make the Sweat deal even sweeter. I also think Washington will offer something more than that suggested offer simply because they want to make a splash with their fanbase with the new owners, and Caleb is from DC. It was possibly the big reason Kingsbury got the gig in the first place, which was to lure him in. Caleb is working without an agent and his dad is probably heavily involved. Maybe Washington thinks Caleb and is dad put pressure on Chicago to make a deal with Washington or else.... In the end, Poles likely won't like any deal Washington offers, because it still won't be enough to move off of drafting the best QB in the draft. I sense Poles' term "overwhelmed" is a higher place than Washington is willing to reach.