NewUserName

Does that mean I was right about the 6-6 teams not getting invited until after all winning record teams get invited? Even if true, UCLA would probably still get a bowl as they're a pretty big name, and IIRC when I did a quick estimate a few days back it looked like about 8 6-6 teams would go to bowls. Yeah, I think you're correct. I would think 6-6 teams would only get invited after teams with winning records. In UCLA's case, the Bruins can be invited at 6-6 but up to eight Pac-10 teams might qualify for bowl games and the conference only has ties to six bowl games. But there are going to be conferences that fall short of their tie ins. The Big 10 has 7 tie ins and 6 teams who are eligible. Even if one of Minnesota or Indiana pulls off an upset next week to become eligible they'll still be one bowl short due to the loser of OSU/UM going to a BCS at large. But now after looking over the rest of the tie ins there really aren't that many openings. Poinsettia has an at large team built into it, but that's the only one. It'll all depend on how bowls are required to stick to their tie ins. So if Arkansas St. is 7-5 and Indiana is 6-6, who is the Big 10 bowl required to take? I certainly don't count on the media to provide me with the answer, since they've barely grazed on the 6-6 situation to begin with, and continue to say Notre Dame stands to make 14M from the BCS. I also thought that wins against Div 1AA teams didnt count. I am pretty sure one of Iowas wins is against a 1aa team. If this is the case they also need to win to be bowl eligible. If Im wrong just scratch this whole thing.

I may be stupid and not understanding of Baseball. I just dont get why a team would trade Bobby Abreu for nothing and are going to trade Pat Burrell for not much more, than turn around and offer Soriano more money than they were pay either of these guys. I know its Pat Gillick and he has to make moves but this just doesnt make any sense to me whatsoever.

Ohio State is favored by almost a touchdown and has been regarded as the best team in the country since beating Texas. My friend, a Michigan grad, was bitching about the spread on the game, saying it was "complete disrespect" for Michigan. Give me a break. The line was 6.5 when it came out. When you take out home field (~3 points), it says that Vegas thinks Ohio State is about 3 points better on a neutral field, which is completely reasonable. I guess fans like to convince themselves that nobody respects their team, though. I wish fans would realize the point spread has nothing to do with respect or even who the oddsmakers think is going to win the game. It is set to help promote the most amount of money on each side.

Michigan won just about everygame between the 2 in the 90s. It wasnt until Tressel got there that things have started to go OSU way.

Troy Smith has had 2 great games against UM, so i wouldnt put anything past him this year. Hopefully the more aggressive Dline will change that this year. In the past he has killed them with his legs and he doesnt seem to do it as much this year, plus UM's defense is better suited at stopping the mobile QB this year. It will be a good test for both of them. Lewis from Indiana isnt as good of a passer as Troy Smith is. However Michigan was able to contain his running ability pretty well on Saturday. Also even though he did buy himself some time he was unable to capitalize too much. Again I realize he isnt in the same class as Smith, If you are a Michigan fan you have to be pleased how they handled a qb with good running ability. I have the feeling that Michigan has been playing opossum on offense. For some reason I think we are going to see a more wide open attack from them this Saturday similar to the Notre Dame game. I just really think as long as Pittman doesnt bust loose on them they are going to win pretty easily.

If you are Wisconsin you have to be really upset that you didnt play OSU this year. If they lose that game they are going to the same Bowl as if they didnt play them. If they could have upset them they would be going to a BCS bowl. Is it possible for the Big Ten to get 3 BCS teams? For some reason I am thinking that a Michigan/OSU rematch may be coming. Just a funny feeling I have been having for a couple of weeks now.

I know it is in hindsight but Tim I liked your article. It really frustrates me that the Cubs fans think that throwing money at the problem will fix it. Having a productive minor league system is the only way to be able to compete on a year in year out basis. That being said I was for resigning ARam. I am usually against signing big name free agents especially when the market is so weak. In ARams case though his age shows that he still has on average 4 prime seasons left. This in my eyes makes his case more similar to Beltrans. The average free agent is usually at the end of his prime years(CLee and Soriano) and his new team will be paying for production that they gave for the old team. I do like the main point of your article. Its not so much that ARam may have left. Its that we would have been in a hopeless situation if he did leave. With so little on the team now and even less coming up in the next year from the minors the Cubs have painted themselves into a scary corner that throwing money at the problem may be the only immediate way out. Of course if we dont improve our minor league system we will only be digging a deeper hole for 2009

Wow how remarkable this post was to what I was going to post. At this point I wish they would just give the job to Scott Moore instead of having to deal with Shea Hillebrand or some other never was who has a bigger name then his ability would suggest. What really bothers me is they will probably compensate for not resigning ARam by way over paying for Pierre. I would not be against holding the line on a top flight Free Agent. Just dont over frickin pay for mediocre ones either.

I think Detroit is either going to resign Casey or move Guillen to first. I think the Cubs ought to really explore Marcus Thames as a platoon partner for Jones. I know he struggled in the 2nd half but heck we need some first half hitters anyway. As for the Trade the Tigers have cooled on Sanchez since mid-summer. He was an untouchable at the deadline. I am thinking the injury may be worse than they are letting on.

Funny how Illinois fans I work with have been crying about Gordon and Rose for awhile now hadnt even heard of this kid until today. WR has been the biggest offensive problem for Illinois since LLoyd and that crew were there. If Illinois can improve their receiver corps they can be really good in the next couple of years.

83 or 84, or sometime around then, Luis Salazar has a ball popped up to his side, and drops the ball because he couldn't find it in the sun. Harry groans "Christ, how does a Mexican lose a ball in the sun?!" Or, in the late 80's, when Harry asks Steve "Did you know Benes backwarrds is Seneb?" And finally, one of my all time favorites... "HEY! CHeck out the kid in the giant sombrero!" I am pretty sure he originally made this statement about Jorge Orta. Again with the Sox. He brought it back up about once every couple of years or so.

NDstps where those pictures taken from your seat in the Big House? If so those are some nice seats.

I agree with you. However I dont think there is any question that Izturis, Cedeno and Jones are going to be part of this team in some way. If he could make them somewhat more disciplined as hitters it would still improve the team. Its not like the Cubs are going to get the 6 best players available this offseason and compete for a championship that way. A lot of the improvement that is going to happen is going to have to happen with the players that are here now. The player I hope we keep and could really improve some more with Perry is ARam. With an improved plate approach I think he could still be a .950 to 1.000 OPS guy.

I dont remember that one. My favorite one was probably when He was still with the Sox. Chet Lemon got caught in a rundown between 2nd and 3rd. Lemon was a notorious lousy baserunning with the White Sox. Anyway during the rundown Harry goes "oh Chrimeney!!! He looks like a squirrel on the freeway out there" Of course Jimmy Piersall was the color guy so he probably added to it. That was just great stuff when they were with the Sox.

If everything falls in place Arkansas shouldnt pass USC, ND shouldnt pass Michigan or Texas shouldnt pass OSU. Wouldnt it be great if JoePa came out in a Scooter or Rascal or whatever those things are called. I can almost see him chasing Mike McQuery around in one.

DeJesus was involved in 2 of the best Cub trades in my lifetime.

There is a definate anti-Chicago attitude in downstate. For some reason I think Topinka was thinking that most south of I-80 are Cardinal fans. She does play up the Blagovich is from up there and doesnt care about downstate whenever she campaigns downstate.

Louisville wins by more than 10. Only 3 teams have scored 10 points on the Rutgers D this year I would be funny if Louisville ends up losing to Rutgers or Pitt. Of course it would be funny if Michigan loses to Indiana or OSU loses to Northwestern.

The win wasnt pretty but they most definetly didnt struggle. The had over 500 of total yards on offense. Ball State made 3 really big plays and thats it, take those plays away and Michigan dominated the game. The 2 late scores were with many 2nd and 3rd stringers on the field. This doesnt excuse Texas moving in front of Louisville, im suprised about that. The coaches comments you are referring too pisses me off too. Troy Smith threw for like 100 yards against Illini and they only outgained Illini by like 20 yards. I could argue they struggled more this week than UM. You're right. But I can't help but think that we'd be looking at a much different story if it was a Big East team, Notre Dame, or some other much-maligned team that had escaped Ball State by 8 points. I would be understanding if ND or Louisville had a 3rd string running back get 15 carries for 100 yds and a 3rd string defense in if Ball St scored some late TDs to make it close. I agree with Cubweiser in that OSU probably has more to be held accountable for than Michigan. Thats why I think margin of victory can be misleading. Michigan didnt blow N'western, Iowa or Penn St out but they clearly dominated all of those games. However some reporters who obviously didnt watch the games reported afterwords that Michigan was struggling. They won. time to move on. If Louisville wins out they will probably get there chance to play for the National Title. If not they will get a chance to play a really good team from another BCS conference. If they win that game they certainly have an arguement that they belonged instead of some 1 loss team. This would probably do more to help bring about change to fix the system than anything else.

Wrong. Neither OSU or UM gets hammered in that game. OSU won by 7 today against Illinois today, better knock them down too. UM played very conservatively against NU last week in gail force winds and today they put up 507 total yards, 355 on the ground. They blew it on 3 plays. 2 long bombs and one pick six. The final 2 TDs for BSU were against 2 and 3rd stringers when they were up 31-12. It was closer than it should of been. I think that Michigan is kind of famous for this type of game. In the last couple of years their defense was bad enough to let their opponents come back on them. When it mattered their defense showed up and stopped BSU. I also think they have been holding back their offense for the OSU game. I am not saying that they are going to win but they will certainly play at a higher level against OSU. They also will stomp Louisville if given the opportunity.

Protection isn't usually ever a factor. As far as having a metric to measure it's effect? My memory is that metrics tend to show that it doesn't matter how you construct a lineup in terms of the batting order and its productivity. Could be wrong, though. Actually, that was the perceived thought until 3 of the foremost sabermetric minds published The Book Batting order does matter. In one of Bill James Abstracts in the early 80s he showed that it doesnt make a big difference who is hitting around you. I dont know if "The Book" disspells that notion but it sure looked interesting Do you remember in the Abstract if Bill James looked at all players, or only great players, or...? I don't have statistical data to back it up, and it may be all emotional and cliche based, but I would fathom that players with a very high success rate already established would perform better in situations where they are protected, because they're already prone to success, moreso than guys who are average to below average would succeed. Jeff Kent was a great offensive second baseman. His offensive skills were, in my theory, shown off more, because batting in front of the best offensive player and most prolific homerun hitter in the MLB, he saw more hitters pitches per PA, than he would have, if he had a below-average regular player hitting behind him. Players with high success rates, tend to demonstrate that success across the board. So they are more likely to succeed in situations where they see more favorable pitches per PA at a higher rate of success than those who see the "average number of hitters pitches". Just my theory, and could very well be false. What I really remember about it was it was widely known that Dale Murphy would be the greatest hitter ever if Bob Horner could just stay healthy and protect him in the order. Bill James made a career out of taking established "truths" and exploring them. After exploring this "truth" he concluded that protection in the batting order as a whole was non-existent. If I remember correctly there may have been some individual cases where protection may have mattered. In the case of Murphy/Horner, Murphy actually hit slightly better without Horner in the lineup. I have several of his old Abstracts somewhere. If I have time this weekend maybe I will dig through them and see if I can find the article.

Protection isn't usually ever a factor. As far as having a metric to measure it's effect? My memory is that metrics tend to show that it doesn't matter how you construct a lineup in terms of the batting order and its productivity. Could be wrong, though. Actually, that was the perceived thought until 3 of the foremost sabermetric minds published The Book Batting order does matter. In one of Bill James Abstracts in the early 80s he showed that it doesnt make a big difference who is hitting around you. I dont know if "The Book" disspells that notion but it sure looked interesting

I remember Mota's filthy change-up. He has to have the largest hands in baseball. Does the sauce increase the size of your hands? George Kastanza should have been on the juice than.

Neither is Aramis Ramirez, but we're hearing a lot about him. I just don't see why Hendry didn't trade Pierre on Jul. 31 if he was going to be so disinterested in him come October. It doesn't make sense and it's not what I expected. Maybe he has come to his senses and realizes that Pierre at the most is worth a couple of million and still should be at the bottom of the order. I am thinking Sweet Lou has cooled Hendry on Pierre though.

The less I hear about him the better. I think he will end up being a late signer because noone is going to pay him what his agent is going to try to show he is worth. Teams are going to look at cheaper alternatives like Lofton and Roberts and wonder why they would pay a lot more for Pierre