rawaction

Offense My rankings of order of needs: OT, OG, WR, QB, RB. QB- Cut Griese. Re-sign Grossman. Let him and Orton battle it out. Draft a QB, probably not before round 3, unless there is a huge steal on the board. Ainge is probably my #1 target, assuming Ryan or Brohm is gone by pick # 45. RB- I don't see it as a huge need. Get an OL and see what happens. Granted Benson, Peterson and Wolfe are not franchise backs, but I think the Bears can wait a year to address this position. AP has shown to be a valuable option out of the backfield receiving. Wolfe can be a change of pace ala Sproles in SD. Benson has to be given another year. WR- Berrian probably gone. Moose should be gone. I've heard some positive whispers about Bradley this offseason so maybe he can contribute big time next year. No #1 options in FA, but I think guys like Patrick Crayton, Bryant Johnson, and DJ Hackett could be nice additions. Probably gonna need to draft a guy day 1 here. A trade down could get the Bears Malcolm Kelly in the 1st or they could go after a guy like Doucet in the 2nd. Don't see Ocho as a good option considering the QB situation. It would be a waste of money to pay him and not have a stable QB. OL- Simple formula to fix here. Look at the other team that plays games on one of the great lakes. Cleveland signed a FA guard. Drafted a LT and went from one of the worst OLs to one of the best in 1 offseason. Both Colts Gs, Faneca, and Womack would be solid pickups. I'd probably spend big on Faneca. The Colts guys may be staying or products of a great system. Womack is probably gonna be similar to what the Bears got from 3 years of Ruben Brown as he ages. TE- No need. Clark and Olsen are a solid tandem. Gilmore is a FA and should be allowed to go. If anything, the Bears get a lesser FA or undrafted FA goaline TE for blocking purposes. FB- No need.

If everything in the above is true, I could see a deal happening (not advocating it) that looks something like: Cubs get: Roberts, Sherrill, Payton O's get: Marquis, Gallagher, Colvin, Cedeno

Yeah, I don't understand the comments about IU not being that good next year. Lose DJ and probably lose Gordon, but do bring back every other contributor on the team. The 3 top guys they will bring back, put up 41 points last night. And they bring in antoher top 5-10 recruit in the nation.

I didn't have a problem with Frazier's chest bump in the intros. It would have been stupid if he didn't. I thought it was funny and a great job by him to get in his head right away. As for Gordon getting away with travelling calls, yeah he does travel pretty much every time he catches the ball on the move. But I suggest Illini fans watch Brian Randle too. He does the same. And Gordon has been called for at least 2 traveling violations in every game this year. Big Ten officiating is what it is. It's consistently inconsistent. It's horrible. That's what you expect out of a BigTen game unfortunately. Neither team was helped nor hurt by officiating overall. Lastly, Sampson really sucks at coaching. IU is a horrible zone team. U of I was able to hit outside shots and get it inside whenever they wanted to (luckily for us, they never seemed to want to go inside). Yet Sampson stayed in the zone. He went to the man late and the D was great. Offensively, he's shown he that he can draw up a shot for Gordon out of halftime and that's about it.

IU is better, but I honestly expect Illinois to win. IU hasn't played well of late, especially on the road, and Illinois will be highly motivated. Plus, seeing as this is a Big Ten game, I expect Gordon to have two fouls during warmups. yeah, i expect a loss for the reasons you stated, namely that they're not playing well recently. regardless of fouls, i don't expect a lot from Gordon tonight. he is human and i think he'll be affected by the situation and the crowd. The one thing IU has done (and Sampson in general) is beat the teams they should beat. They haven't beaten them by as much as you might think, but they have won. I'm not predicting anything, but this is not a game where a loss should be assumed.

First off, he's 16 not 6. Secondly, what potential have the Cubs been waiting on? The Cubs have never had a good farm system outside of a few years earlier in this decade. And the main reason the Cubs have sucked for most of our lives is because they don't take chances on potential like this enough. They routinely spend at the top 5-7 of all teams in baseball and have nothing to show for it because they can't find and develop talent like this. I should say...around a decade. No team is going to see the kid's potential, till he's atleast 20. I mean, look how long it's taken Felix Pie to develop, and he still not there. I don't mind the Cubs taking chances, but calculated chances. Is this Salcedo kid legitimately talented, or is this a case of Boras overhyping ANOTHER young player? Spending essentially 1st rd money on a kid you have no clue on how well he will perform is not a chance I want the Cubs to get in on. And I realize the Cubs need some SS prospects, but overpaying an unproven SS prospect....is NOT the way to do it. I don't care about what position he plays. I wouldn't spend the money on him because he is a SS prospect in a system devoid of SS prospects. I would spend the money on him because I thought he was a good player. It wouldn't matter if he was a RHP or a 3B (places where the Cubs seem to have a lot of high end talent in the majors and minors).

First off, he's 16 not 6. Secondly, what potential have the Cubs been waiting on? The Cubs have never had a good farm system outside of a few years earlier in this decade. And the main reason the Cubs have sucked for most of our lives is because they don't take chances on potential like this enough. They routinely spend at the top 5-7 of all teams in baseball and have nothing to show for it because they can't find and develop talent like this.

The Cubs don't need a starting 2B, but they do need more good players. Brian Roberts is a good player. Cedeno and Veal are probably not gonna be as good as Roberts. Murton may someday be as good as Roberts, but probably not as good at his position as Roberts is compared to his position. Gallagher is the only potentially big loss, and it's pretty much a forgone conclusion he would be included in this trade.

Although I take no stock in this, just for argument's sake, that is way too I Dropped The Soap! much to give up for a player we don't need. That'd be a horrific trade. I'd probably do it at this point.

Your hitting is quite optimistic. Those aren't career years from any of those players scratch maybe ARam and I HAVE to predict a good year from Soto. I just have to. I do think the hitting will be much better this year, and that the pitching over preformed last year save Zambrano. Optimistic sure...but not overly so. EDIT: maybe I have Pie, ARam and Lee's OBP too high. Lee would have a career year in BA and OBP, and far better than anything other than his 2005 season. Ramirez and Soriano would have career highs in SLG. Pie would hit for more power than Lee (ISOP).

Lee .313/.397/.522 Derosa .279/.346/.409 Fukudome .281/.374/.464 Pie .268/.310/.398 Ramirez .301/.362/.556 Soriano .287/.343/.560 Soto .261/.323/.448 Theriot .268/.344/.351 Zambrano 1.23/ 3.65 Lilly 1.28/ 4.04 Hill 1.18/ 3.52 Dempster 1.44/ 4.88 (ERA only that low because he'll be in the pen) Lieber 1.38/ 4.67 Marquis 1.41/ 5.26 Wood 1.24/ 2.98 Marmol 1.23/ 3.49 Howry 1.16/ 3.21

It's called a prediction. Id like to hear you basis for this prediction, cause the Astros rotation is horrible outside of Oswalt. The Padres offense is horrible outside of maybe Adrian Gonzalez and Khalil Greene.

For the record, I've seen Gabbard play, and I have not been the least bit impressed by him. He has a great arm and good mobility, but I haven't seen him throw an accurate pass yet.

Yeah, the Reds have to have a better offense than the Cards right?

Clemens? Unit? Clemens no longer plays. I think Smoltz has as good a case as Randy Johnson. He has the great years in the pen, but if he didn't and remained healthy in the rotation, his numbers would be right on with RJs except for about 750Ks. Plus, Smoltz has to get some credit for still being a top 20 pitcher this late in his career. Unit hasn't been greatly effective the last 3-4 years.

Nothing's wrong with Colvin. He's a solid, not great, prospect. He has the potential to be an above average producer in CF.

Smoltz has as good a case as any pitcher outside of Maddux. I like him better than Glavine. He won't quite get to 250 wins, but he'll get 235-240 if he plays 2 more years. Has 150 saves. He'll hit 3000 Ks in April. He'll finish with a better ERA and more Ks than Glavine. He'll likely finish with a better ERA than Unit. I would think Johan Santana has a pretty good shot. Jeter and Rivera are likely 1st balloters because of where they play. Ichiro is definitely getting in for more reasons than his on the field performance, which has been good enough alone. Beckett has a good shot. Schilling's likely to join his sock in the HOF. What about Miguel Cabrera? If Pujols is in, he would have to be right?

That's Luis Gonzalez. This is Juan Gonzalez. Ah, good point.

Pryor has great symmetry in his stats. Career 4250 rushing yards, 4249 passing yards. This season he had 1899 and 1889 respectively.

Lucky for him, he's going to Ohio St. IU has a couple 3 star recruits as usual. Nobody I ever really heard of.

There's a thread at the bottom of the page saying he signed with the Marlins. :-k

probably, which is too bad, because he's not good. He's not? 23 TDs to 20 INTs and a QB rating in the low 70s says he's not. Granted, his numbers aren't great, but having a team that led the league in drops doesn't help. and to be fair to manning, whom i don't like at all, he looked like a completely different qb in the last 5 or 6 games. We'll see if the transformation carries over to next year (for my sake, I hope not.) A hot streak doesn't make him good. Grossman had like a 98 QB rating thru week 8 last year. I like to compare him to Grossman, because Eli's numbers this year are remarkably similar to Rex's last year.

No. He used to have one of the top 3-5 arms in the league. Now, he's probably slightly above league average throwing the ball. Lofton has an awful arm. ???

probably, which is too bad, because he's not good. He's not? 23 TDs to 20 INTs and a QB rating in the low 70s says he's not.

Brady and Bruschi have talked as much trash this season as anyone in the league this year.