bukie

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.

Quick, figure out the 6 teams. I'd venture a guess of Detroit, Arizona, Houston, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Kansas City? I think Arizona beat the Cowboys in the '97 playoffs. I don't really remember though. The TO press conference at the end of the game was very suprising. I am actually starting to really like the guy, and can't believe the complete 360 he has conducted. So they did. Turns out Buffalo is the other team, thanks to the Music City Miracle.

Quick, figure out the 6 teams. I'd venture a guess of Detroit, Arizona, Houston, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Kansas City?

0-4 last week going with opposites. I'll do the same this week with Jacksonville, San Diego, New York and Seattle. Wouldn't that be the most boring final 4 in years.

He's like the Jim Rice of the 80's. With a worse OBP.

I'm not sure how that is projecting the pitching to regress, as it is predicting 8 bullpen arms better than the league average. Marmol will almost certainly regress, because it's hard to expect him to repeat his year last year. Back end of the rotation is a concern, though.

Must have been something like that. Well here's one stat for Bly that we CAN verify: He has as many career shutouts as Glavine and Maddog COMBINED. It's a different era of pitching to be sure, but Blyleven had more career shutouts than the entire league did last year.

Last piece of Blyleven support, as it's already too late again for this year: http://espn.go.com/mlb/s/2002/0728/1411078.html Yes, he was a better pitcher than Nolan Ryan. Second-best pitcher of his era, of which 8 pitchers are in the HOF.

Yes, I understand. I'm not standing by the authenticity of the guy's statement, it's just what I heard. Absolutely, not tearing into you, just trying to find some semblance of a backing for the position.

Blyleven had 60 career shutouts. Got to figure he won some of those.

At least I got one prediction right.

Worst Hall of Fame arguments of 2008: http://vegaswatch.net/2007/12/worst-hall-of-fame-arguments-of-2008.html Yes, folks, those are actual BBWAA voters making those arguments.

Blyleven deserves more love than he gets. Raines too. Gossage was borderline, but him getting in is nice.