bukie

Lost in the IU-UI talk... Illinois won. By 24. At Minnesota. Where did that come from?

I believe this is the correct order.

Always seemed too convenient for the constant to normalize the data to be 5 exactly. Makes more sense that it isn't all the time. Still don't like the way park effects are factored in, since in any player's home park, 90% of the league is facing the home team's pitching staff, which can throw off park averages. However, I'm not sure there's a better way to do it, since factoring in multiple years of home park effects is also flawed if the home park is altered in any way.

Maybe Hendry wouldn't do the Roberts deal without getting an innings-eater in return...

that's like asking "if two people own the same car but one has 2 speeding tickets and the other doesn't, which is more likely to speed?" more like "if two people own the same car but one has two speeding tickets, which one is more likely to violently murder his entire family?" Or even "If two people own the same car but one has a speeding ticket, which one is more likely to use illegal drugs?"

Psh, that's nothing. Apparently I'm a Nazi. I didn't realize there were people with that low a level of self-esteem. I mostly just feel sorry for them.

Blanco likely drags down the "duo" in their eyes, but if Soto plays up to his projections, the Cubs could have the 2nd or 3rd best production in the NL from the C position.

How is Jeff Francoeur not a good outfielder? I'll let the FJM guys handle this one with a glossary entry: OBP (On-Base Percentage) 1. Read Moneyball. 2. OBP is the difference between Kevin Youkilis and Jeff Francoeur. 3. It's also the reason Adam Dunn is vastly underrated. 4. Very simply, OBP is a way to tell how good someone is at not making outs. It’s the total number of times a guy gets on base without being responsible for making an out (except for reaching on errors), divided by his plate appearances -- which are simply times a guy comes up to the plate and tries not to make an out. See why it’s valuable? (Plate appearances in this case are defined as At Bats + Walks + Sacrifice Flies.)

So, with last night's win against Golden State, the Bulls actually vaulted into the 8 spot in the East. No, really.

just like last year, right? Indeed, just like last year. A good example of why projections are merely that.

More the opposite, really. :) Joe Morgan was a fantastic player, but the man truly doesn't understand why.

Here's how I see it: Contenders - Cubs, Brewers Competitive - Reds, Astros Disaster - Cards, Pirates This doesn't mean of course that the division will finish in that order, just that this would be the most likely outcome, with basically three "tiers" of teams. The only prohibitive favorite of any NL division would be the Mets.

Simply put, EqA is an offensive stat that attempts to "level the playing field" of all the players in the league, taking into effect the ballpark effects, team pitching effects, and only factoring in individual statistics like walks, HRs, SBs, HBP, TB, and such to prevent the effects of teammates on the statistics, unlike R and RBI (which are very team-dependent). It's normalized to look like a batting average, so that the league average EqA will always be .260. So, anyone above a .260 EqA is above average offensively, and anyone below .260 EqA is below average offensively. Most of us are still waiting for a defensive metric that is comparable.

ESPN's 10 best college basketball mascots. I'm biased to one of them, but most of these are pretty hilarious.

That's all well and good, but the people that don't vote better damn well not bitch about whoever gets voted in. They had their chance to contribute. That's all well and good, but when there are no good candidates available (say, for example, 2004), I'd just as soon vote "None of the Above". In that case, I reserve my right to complain about all the candidates.

Illinois with 6 moral victories in the conference thus far, tied with Wisconsin for the lead. Way to keep it close, guys!

All 5 have been stated. Schilling - 4.380 - 2nd overall Pedro - 4.280 - 3rd overall Ben Sheets - 3.940 - 4th overall Johan Santana - 3.790 - 6th overall Jon Lieber - 3.670 - 8th overall Of course, if Lieber pitches as much as I think he will, he'll likely fall out of the top 10 this year, and Oswalt could slip in.

4 of 5 right.

Sorry, should have stated "Minimum 1000 IP, 100 career decisions"

Which 5 active pitchers are currently among the top 10 overall in career K/BB ratio?

If the Chargers and Giants make the Super Bowl, I guarantee 90% of the angle will be "Manning vs. Rivers - Which team made the right draft choice?"

Just a thought here... I understand the desire to splinter off traffic for basketball and football into their own sites, both for overall bandwidth savings and topical discussion. However, it can be very inconvenient for the end user to be forced to three different and separate locations for discussions about sports among what is really one community. So, I would suggest combining NSBB, WCFB, SCH into one all-encompassing "North Side Sports" site, and having a master forum for everything. This would allow a single Social/Rants forum, and then forums for NSBB (Cubs discussion, Other teams discussion, Baseball Game Threads, Minor League Baseball, College/High School Baseball, MLB Transactions), WCFB (Bears discussion, Other teams discussion, Football Game Threads, NFL Transactions/Draft, College/High School Football), SCH (Bulls' discussion, other teams' discussion, Basketball Game Threads, NBA Transactions/Draft, College/High School Basketball), and a "General Board stuff" of Social, Rants, Polls, Suggestions, Announcements/Rules/FAQ, and Events. This kind of thing could even be split up between current locations, as long as it's "invisible" to the end user. I just think it would work better than trying to create three separate communities of discussion out of what really is one community of people.

Bruce Sutter Kirby Puckett Tony Perez EDIT: And, just because...Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, Frank Chance.

Here's a mock draft that at least picks in the right order: http://walterfootball.com/draft2008.php Although it still has the Bears drafting a QB....sigh.

That mock draft doesn't even have the correct order of draftees, as the Bears draft 14th, not 12th. If they reach on a QB in the first round with all the other more important holes they need to address, it'll be a catastrophe.