Tracer Bullet

Sure is nice of the NCAA to bring the hammer down on OSU by letting one set of coaches coach and Urbie and a second set of coaches recruit. Seems to be really hurting the program.

Except one is a roller coast and the other is a ferris wheel. Fielder produced in his "down" year. Comparing age 23-26 seasons with age 28 seasons also isn't fair. Not to mention fielder putting in full seasons to soto playing much less. Fielder has varied from ver goo to great. Insinuating that he's as unreliable as soto or terribly inconsistent just doesn't hold up. Most of this just isn't true.

She's mad at god?

Ramirez takes a lot of unfair heat from multiple sources, but Wrigley Field has always buzzed positively for the guy. I think he'll get an ovation. Yeah, I'll be shocked if Wrigley views him as the bad guy here. He may get an ovation in every AB if we're winning.

I don't follow your math here. If he repeats his next 3 years twice, which you acknowledge is super optimistic, we're looking at overpaying by 25 million or so. Add in the down year like you mention, and any type of decline for the last year or two of his contract, and we're probably looking at overpaying by closer to 50 million. I just don't know if Fielder's star is bright enough for that type of gamble. Why is it super optimistic that he repeats his age 25-27 seasons in his age 28-30 seasons? Twice. If he repeates 25-27 from 28-32, then he'd have produced 134 million in value. So best case is probably that we overpay by $16m (using the $25m/6 numbers). Yeah, I don't think Prince is a safe enough bet for that.

Come on now, his worst season in the last three is equivalent to Soto's best year ever. And Prince is younger. Soto made a big splash in year one, and hasn't been back to that level since. Prince was 2 years younger when he made a bigger splash, and he's exceeded that level twice since. He's not saying his value is similar to Soto's. He's saying his production has been a roller coaster, as Soto's has. It's a perfectly fair comparison for that point. ETA: sotonian is the best word I've heard all day.

I certainly do not prefer Loney to Fielder, I said if we don't or can't sign Fielder. That being said it wouldnt surprise me if by year five or six of a possible Fielder contract that Loney would be more productive. Loney very well could be a Mark Grace type player for us. Almost identical, actually and thats with no more development. Hes not a difference maker or anything, but is pretty useful. I'm going to have to call shenanigans on this nonsense. Loney is not Mark Grace. I'm no huge Grace fan, but he was much better than Loney. well, the difference between graces career line and loneys career road line is 20 isod and nothing else. Of course you cant just throw out half a guys career and cherry pick splits. As someone else mentioned his splits seemed to have stabilized recently. Its just that there is room for growth and optimism. If you have any better ideas, lets hear them. Loney isnt ideal, but serviceable. Why Loney over Barton? Heck, I'd rather have Pena back for another year than Loney. He's 28. The chance that he suddenly blossoms into a productive major league player is not high.

Teo and Eifert both returning to nd next year.

I'm not intimately familiar with Mora Jr, but lack of success in the NFL + lack of CFB experience is probably a big chunk of it.

Hendry said we needed to be more LH after a year in which we were like last in the league against lhp.

i agree Yup.

Jebadore is just going to prove that the flaws with this team were minor but institutional. A change at the top will instantly make us a 100-game winner. Pass the kool-aid.

Maybe I'm alone on this, but I pictured that as "stathead who doesn't mind listening to scouts on low-minors prospects" and such. It's turned out to be more like "scout who applies scientific rigor to scouting and also respects the results of sabermetrics." I disagree strongly with that. Epstein isn't a scout who respects numbers. Genius who knows about numbers and baseball and listens to and values the opinions of scouts is far more accurate. I think that's right. I'd still be surprised if it keeps the old guard off his back.

My non-baseball response spoilered because nobody should really care about this stuff: Here are some of the quotes from Hoyer about Stewart: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20111208&content_id=26134136&vkey=news_chc&c_id=chc&partnerId=rss_chc The longer Epstein and Co. have been here, the more intriguing this sort of thing becomes. This isn't the (heavily exaggerated by Michael Lewis) mythical Moneyball Billy Beane. This is a much smarter version of Andy MacPhail and Jim Hendry. Presumably, the extra intelligence will make all the difference. But their emphasis on scouting at the MLB level appears to be a lot bigger than (at least I) assumed. This thread isn't bogged down by either TT or I pointing at how close to trolling some of your posts have been. The opinion is fine. The way it's been expressed has been the problem. Just bc your post is about baseball doesn't mean it's welcome. There's nothing ironic about a couple of mods pointing that out to you. That you insist upon ignoring the point of our posts is getting frustrating. Ok, it's beyond that point. My question about the ridiculousness of some topics was intended to suggest that there might be better topics than whether we're 25%, 33%, or 39% through the off-season and whether that's "early." But you knew that.

The Cubs are installing a starting 3b coming off a .450 OPS season who couldn't stick on the Colorado Rockies MLB roster. Of course it's going to be ridiculous. (assuming you meant in baseball terms and not all the stupid, non-baseball threadjacks people are attempting). As is becoming habit (which TT just pointed out), you know the meaning of a post and ignore it.

Is every discussion in this thread going to be ridiculous?

This. .. is completely wrong. We're past the GM meetings and past the winter meeting. We are well into the offseason. Stop pretending it's early. Is it just the last 2 sentences that you disagree with bc the meat of the post was, well, everything else.

Exactly. Wisconsin has other benefits, including better overall talent and presumably better WRs so his numbers aren't hurt by getting sacked 10 times a game and having a bunch of drops. But he's got 1 shot. I think I'd take the known starting gig and hope Weis can get 1-2 talented WRs to join him. Maybe more likely if Crist is already on campus, which he can he in January.

https://mobile.twitter.com/PeteThamelNYT/status/145175897807396866 Well, the Kansas program and Wisconsin programs aren't quite on the same level right now. So it'll be interesting if he just wants another year of tutelage under Chucky Fupa, or to actually, you know, win. If he wants a shot at the NFL, it's not like a guaranteed stating job in a system he knows with a coach that loves him and will sell him to NFL scouts is the worst option. Who knows what he'll do, but going to Wisconsin and not winning the job or sharing time with one of the highly recruited players on campus isn't a great scenario for him, even if the team would win more.

It's not your opinion that folks have been objecting to.

https://mobile.twitter.com/PeteThamelNYT/status/145175897807396866

Panera? Can't he like rent an office building for a day?

He broke in? Theo-gate!

Purple shirt guy is a one-hit wonder

No, I don't think there's a consensus either way. Some ND fans hate him and seem to think he should never work again. Some are a bit more forgiving. I don't think anyone who follows ND closely doesn't think he have his faults. Attitude was one. He definitely showed an ability to succeed with some veterans and struggled to develop young talent across the board. But he developed QBs. And he recruited very well. I think he failed for a couple of primary reasons: 1. Every coach that looked at ND in 2005 saw what was coming in 2007. Ty recruited just 4 OL in 3 years. Weis landed 4 OL in his first class, but still had just 8 on the team in spring 07. So Weis was forced to play young kids early starting in 2007 (actually, Sam Young started as a true freshman in 06). He wasn't able to develop young talent quick enough or scale back his scheme enough that they could execute it well. So 05/06 worked well b/c he had some talent and esp a QB he could develop. Once 07 happened, he panicked and just started pulling levers and grasping straws looking for things to save his job. He hadn't been a HC before, so he didn't have a consistent plan he could fall back on. 2. He didn't know how to build a staff, esp at the college level. He hired some guys at the start that proved to be pretty terrible (including both OL and DL coaches, ugh). He should have fired both in 07 or after, but didn't want to make anyone a scape goat for that season. His inability to construct a staff originally and fill holes with guys that made sense hurt the program and really stunted player development (e.g, Tenuta had a great reputation, but he was a terrible fit at ND; there are reports of defensive coaches getting into pushing fights during practice). That said, his staff his last year had some great pieces, even though several of those guys knew they were joining a sinking ship (Verducci, Alford, who is a stud, and Hart, the DL coach he stole from UW just for the 2009 season). So if he's learned from that mistake, he might build a great staff. If KU has some veteran players, if they have a QB that can run a pro offense (or can land Crist), and if Weis has learned how to build a staff that all sell a consistent message, then he could be successful there. It will help that he won't have to win from day 1. ND giving Weis his first ever HC job and first college job in over a decade was just stupid.