USSoccer

Even if the hypothesis of imminent shoulder explosion is accurate, it doesn't mean we still couldn't offer arbitration, and then back out like San Diego did with Todd Walker. In order for the imminent injury hypo to be valid, you have to assume: -Wood wouldn't get signed elsewhere -Wood accepts said arbitration -We couldn't find $8m in the budget somewhere -We couldn't back out. It's a crap theory that's too littered with unlikely what-if's to be plausible.

If you can't find a way to ditch $8m for this season on the off chance that no one else signs him, then you suck as a GM and should be fired for a utter lack of creativity. You could non tender like 3 guys and go cheap one other place and come up with most of this. Assuming you'd even need to. It's just bad business management.

If that's true it's an awful, stupid, bad, awful, bad, bad, bad decision.

Aramis has an NTC. Lee would, to me, be the more replaceable.

http://photos-g.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-snc1/v374/6/102/1445040619/n1445040619_114398_62.jpg

The Galaxy don't have an ugly system, but the lack of talent is pretty gross. You're right though, Osorio does not have an attractive system. Schellotto is a master. LAG would have been fine under Ruud had Alexi Lalas bothered to field any competent defenders. And Juan Pablo Angel got completely man-marked out of the game by Chad Marshall. Crew have 2 very interesting prospects in Marshall and Rogers. NYRB had one player do anything for them all day, and that was Dane Richards. That was it. All 10 other players were complete pants. Just terrible. It was a really crap performance, and Real Salt Lake would have at least been an attractive and worthy matchup.

I defy you to find an MLS team that plays more unattractive soccer than RBNY

but what do we really want to change? the coach? the players? the upper management? i don't think this team needs a drastic change at all. what they need is for chris williams to come in next year and play like a #1 pick and to draft a good pass rusher and perhaps acquire a good pass rusher during the off season. this team's problem is pass rush and the o-line. we don't need drastic change, just a tweak or two here and there. i think people are really exaggerating what this team needs. I think the coaching staff save Turner and Taub (sp) need to go. I think the defense needs about 3-4 players to turn over. Smith and Babich are really, truly poor coaches. We need players on every skill position on offense save Forte. I'm not 100% sold on Orton, but he has 0 WR's, and teams are beginning to adjust to the whole "match up Greg Olsen against a LB" thing. They need at least 2 good draft classes to be a title contender. I'm not going to be satisfied with competing in the division and being, at best, a 10-6 team.

I've not really cared much about the Bears this year, but I've come to the conclusion that the best thing for this franchise in the long term would be for them to not only not make the playoffs, but play poorly the rest of the way in order to force change. Today would be a great game for them to lose.

Also, the Confed. Cup draw was today as well. Check out our group: That's going to be a fun tourney.

The Hex schedule was announced:

Isn't Gooch better than Ligue 1 though? Honestly?

Ugh

-If it's a short term loan, he's only going to be there for a few games before Bayern need to decide if they want to buy him from MLS. Camp for the Hex will be in January and we will have 2 qualifiers in Feb. -Cooper showed he is a much better player than Ching is, by far. And honestly, despite the level of competition, there was a lot to like from both Jozy and Kenny. They both displayed quite a bit of poise and skill on the ball, their holding play was quite good, and they attacked the goal with conviction. Kenny tracked back well. -Ching has a role on the team, especially on a WC roster. He's a good guy to have around as a backup, because, despite his complete inability to finish like a forward, he is very fast for a guy of his size, does track back well, and can function ok as a lone striker. That said, he should still be about 5th on the depth chart behind Jozy, Donovan (he's a 2nd forward at the international level), Cooper, Davies (I like his pace) and you could probably put Clint in there ahead of him as well as far as I'm concerned. -We really need to see more defenders than we see on a regular basis. I'm not convinced that by 2010 Boca and 'Dolo won't be bad. Gooch will be fine, but we need to create some depth here. And while I'm at it, Bornstein is flipping terrible. I trust Hejduk more than him. Our left backs still suck, and I really wish we'd get on with converting DMB, because as overrated as I think he is at left mid, I think he could be very good at left back. -Finally, I can't make up my mind about Rico Clark. There are things I like, and things I don't.

If we can figure out a way to get Adu, Altidore, Donovan, and Dempsey all on the field at once, we're going to be a much better attacking team in 2010. Nice to see Adu break his duck tonight, too. Me likely. And KC just gave a big fat crap sandwich to Hardworkin' Bob.

Why can't we have nice things...

I'll reserve judgment until I see the years and the dollars.

I think that a deal along the lines of Vitters/Pie/Hill/Marshall/Cedeno for Greene/Peavy might be doable.

Anyone, we'd be better off with ANYONE over Griffey. Corey Patterson begs to differ Corey can at least play defense

The Rome Derby was pretty entertaining. In the end Roma beat the Naziest Team In Europe 1-0. Lazio's #10 has to be the laziest, talented player I've ever seen.

Who was saying that his previous awards makes him worth signing? I'm not sure if whoever brought it up had that intention per se, but bringing it up within a discussion of possible interest would seem to indicate that it's relevant, which it isn't.

How can you make the assumption that he'll probably be bad? He's still a good deal better than average. Cause he's 45 and injury prone? I seriously can't believe anyone is considering this a good idea.

Hiom winning 4 straight Cy Youngs has nothing to do with him being old, and probably bad. We need to stay away. Far away.

I guess I'll just agree to disagree. That said, Wood was supposedly willing to take that risk to sign with the Cubs for 1 year. To put himself in position to make a multiyear deal possible. Lets use our brains for thinking, folks.

And that's my point. Why would Wood want to sign a 1 year deal with a team, which could inevitably be the last contract he ever signs, if he can likely get a 3 or 4 year deal for much more. Why would anyone do that? It would be great if he would do that, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Because he doesn't want to uproot his family, likes his teammates, likes the city, etc. I know players don't do that, but I don't really understand why they don't. For example, I'm going after a clinical pharmacist job that will likely pay $20,000-$30,000 less than what I could make if I wanted to work as a community pharmacist. Relating your life to an MLB player, especially in terms of salary, isn't the way to make good points.