goonys evil twin

For sake of argument, did Hairston's mental mistakes cost more games than Walkers defense? While I'm at it...I would welcome JHJ as startd 2nd baseman. I just don't have much love for TWalk anymore...not sure what it is. I would welcome Hairston as the starter if we had some sort of guarantee he'd be at his best. Unfortunately, he's never been a full-time starter of any solid quality, and starting him and getting rid of Walker increases the likelihood of Neifi getting 400+ PA.

I don't think he gets more credit than he deserves. It just appears that way because there is a threat the Cubs will start Neifi Perez in his place and/or give away Walker at the same time. If the Cubs could find a better 2B than Walker, I'd be fine with dealing him. I've got no emotional attachment to him. The problem is the more we hear about "catching the ball", coupled with the complete disregard for the single most glaring weakness on this team (guys who get on base), the more many of us think this team is doing nothing to correct the same mistakes they've made over and over. And that creates a constant churning of this story, which makes it look like people are passionate Walker supporters, when in reality they just fear the alternative.

Yes. I agree that Muhammed is more like a #2 right now. But he probably thinks he's a #1. Let's just say for a minute the Bears could get assurances that TO would behave. And let's say the Bears find a deal that can work for him and them, and the cap. Now, do you think there's anyway that TO and MM, two type A personality WR who have both blown up to certain extent when they don't feel they are being used properly, could co-exist? I'd like to find out. I think TO might view his next deal as possibly his last chance to make big cash.

I'd rather have TO than Moulds.

Yes, they could, but if I were the coach, I would rather have a player not be able to play and them rehab during the offseason than from late March to July. But how is it different if they get hurt in the WBC or ST? It's not different if they get hurt, it's just more likely they will get hurt in an intense competition where there is obviously some bad blood between teams as compared to the relatively laid back atmosphere of spring training.

Theriot might make a decent utility man. He'd be an awful starting shortstop.

Tired of the soap opera? Yes. Willing to watch Wood walk after the season? Yes, unless this season is dominating. Willing to even let Prior think about walking? No, and it's pointless to even bring that up. He's not a free agent, he's under Cubs control and still a valuable commodity. Rusch isn't anything to write home about and he doesn't take the ball every fifth day, luckily for us, because he sucks so bad. Let's not pretend we'd be happier with 200 innings of garbage than 150 innings of even Prior's B game. At this point I wish the Cubs would stop focusing, or pretending to focus, on having Prior ready for the 2nd game of the year. Just focus on having him ready. It's obvious all is not right. You don't get to mid-March without knowing when a guy will make his first spring training start without there being a problem. If they feel he needs more simulated games, just do the simulated games. Quit BSing us with make believe timetables that you don't even believe in.

I completely disagree. Not only do I think more of the intensity, excitement and atmosphere down there on an absolute scale, the DR-Puerto Rico game last night being simply unreal, unlike anything I've really seen before, but when you consider things in per person terms, remembering that the Hiram Bithorn stadium holds just 19,000, I think it blows anything you'll see from an American crowd out of the water. This is nothing but hyperbole following the momentum of story after story about how much more they love baseball than Americans. Todays' crowd was barely half full. So, from time to time they've gone ballistic. Well, I was at the Wood/Clemens game in Wrigley and I bet that atmosphere matches up, and it was a regular season game. I don't think randomly banging on drums and blowing horns makes the crowd more intense. It's just noice, not energy or enthusiasm.

And Alou looking as clumsy as ever.

No it's not. It's unlike just about any other workplace situation. And I still don't see what all the fuss is about.

Probably, and in my opinion, hopefully. Well, it seems we are in agreement that the Redskins are overspending ridiculously. That is probably true, I just think it should have been expected by those who knew the details of the negotiations. I can't imagine Len P seriously thinking the Skins would be quiet, or not overpay for name players after the cap was raised by as much as it was.

And that is precisely why Dusty is a poor manager. He is more interested in being these guys' friends rather than their coach. I am so sick of hearing Cub players and our manager shoot their mouths off in front of the media and NOT DELIVERING THE GOODS ON THE FIELD. That's why you get booed, you bums! Ryno kept his thoughts to himself, and even though Gracie was far from a saint, he was consistent on the field. While Grace certainly did a whole lot more on the field than Walker, Todd has been a consistent producer in his time here. And Mark talked to the media just as much. He complained about how management treated him and his contract. You always heard somewhat veiled snipes at others. Ryno was quiet, but few players are that quiet. And it's unfair to expect them to be, especially when there are so many demands on these guys to talk, by media and fans. There wasn't anywhere near the same level of prying in Ryno's time as there is now, and when it did start to heat up in the 90's he walked away from the game. So let's not be so quick to jump on today's players for not being Ryno.

Probably, and in my opinion, hopefully.

Part of the answer is this is Washington, they don't care about "blowing the cap" in a couple years. They've done this stuff for years now. Also, I think it's a bit unrealistic to call Jurevicius and Anderson similar to Randle El and Archuletta. Joe is a one dimensional possession receiver. He has been in the league 8 years and is 31 with 3000 career receiving yards. El is going to give you more options to use him as a weapon, is 26 has only 4 years in the league and already 2000 yards. Anderson is a banged up 32 year old platoon running back. Archuletta is a very good starting strong safety. AA's careeer is likely to last longer than Anderson's at this point, going on the shelf life of RB in this league.

Name the teams he's #5 on. Even if there are 1 or 2 that doesn't qualify him as a very good #5. That's just a foolish statement with no basis in reality. You don't say Paul Konerko is a good backup first baseman because 10 other teams have a better starting first baseman. He's probably #2 on the Yankees. He's easily 4 on STL, maybe 3. He'd be 3 on Boston.

That's not MLB's fault. And it's probably not entirely true. Bonds associated himself with a notorious drug cheat and steroid company. It didn't take much digging to get to the BALCO stuff. And it doesn't take much digging to look at his physical attributes and unprecedented career path and form an opinion. People need to stop making excuses for Bonds. If he's being "singled out" he's one of many who have been "singled out" which negates the whole concept of being "singled out". And I doubt you'll find a lot of HOF worthy players with as much dirt as Barry has. A few, sure. McGwire and Sosa? Quite possibly. But Barry pretty much brought this on himself and deserves any criticism he receives.

It sounds good and is a fine way to try and motivate players to get better. But a 32 year old second baseman isn't going to improve significantly defensively no matter how much he works on it.

Who did he overtake? The salary cap is much bigger than it was just 4 years ago. Look at Peter King's latest MMQB and check out these numbers: "You want a healthy league? This is a healthy league. The year-by-year salary-cap figures since the cap was instituted in 1994, projecting into next year with the figure the NFL announced last week: 1994: $34.6 million 1995: $37.1 million 1996: $40.7 million 1997: $41.4 million 1998: $52.3 million 1999: $58.3 million 2000: $62.1 million 2001: $67.4 million 2002: $71.1 million 2003: $75.0 million 2004: $80.5 million 2005: $85.5 million 2006: $102.0 million 2007: $109.0 million From 1994 to 2007, the cap will have gone up 315 percent." In 2006 the salary cap will be 43% higher than it was in 2002. Mike Brown signed his current deal in 2003, and the cap has grown 36% since then. You are going to hear about a lot of guys becoming the highest paid something or other in NFL history. He's just the first. Suddenly, those $100 million deals for franchise QB's don't look so unwieldy with the higher cap costs. A QB costing $8m against the cap in 2005 took up 9.4% of his team's cap space. A QB costing $8m in 2007 will count just 7.3%. So a lesser player could easily sign for significantly more money now than a better player could have just a couple years ago, and still be appropriately fit into the new cap. And remember, a lot of the game's stars are signed through 2008 or further, which means their value is going to be depressed from what they could earn on the open market. In a year you might have an unprecedented number of holdouts looking for more money in a new deal.

And that's wrong. I'm not huge Maddux fan, but he's a legit 3 in the NL. At worst he's a very good 4. He's not 5, really good or otherwise. 5 pitchers across the league don't come close to his level of effectiveness as a pitcher. He might not be worth his money, but he's better than even a really good 5.

It is not within his power to significantly improve defensively. Even if he worked his butt off all offseason on defense it wouldn't have made much of a difference. Besides, defensive ratings are largely based on reputation. How good you are in reality really doesn't come close to mattering as much as how good people think you are with the glove.

When you say it's not like your average major league game, are you saying it's more intense than your average major league game? There are only a couple games here in this series. And they are do or die. Put those major league teams in do or die situations and you'll be getting an intense environment from the fans. I think the ESPN commentators have been full of BS on two counts so far. 1) That all these foreign players do such a better job on fundamentals than American born players. 2) That the fans have been comparatively more festive than American fans. The baseball has been incredibly sloppy, with no better focus on fundamentals than major league games. And the fans, have been no more intense than your average playoff crowd, which is what you should compare these games to in the majors and not a mundane regular season game. Frankly, I'd say I've seen much more excitement from fans in regular season games against many rivals.

Short answer: They are cheap. Slightly longer answer: They didn't appreciate his value as a hitter. At the time they let him go he was a 26 year old role player with decent numbers but nothing special. He was going to get a significant raise in 2003 due to arbitration, and Minnesota decided to go elsewhere. They didn't want to pay him more than a million in 2003, which was a terrible business and baseball move. They were paying a lot of other guys a lot more money, and ended up paying the Doug Mientkiewicz more than Ortiz got. It's unfair to say you could predict Ortiz would go from where he was at 26 to where he was at 29 (last season), but it's not unfair to say Minnesota did a poor job of evaluating that situation.

In what regard? Basically talking about the excitement and intensity. I think it was around the time when the action stopped as the security guards took away the Castro signs and t-shirts. Are you saying you find that comparison unjustified?

Innocent until proven guilty is for the courts of law. In the court of public opinion, it's not a justified standard. There's nothing wrong with the masses collectively coming to a general conclusion after seeing a set of what may be considered circumstantial evidence. The courts found OJ innocent, that doesn't mean we all have to pretend he is. I don't see how any of this is "just going after Barry". MLB has clearly "gone after" others. And it seems pretty obvious they will continue to go after others. The fact is there is more evidence surrounding the Barry Bonds situation than there is just about any other player.

In what regard?