Tracer Bullet

You are asking an unanswerable, and meaningless question. Beane was in charge. He's been in charge since 1997 and his results blow away Jim Hendry's results. Fuson and Ricciardi were gone for a long time. Oakland won a hell of a lot of games long after they left, at a better rate than the Cubs. How long does Beane get to be mired in mediocrity before we start to question if maybe the landscape has changed to the point where he's not as effective as he once was? He's at a .468 winning percentage the last 5 years and his roster and farm system don't look to be on the brink of breaking out of that funk. It might be that he would be just as effective as he used to be if he had the Cubs' resources, but it's a more than fair question to ask. I have mixed feeling on Beane. it could be that he realizes he has to gamble to make his payroll competitive and when too many of those gambles crap out, you're left with a pretty bad team. I think I'd still prefer to give DePo a shot, but I like ssr's idea of having Beane as president.

interesting idea. 30 doesn't seem far enough back for most cfb punters, but maybe it is. seems like you'd get a heck of a lot of series starting at the 40 or mid-field, which shortens the field a bit much for my taste. Maybe I'm misinterpreting but it sounds like your two comments are diametrically opposed. If it's not far enough back why are you worried about too many series starting at mid-field. i misspoke. i think my preference would be to have 4-15 from the 35 or 40. but if the average punt would net 40+ yards, maybe it's fine.

interesting idea. 30 doesn't seem far enough back for most cfb punters, but maybe it is. seems like you'd get a heck of a lot of series starting at the 40 or mid-field, which shortens the field a bit much for my taste.

Fewer. Wait, what were you saying?

I guess I don't understand the grad transfer rule (i mean, why the sec would outlaw it). If a kid graduates and is sitting on the bench for your school, why not let him go play a 5th year somewhere else? he's given you the 4 years he committed to giving you and he earned his degree. you shouldn't control him anymore. I like the new restriction. I'm not sure exactly why the SEC ruled this way, but just maybe it was about the kids already on campus. Also it opens the door to some pretty loose definitions of student athlete. One example: Entering last season Ole Miss had a QB in waiting in Nathan Stanley, who went through spring practice and fall drills as the starter. Jeremiah Masoli, who had been dismissed from Oregon for disciplinary reasons, swoops in at the last minute and asks if he can attend Ole Miss to enroll in their Parks and Recreation program. He was cleared to play exactly one day before the season opener and quickly becomes the starting QB. According to the NCAA, “the waiver exists to provide relief to student-athletes who transfer for academic reasons to pursue graduate studies, not to avoid disciplinary measures at the previous university.” Perhaps this was to avoid the whole mess in the future. Reason #573 why Houston Nutt is a shifty slimeball. I know about Masoli, but you can't completely outlaw slimeballs. They're going to find loopholes and other ways to abuse the system. Punishing the kids who graduate in 4 years and don't have a role with their current team, or haven't been offered a fifth year by their current team, doesn't make much sense. This is an overreaction.

I think if you would read your post you would get your answer. No one gives a rip about North Carolina and their issues, but OSU, USC and the SEC conference get a lot of attention. Why? Because they are really successful. it couldn't possibly be the sustained pattern of abuse in the SEC, USC, and OSU.

I guess I don't understand the grad transfer rule (i mean, why the sec would outlaw it). If a kid graduates and is sitting on the bench for your school, why not let him go play a 5th year somewhere else? he's given you the 4 years he committed to giving you and he earned his degree. you shouldn't control him anymore.

as long as derwood doesn't get to do the seeding, i think we'll all be happy

Good move by the SEC and it should become a National rule. If you can't figure out if a kid will qualify for your school by signing day then he probably shouldn't get an offer to begin with. no, not a national rule. it's necessary in the sec b/c they're all scumbags. but elsewhere, for example, a prior AD might be stupid enough to hire ty willingham. then you could find yourself being over 28 players below the total scholarship limit and need to sign a class of more than 25 that will all be able to enroll.

this stuff is just infuriating.

We don't have new blood bc registrations were broken for a long time. But nsbb started largely bc cubs.com sucked. If you want this place to resemble cubs.com in its 'heyday' you may be alone on the wrong side of the discussion.

all snark aside - that's a good idea, tim

with the first pick, i take roy halladay, a 34-year-old SP, to build my team around. hat tip-barry larkin

right. it's probably wise to point out that espn has some terrible "analysts."

can you give actual examples of these topics?

well, to some extent. obviously, there are often more competing interests if you're married with kids in your 30s. But I watched the Cubs as much as possible even a couple years ago when my son was younger. Now, I watch the Tigers almost every night. Sometimes my wife says "are the Cubs on?" and I respond "huh...I don't know" and flip to wgn to see. If so, I'll flip to the game when the Tigers are on commercial. And it's not because Rod Allen is a baseball genius, either. I'm no die-hard Tigers fan, but they're on every night here, I love watching baseball, and they don't infuriate me like the Cubs do. If the Tigers lose, big deal. But I'm tired of getting wrecked by the [expletive] Pirates and Astros.

definitely didn't live up to the hype. a lot more players and the stuff about weed, but not much by way of details.

He's throwing himself at Posey from so far away that he has to know that Posey can move to tag him easily if he has the ball. Either way, you can add "attempt a wide slide on the hope that Posey can't reach him" to the list of his options and the the point doesn't change. Throwing himself into Posey is currently one of his options, and I don't really see why we'd demonize him for throwing himself into Posey too much in that situation. it seems to me that throwing yourself into a catcher that isn't blocking the plate (with or without the ball) such that you have to angle yourself away from the plate at launch is worse than plowing over the catcher that's blocking the plate. I'd prefer that blocking the plate without the ball be called, so that blowing up the catcher could likewise no longer be an option. But in the meantime, going out of your way to launch into the catcher b/c you've made up your mind long before that you're going to run him over regardless of where he is can be dealt with independently.

I don't think the Nationals are trading Bryce Harper He said one of the best, not the best. There's only one best. Anyone who continues to belabor this non-point gets banned forever. Long live TT.

tt, tree, you really don't think cousins could see where posey was standing? he was several steps away when posey moved in front of the plate. if he had enough time and mental capacity to say "the ball is going to beat me by a mile" then he's got enough time to see where posey is standing. when you're running toward a base, you're looking down at it every step or two. in this case, he had to see that there was a whole lot of white available. yet he launched himself at posey's front shoulder, across his body, away from the plate. while it's probably true for the national media, i don't care who the catcher is, i could give 2 shits if posey is playing or not, i'm not a giants fan. but this isn't just a guy lowering his shoulder to knock the ball loose. there haven't been many collisions at the plate in my memory where the runner did more than cousins did to make it as violent as possible. and he did so when he had plenty of time to see the entire plate was open behind posey.

yes http://mlb.sbnation.com/2011/5/26/2191529/buster-posey-injury-mlb-rules

if you think posey was blocking the plate here, i think you should go back and watch the video. the runner's actions are actually disturbing to me. posey went in front of the plate to catch the ball and twisted his body (having dropped/missed the ball) back to try to tag the runner. the runner, ignoring completely where the plate was, drove his body like a [expletive] missile into posey, hitting his right shoulder - the one furthest from the plate. if i'm the giants, every pitch to this guy for the rest of the season is 90 mph and hits him square in the back.

Considering what they did to Herbstreit this is not at all surprising. Sounds like Smalls his a little bit of a grudge against The Vest. I just googled the Herbstreit thing. That's very sad. I'm sure Pittsburgh just luuuuuurves Mark May, and he couldn't carry Herbie's jock as an analyst. faint praise

maybe. honest question: how many guys that were as elite as pujols fell out of elite status quickly upon turning 30? and just how far, how fast would pujols have to fall to not make a huge impact on the cubs ws chances? boy, it's certainly possible that we'd look back on a 10-year pujols deal as an albatross that tanked the team. but i think it's more likely that we look back on not signing pujols as a huge mistake b/c he continued to be elite well into the 2010s while the cubs played mediocre baseball for another decade.