sneakypower

That comment was from Freel.

as good as crosby, maybe better. people are sorta starting to figure this out since crosby has been out and malkin has pretty much put the team's scoring on his shoulders. I really wonder what Pittsburgh will do for the next few years. Putting Malkin on Crosby's wing makes him a less effective (still great nonetheless) player but putting him on the 2nd line is going to limit the ice time for both great players and then you have Jordan Staal and in a year or two when he fully breaks out they're really not going to have enough ice time to go around, some of these guys' talent will be squandered when they can't get on the ice enough. You have to wonder if Staal gets dealt for a winger.

If you think Hinrich is "lead-footed," you don't know what you're talking about. He orchestrated the best fast-break offense in college basketball for two years. Scouting reports list his quickness, athleticism, and court awareness as strengths. You can argue whether or not the Bulls would be better without him. But to say he's some slow-footed, un-athletic throwback PG suggests you're not very familiar with his skill-set. Noah isn't lead-footed either. both of these guys aren't coordinated enough to play in that style of offense. if hinrich played at that pace he'd lead the league in turnovers. fast paced play doesn't really agree with noah. neither does FT shooting.

i know you were probably dying to mention grit in some manner, but what a bad example. grace would hit sure triples and wait at second while outfielders were still chasing down the ball, just to pad his doubles totals. how was he "gritty"?

Seeing the Bulls play the Warriors, it's clear they'd benefit so much more from playing a much more up-tempo game than the half court crap they've been doing these past years. The real talent on that team- Deng, Thomas, Thabo, Gordon would be much better suited, and you would just dump leadfooted types Hinrich, Joe Smith, Noah. Hell, Duhon looked like an actual basketball player.

with Ryan Freel's knee only 98.6% healthy, a plan B is obviously necessary...

so i've got holliday, pujols for sure i'll keep and furcal, hart, phillips, atkins, aramis, manny, justin upton, abreu i have to choose from for my 3rd offensive keeper in a franchise league. it's 5x5 cats plus K, OBP, SLG as well. rollins, hanley and reyes certainly will be kept, i'm half tempted to keep furcal. i won the league so i pick last, i'd probably guess jeter and/or tulo get picked before i draft. and with so little in the way of decent hitting SS prospects, i don't really want to risk being with a crappy SS for several seasons. right now, i'm torn between phillips and furcal. upton i'd love to have for the next several years, but i can probably take him a few rounds into the draft. johan and one of putz, joba, buccholz, myers, gallardo, wainwright, corpas, valverde to choose for my 2nd keeper pitcher. i might go with putz, haven't thought about it a whole lot.

Evgeni Malkin- great player or greatest player?

??? If you're trying to incite something just be upfront about it. I'm tired. that's hard to say because the situations aren't applicable. the players of today have an incredible advantage because there is the ability to study video, train year round, is such a substantially larger supply of talent to select from. but it's easy to realize players from then would not fare well today. Jimmie Foxx's nickname was "Beast", and this guy was the size of Mark Ellis. Lou Gehrig as well. Hell, anecdotes lead us to believe Babe Ruth was this massive hulk of a person, when in reality he was smaller than Torii Hunter. It's possible that these guys were so cut that they could generate reasonable power from a small frame and enjoy success in any era, but that's just so farfetched it's not even worth entertaining the possibility of it. There's just no parallel for it, other than Soriano perhaps, who is a fantastic athlete and a rare case. 42 ounces, actually (still heavy as god knows). But, do you really think pitchers in the 20's and 30's threw that much slower? When I was playing in high school, the average pitcher we faced was throwing in the low to mid 80's and the good ones could get it into the 90's. These are 16-17 year olds with no real conditioning and no real training. So, a 2008 teenager >>>>>>> 1925 grown man that is a professional athlete? Velocity of the pitches isn't an issue. You could use a tree trunk if you were able to anticipate the speed of the ball coming to the plate everytime. You can't use a bat that heavy today, because you'd be incapable of hitting anything offspeed, or vice versa. I don't dispute this. But I'm not sure the conclusion you're drawing. Is it that Ruth would be elevated to elite level status hitter in todays world if he had the same tools at his disposal? I just don't see it.

Babe Ruth wouldn't have a 2.28 ERA in this era either. I'm not going to anoint him because his contemporaries were talentless. He was great by comparison in his days, he'd be left in the dust if he played with today's players. I don't know how this could be disputed.

with Babe Ruth it isn't so clearly obvious that he'd be an utter failure in the majors if he played today. he'd probably more resemble Matt Stairs than an all-time elite slugger.

most of those guys could barely hack it in the minor leagues if they played today...

Well then the question is dramatically different than what you initially asked. Nobody can really presume to know which team of hitters/fielders had the most pronounced cumulative positive effect on games for a certain year. Using warp3 to try to ascertain this would draw no useful conclusions or produce any reliable results other than to delude yourself with misinformation.

Their bench is too weak to expect they'll break the runs scored record. It's Raburn and scrubs. When they lose any of the several injury prone players they have, there will be a significant dropoff in production. But if it's just the starting lineup, they're definitely on the short list of most talented lineups in recent memory. Isn't this question brought up every year about the Yankees? Much of their team will not put up as good of numbers as last year, specifically Magglio, Polanco, Renteria, Granderson. And why are you listing warp3 when talking about offense??

ugh. in case you've missed it, guys have suffered serious eye injuries from being hit in the face with a puck. i don't fault any player for wearing a visor. it's hard to take your helmet off to fight when you're jumped from behind by someone. if they want to make it even, the player should take off his helmet and the other non-visored player should also take his off. because otherwise you have one player taking blows all over his non-helmeted head, while the other guy leans forward and puts his head down so that the other fighter is raining punches on the hard plastic on top of his head. it's not a fair fight that way either. anyway, downie beating up tyutin and richards beating up dubinsky were the only redeeming things about yesterday's game. jim vandermeer was a disgrace yet again. no i've got no problem with him wearing a visor but it's a punk move to keep it on whilst fighting. the replays didn't really show how the fight was started but i have a hard time believing Tyutin jumped him from behind. that guy is much too docile. nevertheless, if the Rangers meet Philly in the playoffs they should probably just start Valiquette all series long.

carnage in the phlyers-rangers game have to respect Downie for fighting with a visor.

To be fair, he's added significant velocity since then. They caught criticism for their negative press of Petit, when he was putting up stellar numbers.

I don't know much about Smith, but the Jag defense has been absolutely incredible for years. They've got immense talent, but they're very physical and I like their schemes quit a bit. Hiring Smith may not be a sexy move, but I think it may turn out to be very good. What sucks is that the Jags just turned around and grabbed Greg Williams to replace him. They lost their DC to a HC position and probably still upgraded at the spot. :banghead: Mike Smith's awful, he runs too vanilla of a scheme. Their defense has been stellar the past several years, but that's mostly due to the talent of Henderson, Stroud, Darius, Peterson, etc. combined with a defensive-minded head coach. Williams is a significant upgrade. They're really right on the verge of being the 4th clear powerhouse in the AFC, or the whole league for that matter.

relax, i was being facetious with that remark. even if you consider those 5 as the most valuable five players on the list, it's still a tremendous waste to outright drop phillips. he's the 20th most valued player in single-season leagues, and i have no doubt there'll be somebody drooling over the 26 year old in a keeper league. at least try to peddle him and Beckett for Howard or Peavy, get a clear upgrade if you can.

The upgrade is worth it; Howard will probably be the best 5x5 1B this year. His average won't be sub .280 again, just keep Smoltz. I worry about Howards K rate. Its historic for his batting average. Smoltz is a guy who I think I can not keep and grab a few rounds into the draft that's less of an issue with his freakish LD%. his K rate was a career high and his BABIP a career low, those two rates should approach career norms. he'll be fine in BA. 45/130 should make it a non-issue anyways. Smoltz isn't that much different than Beckett and Bedard, that I think it's worth having 3 first-rounder types as your foundation and still keep a good #1 starter.

the former bp #5 prospect in baseball?? he's going to be warpalicious! Your player rankings disagree with you. I'm big on position scarcity, especially because my league has SS, 2B, and MI. I like Phillips. It was his first breakout year so he definitely could bust next year, but he was a stud prospect, I think similar to Hanley, hes just finally realizing his potential. I mean if you look at him from a fantasy perspective hes basically Grady Sizemore with 2b eligibility. Hes no Utley, but even if he drops down from 30/30, 100/100 to 20/20 with 80/80 thats still pretty great production out of your 2b spot. i like him a lot if he's not leading off. but if that happens, you can always get a good return for a 30/30 2B in a trade.

The upgrade is worth it; Howard will probably be the best 5x5 1B this year. His average won't be sub .280 again, just keep Smoltz.

it was the next logical conclusion, you had to have seen it coming.

i just don't see why there's something inherently bad about basing a judgement about a player on extensive exposure to them and a fuller understanding of their contributions. the best usage of statistics is as a record of what every player has done, since none of us watch 162 games for all 30 teams. we'd prefer to put our trust exclusively into similarly subjective statistical manipulations? at any rate, resume your rewarding gangbanging on Pirate fan...

Soto .275/.350/.455 Lee: .315/.400/.525 DeRosa .280/.345/.410 Theriot .275/.340/.380 Ramirez: .305/.360/.570 Fukodome .290/.375/.475 Pie .270/.325/.430 Soriano .290/.335/.540 Zambrano 3.50/1.30 Lilly 4.00/1.25 Marquis 4.75/1.40 Hill 3.80/1.20 Lieber 4.50/1.35 Wuertz 3.50/1.30 Marmol 2.30/1.20 Howry 3.35/1.20 Wood 3.50/1.25 i guess