Tracer Bullet

that works. give him a year or two to mature and improve and then trade him to us for a couple pieces of junk. thanks.

how crazy can he really be? live on the edge a little.

Take a chance http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/03/nationals-release-elijah-dukes.html

enough already

How was Leinert yanked around? He battled for the starting job his first 2 years and then became the backup to the clearly superior QB. I don't know that I agree with Andy re BQ, but Leinert was just given the backup job b/c Warner was a better QB the last couple years. He has a role and it's pretty clearly defined. That's not really being yanked around.

I found this quote over on Adam Schefter's Twitter and I shake my head. Cleveland going from possibly getting Jay Cutler to Peyton Hillis and two late rd draft picks for Brady Quinn, is the main reason why they are the Browns. Schefter's lost a little credibility, I think. Seems like Denver considered acquiring BQ last year but couldn't reach a deal. Given what the Bears gave up to get Cutler, I don't think the deal would have been Quinn for Cutler straight up. The Browns may not have been willing to give up BQ plus a first round pick (and more). Maybe they think they're not going to compete right now, so why not draft a QB this year and develop him rather than give up a bunch of picks for Cutler. Or maybe they're Cleveland and they're stupid. As for whether Cleveland ruined BQ, I don't know if that's true. It wasn't a good situation for him. Denver's offense seems like a good fit for his skills. This should at least be a better opportunity to see if he'll be any good at this level.

Being smart. If the batter is charging out there with bat, you get out of the way. I don't know why the pitcher kept looking back instead of just booking for the nearest exit. I only watched this once, but I assumed the guy that ran off from second was the same guy that returned with a bat to take on the batter. i could be completely off though.

unless Z refers to someone other than Zambrano, there's almost no chance you'll want to keep him over the rest of that group at the end of the year.

People have different perspectives on the degree to which money would make them happy, no doubt. But I think we can pretty safely say that being rich is better than being poor by a fair margin (and I mean truly rich and truly poor, not upper middle class v lower middle class, which are names I hate to use). I also don't think too many people would disagree with your last sentence, though I think the dollar level at which those happy returns diminish is probably different for everyone, as is the speed at which they diminish.

it's not that ESPN doesn't have people who know advanced metrics. rob neyer and keith law certainly do, buster olney does a little bit (though for a vanderbilt guy, he's still way to married to small ball and "traditional" stats), gammons did, i believe kurkjian does to some extent. but espn isn't going to start running features about UZR and WAR if 95% of their viewers don't know what those things are and don't want to know. they're a business and they cater to the casual baseball fan and the set-in-their-ways baseball fan; baseball prospectus caters to the much smaller segment of the population that is really into baseball and has an open mind for advanced metrics. Is it just me (and apparently will leitch) or did everyone first get real exposure to and explanation of advanced stats from rob neyer? If not for him, fjm may still be sitting out there with like 3 readers. btw - every time i hear timmy kurkjian talk about baseball, something inside of me dies. He likes baseball history, which I guess is cool, but the comparisons he makes are almost exclusively based on old stats. Bill James. just reading his books? how did you hear about him? I'm interested b/c I sort of stumbled upon Neyer on espn.com and his analysis really struck a chord with me. I'm not sure when I would have read about this stuff if not for him.

I'm not talking about happiness, I'm talking about motivation. Money may not bring happiness after a certain point, but $10m dollars will motivate some people to do some things.

I'm not quite sure why I find this statement so irritating that I just can't let it go without comment. I'm willing to bet that you have no clue about how hard these guys have worked and how much pain they have suffered to come back from their various injuries. I hope you never have to go through such pain in your life. And I'd bet money that you never work quite so hard. I understand the sentiment, Tim, but I can also understand his frustration. But if someone came up to any poster on this board and offered them $10m to injure their elbow and undergo months of physical therapy to overcome it, I'm fairly confident that everyone here would take the deal. Have these guys worked hard and endured a lot of pain? Yes, but they play baseball for a living and we get enjoyment (and a lot of frustration) from that. Expressing some frustration without calling Prior or Guz a [expletive] doesn't seem unreasonable. Does pain hurt less or is work not as hard when you have $10m in the bank? I have no idea but I'm more than willing to find out.

the guy hasn't been on nsbb in a month. might be ok to move on without him

Dr Tom is not impressed with the lack of respect being shown in this thread. If you want the ghost of Chris Street haunting you for the rest of your days, just keep on going.

you mean a team without a need for a QB isn't going to draft him in the first round? color me surprised I'm pretty sure how you grade a player differs from how strongly you consider drafting them. Just because you have a guy graded out as a 1st rounder doesn't mean you plan on taking him that high if he's there. Caplan's little clip is so vague it's of no value. It's the kind of thing reporters put out there to get page views without saying anything meaningful at all.

you mean a team without a need for a QB isn't going to draft him in the first round? color me surprised

Is anyone setting up this league this year?

what title? you didn't win this league last year

this guy can't walk

Worse. And with all the Notre Dame prestige, would anybody here take that job over Texas or Florida or USC? A big problem some IU fans are having is the same problem some ND fans are having where they expect their teams to be national title contenders every year all because they won titles before any kid playing for them was born. Agree with the first part, the IU bball position is worse. I think your second paragraph might be off in terms of IU fans expectations. I don't really know anyone at this point that expects IU to ever go back to having the sort of success they enjoyed from the mid 70's to the mid 90's. Or at least, that portion of the fan base is extremely small at this point. ETA: And I think your bolded drops IU a lot further down this list than most people have them. Recruits don't even remember a time when IU had that kind of success. I don't imagine they get that overwhelming impression of IU having some storied tradition. I mean, they can see the banners, but I'm sure that seems like an eternity ago. I don't know how basketball recruits are, but I think tradition can go a long way, even if the last championship wasn't during their lifetime. I don't think there are many schools with the kind of hoops tradition IU has. Tradition with no chance of winning during their time at the school is a non-starter for most recruits. But tradition will overcome some other negatives and probably give recruits a sense of hope that may not be completely reasonable. And I'm in no way an IU fan. I really don't care much about them one way or the other.

Worse. And with all the Notre Dame prestige, would anybody here take that job over Texas or Florida or USC? A big problem some IU fans are having is the same problem some ND fans are having where they expect their teams to be national title contenders every year all because they won titles before any kid playing for them was born. The problem with those comparisons in CFB is the rules aren't the same at ND as they are almost anywhere else. Even without ND some schools are just too different to compare. Would Mack Brown succeed at USC? Can you see Pom Pom Pete recruiting well in Texas or Alabama?

I'd say IU is worse right now, given the lack of talent and the issues Sampson had. Weis, for all his faults, left the cupboard pretty damn stocked. A quality college coach can turn ND around pretty quickly. I'm not sure the same is true for IU. But I think the analogy is right on. A big ego coach is going to look at a program like ND football or IU hoops and see the path to historical relevance that you just don't get at many programs.

Doesn't prestige play a big part regardless? Indiana is still the face of Big 10 basketball to a lot of people despite their recent troubles. You couldn't pay me enough to take the present day IU job over present day MSU some here may scoff, but maybe your ego isn't big enough. A coach with a huge ego would love to be the guy that brought IU back to NCAA glory.

I can't see a set of circumstances, with neutral loyalty, where Iowa would be a better job than Wisconsin. "Where can I recruit" becomes a big issue since Iowa doesn't have any large cities and "how do I get players to go there?" could be too rural as compared to say Columbus, East Lansing, Madison. Wisconsin's probably better than Iowa. I just don't think the difference between all the other schools is that significant. I could reasonably see a coach preferring almost any of the other 7 schools to any other. As for UM v. MSU - most definitely MSU is seen as the better gig. Even in West Michigan, UM fans dominate MSU fans almost 2-1. But the vast majority would recognize MSU as the better gig for hoops. I think IU's prestige is enough to overcome its recent struggles. Being the guy to bring IU back to where Knight had it would be historical. I don't think any other team in the Big Ten can say the same.

Indiana and MSU are 1-2 in some order. NW and PSU are 10-11 in some order. The rest are somewhere in the middle, depending on what you prefer as a coach.