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The one thing that I always thought about Lou was that he played players who are performing. Which may be a veteran over a younger player but also a younger player over a veteran. I suspect if Hill pitches better in Spring he will be given the opportunity to Start. In this whole thing what really bothers me is the Marquis signing. We have several better options in our own system. I dont have a problem with Hendry wanting to create more depth in our pitching staff. Bad is not good depth though.

Its not always that they are "old". Neifi for instance isnt old. Jose Macias isnt old. They just have a habit of bringing in other teams rejects. In a lot of cases these rejects have a larger role than they should have on any team. What is more frustrating is that the team isnt even in contention. A great opportunity to let some young players play and develop and we are playing the likes of Neifi Perezs and so on and so on. I dont mean to pick on Neifi but he is a recent example that comes to mind. The Cubs have had several of these types of players for years though.

I looked at Erstads numbers and he isnt very good. He was really good until 2001 and has been really bad since. I would think that the Sox have to have a outfielder in there system that would give them as much production as Erstad.

This is the kind of dumb stuff that has made the Raiders the worst franchise in the NFL. While I agree that it wouldnt be a bad move to get rid of the the first overall pick, Moss and Porter. If Michael Vick is the return it would at best be a wash. Since Vick's best asset is speed which will be going away in the next few years, this is potentially a terrible trade.

Thames really slumped in the 2nd half. I think Detroit would be interested in JJones though. They could use a LH bat. We could probably get Thames and some prospects.

Sadly if he would have hit .250 after going to Detroit they would have let Casey go and would have moved Guillen to 1st. He just really stunk up the joint in Detroit. With the Cubs he had his moments that made people think he was serviceable. The truth is he is terrible even if he hits .280

I think Scott Moore could become a John Mabry type with a little more power and less average if he learns to play the corner outfield spots. Even without that he is a LH corner infielder with some pop. Certainly good for bench depth. Its not that I wouldnt trade him if the deal was right, I would just make sure his value is fully understood first. I have a problem with trading Jock. In none of the speculation that I have read here are the Cubs a better team. If we cannot package Jones with some young arms to get a stud(AJones) then we shouldnt even be considering trading him. The other option I would be for is to trade him to a contender for a top level prospect. If we are just trading him to make room for Floyd and Erstad or Finley, I would pass. I would rather just let Pie play and keep Jones as a fourth OF.

I tend to agree, but I'm not completely sold on him. May just not know enough about him. He is a good QB though. I think if the circumstances are right he will be a steal. He needs to go somewhere that he can sit behind a solid veteran for a couple of years, then be ready to take over a competitive team. The other option would be to go to a good coaching situation. I dont follow the NFL regularly so I have no idea where this would be. I know this may not be the most popular thought on this board but I bet either Henne or Brohm is the #1 QB taken next year. I am not saying who will have the best NFL career I am just saying that one of these guys will be the top QB taken. If either one was in Brady Quinns position they would be Top 5 picks this year.

where does one get historical WARP3? Just curious. BP DT cards All of these stats must put a lot of stock into the fact that he was a SS for most of his career. As for numbers that I understand there is no comparision between Ripken and Ruth or Williams or at least 50 other position players. I have a ton of respect for Baseball Prospectus but in this case I think they are giving to much credence to him because he is a SS.

Seriously? Career .276/.340/.447/.787, 112 OPS+ doesn't exactly scream baseball legend to me, even accounting for his position. Did you know his career fielding percentage was higher than Ozzie Smith's? Speaking of fielding percentages, I was just looking at Omar Vizquel's stats. If Ozzie Smith is in the hall of fame then so should Vizquel. Omar's lifetime fielding percentage is .6 higher than Ozzie's. He's already got more hits than Smith ever had, and his lifetime .BA is 14 points higher. Not to take anything away from Vizquel since he is great defensively, he doesn't have quite the range that Ozzie did. And if you want to compare fielding percentages, the league average fielding percentage during Ozzie's career was .006 points lower than it has been during Vizquel's career, which oddly enough is the same as the difference in their respective fielding percentages. Ozzie Smith was regarded as the "leader' of a good ballteam for almost a decade. To me this is again one of those things that the value cannot be measured one way or another. It is very important to HOF voters though. Omar Vizquel may be one of the most underrated players of our generation. Unless he gets 3000 hits I dont see the HOF happening for him

Robin Yount.

He played in the same era as Alan Trammell who was probably his equal offensively when healthy. I would say there was a dramatic decline in his numbers following 1984. Was this due to the steak? Who knows. I would just say that the streak isnt as great of a lifetime achievement as things like runs scored, hits, hrs, rbis, wins. These things have value that are measureable that help a team win. Consecitive games played value isnt measureable when it comes to helping a team win. I dont give Gehrig crap for his game played streak because he isnt nearly overrated of a player as Ripken is. Again I think Ripken belongs in the hall, I just dont think he is a first ballot HOFer and not anywhere near as great as a lot of baseball people and sportswriters would contend.

He got a higher percentage of votes than BABE RUTH did. Somebody explain that one, please. Ruth had ridiculous competition on his ballot and Ripken didn't. Personnally I think that Ripken is the most overrated player in baseball history. This is not to say he shouldnt be in the HOF. I dont think he is a first ballot HOFer though He set a record that really doesnt have a lot to do with winning baseball games. I would go as far as saying that setting the record may have hindered his teams ability to win baseball games. Though he has over 3000 hits, he was far short of being one of baseballs dominate players after 1984. He only played on 1 WS champion. I dont think he ever led the league in any major offensive categories(I didnt look this up just doing out of memory so may be wrong). I think he is a great guy and certainly does deserve to be in the Hall. He just isnt even one of baseballs 50 best players ever. I think he is regarded for his personality more than his performance though. edit: As an example of what I am trying to say is Ripken isnt close to being as great of a player as Rickey Henderson and I think Henderson will struggle to make the HOF on his first ballot.

The #11 team really shouldn't have been there. They need to change the rule that prohibits a conference from only getting in two teams and we could have had a better match-up. If they do that then the rich just get richer. You'd see just SEC, Big 10 and Big 12 teams fill all the slots. Maybe - or maybe there'd be a deserving school from the Big East or one of the other conferences in there. Rutgers screwed themselves by losing to Cincy, and WVU screwed themselves by losing to USF. They had nobody to blame but themselves for not getting in the BCS this year. Do you really think they would have taken them over ND, Michigan or Wisconsin if they (BE team) only had one loss? I don't. Opps, I forgot LSU which somehow managed to lose 2 games too but I suppose that's ok. Show me where a two-loss Big East school played four games like @Auburn, @Tennessee, @Arkansas and @Florida, and I'll agree that they belong in the BCS. Really, if your defending of the Big East has blinded you to the fact that LSU is indeed one of the five best teams in the nation, and is in the very least better than Rutgers and West Virginia, then we're really not going to get anywhere in this debate. At Auburn, Tennessee, Arkansas and soon to be Florida is not looking so hot. I made this arguement before the bowl season but the SEC did very little non-conference for all these teams to be considered Top Ten teams. I think the SEC is probably the best conference but its not dramatically better. As to who are Top 5 teams. After OSU, who is going to clearly be #1. You can put a blanket on several other teams to see who is 2nd and beyond. Depending on the week and the circumstances of the games I think LSU, USC, Florida, Michigan, Louisville are all about even. Yes I think Michigan would hopefully decide that they cant run 2 TE sets against top flight teams all game and win. I thought it was a lesson that they learned from past mistakes but I guess it may take one more embarrassing lose for it to sink in. They didnt do it against OSU and had a successful offensive day. For some reason after a 6 week layoff they thought it would work against USC. Anyway I digress. Also I do include Louisville in this. They have a very potent offense that all these schools would struggle against. Accept for the lose at Rutgers they really dominated their schedule. I certainly think that they could run with these other big boys. One last thing. I have decided that I am not going to put much stock in Bowl games anymore. Really there is only one that matters. There is no sense of "urgency" in any other game. There is no if we lose it ends our National title hopes in any other game. Also with the 4 to 6 week wait for most of these games it really takes a lot from them. Yes College Football easily has the best regular season of any sport. Sadly it is made that way by having the biggest joke in sports as their postseason. Over half of the bowl games have a team that has a serious home field advantage. It is just not very compelling.

How many times does Michigan have to get outcoached against OSU and in bowl games before something happens. Its great that they won the rest of their schedule, but than to be totally outcoached in the last two games has got to hurt. 1 last thing about the game. Do they have another cornerback besides #14. I think his name is Trent. It seemed like he was getting burned on every big play USC had for the first 3 quarters. I think it was funny how I said that the Musb/Herb/Davie trio does a good job but they didnt mention how often #14 was getting beat.

It may be kind of a Catch-22 with Callahan. One of the reasons he may be a good recruiter is because he will make the gutsy calls. I really think Nebraska has to look at the 1st half of this game and shake their heads though. They looked like they really dominated. I really liked how Penn St rammed the ball down the mightly SEC powers throats when the game really mattered. Auburn another of the mightly SEC powers was really outplayed against Nebraska. I cant wait until OSU kills Florida.

Musberger? :? I think Musberger is pretty good. I actually really liked the Musberger, Davie and Herbstriet trio quite a bit. I know they arent as smart and perfect like most of us, but they call an entertaining game while still focusing on the game. I know this is going to catch some flack but Herbstreit and Davie both add intelegent commentary. I know some will show examples of not so smart commentary they add, but for the whole package I think this trio is pretty good. Quite abit better than a real old Summerall and Baldwinger.

If this guy thinks Mason is bad, what did he think of the 4 or 5 really bad coaches Minnesota had before him. I agree Mason is flawwed and completely understand his firing. He did make Minnesota into a competitive program though. Another rememberable collapse was in a Purdue game several years ago. Purdue got the ball on like their own 30 with 15 secs left or so and no timeoouts. They got into field goal range and won the game.

It really is frustrating. Minnesota blows a big lead. Purdue looks like they didnt even care and Iowa plays well but is playing a superior opponent in a Home game for them. Also a couple of questionable calls didnt go Iowa's way. Its almost like a cd that keeps skipping. These are the same kind of things that happen every year. I think fortunes will change some tomorrow as either Wisconsin or Penn St will pull off upsets and both Michigan and OSU will win. So they will probably end up 3-4, but 2-1 against the SEC.

Laughable. Absolutely laughable. I'll save this for October. Your right. They will still probably finish above the Royals. I dont think its a stretch to say they will finish behind the Tigers, Twins and Indians though. Of course Buerhle can come back to form. Contraras can have another career year and Thome and Dye can both put up over 1 OPS past their primes and the White Sox could win the division. I am more inclined to believe that they will decline a little more this season. They do have a strong young base of talent. It will probably take a couple of years to groom that into winning Major League talent. Also Levin said that Anderson would be part of any Baldelli deal. I know its Levin but it would make sense.

The White Sox are so hard to figure out. They went the Season with Brian Anderson. He improved in the 2nd half. Now they want to replace him. why didnt they do something at the trade deadline? They trade Garcia to make room for McCarthy and than trade McCarthy. I have to admit I dont have the McCarthy bust for my personal HOF yet. I just dont see the reason of trading Garcia for a young arm if they were going to trade McCarthy for young arms. If Dye comes back to earth and Thome starts to decline I could easily see the White Sox finishing 5th in there division, with or without Rocky Balboa.

Slow pitch Softball swing. Not a real good baseball swing. Too many players have emulated this swing with not much effectiveness. Corey Patterson comes to mind. Griffey is without a doubt a HOFer. Considered the best player in baseball for about 10 years. Noone except for maybe Dale Murphy with that kind of stature has ever been left out of HOF.

Are you sure?

I thought this guy would be a decent guy to look at if ARam didnt resign. His #s last year are worth 6 million a year.

Put me down for not understanding. So far what we have done this offseason with the pitching staff is puzzling. Is this really better than Marshall and Guzman? As much as I did think that Zito is going to be way overpaid. I would have rather signed him with the money we have given Lilly and Marquis and gone with the best out of Marshall, Guzman or Marmol as the fifth if Prior isnt ready. This kind of reminds me of when the Cubs didnt resign Maddux and Larry Himes saying that we could get 2 quality arms for what we would have had to pay Maddux. I remember Greg Hibbard being one of those quality arms. I dont remember the other. I am guessing at that point in his career Hibbard was a better pitcher than either Lilly or Marquis.