apete6

According to MLB Trade Rumors, the agreement is 2/$5 with an additional $1M possible in incentives. Deal looks even better now!

Looking at the schedule, yeah, this road trip is going to suck, but after it is over, the Hawks go from February 12th to March 8th with all home games except 1 game in STL and 1 game in DET. Good times!

Wonder if/how this will affect the combo plan holders this season. If they are making a bunch of Friday games night games I would certainly want those tickets in my plan. Very doubtful that there are Friday night games due to the traffic insanity of Wrigleyville on a Friday night. It was a complete disaster for the 1 Friday night concert they held last year (Roger Waters?). They may move some of the Friday games back to 3:05 to accommodate travel for the teams, however.

You're thinking of Kevin Goldstein at BP. Ok, thanks. I knew it was one of those pretty well known prospect analyzers.

Subscription required http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8821510/mike-trout-bryce-harper-top-25-players-age-25-mlb I thought Keith Law stopped working for ESPN and took a front office job. Am I thinking of someone else? Full list: Trout, Harper, Heyward, Stanton, Strasburg, Kershaw, Machado, Castro, Bumgarner, Andrus, Lawrie, Salvador Perez, Chapman, Moore, Parker, Sale, Matt Harvey, Rizzo, Freeman, Grandal, Andrelton Simmons, Middlebrooks, Kimbrel, Hosmer, Chris Tillman

That won't make the title game any more or less likely to be a good game (see the men's basketball tournament). Well not necessarily but it might lead to more interesting match ups on the way there I want my 16 team playoff, friends ND vs Nebraska, Alabama vs N. Illinois, Florida vs. Clemson, et al? I'm not really a fan of going past 4. 16 would be a waste of time. 6 or 8 is probably ideal if you're going to go a playoff route. If you go the 5 major conference champs, you would have to do 8 to account for at large bids, but if you go top 6, you can just take the top 6 teams and give 2 a bye. ~Dec 15: 1st round (3 vs. 6, 4 vs 5)--this year: Florida vs. Stanford, Oregon vs. K-State New Year's 2nd round ND vs. Oregon, Bama vs. Florida/Stanford Week after: Title game--ND/Oregon vs. Bama

Thamel is now reporting that Golden is not leaving. Why not? Wisconsin is a great job and Miami is a dumpster fire right now! They are on their way to terrible sanctions, have a 75,000 seat stadium that is 1/5 full for all games, and are up against rejuvinated Florida and Florida State programs in recruiting. Just dumb on Golden's part, especially since the Penn State job isn't opening up any time soon.

How does the 1 seed not mean anything now? A bye. Home field advantage, and get to play the lower seed. It doesn't guarantee you anything but it means something. It would mean a lot more if you were the only team to get the bye week.

No 10 win team would get left out, but the chances of sub-500 teams getting in are increased. Going back to 2002 (first year of 4 division alignment), 6 teams have been left out of the playoffs with at least 10 wins, including the 2008 Brady-less Patriots who had 11 wins. If there were an additional wild card since 2002, NOT ONE team with a losing record would have made the postseason as a Wild Card. However, there would have been 4 8-8 teams that would have made it, including, miraculously on a win% in common games tiebreaker, the 2011 Chicago Bears!

This is overall good for most of these schools, especially the lower tier ones like Providence and DePaul. A 10 or 11 team league with true home and homes with all of these schools would be really entertaining and balanced. Might hit recruiting a little bit, but you would still be playing in all of the big East coast media markets (NYC, Philly, DC) and playing teams such as Georgetown, Villanova, etc.. every year. I'm a huge fan. If it were up to me, I would add Xavier, SLU, and Butler and call it a day. Creighton would be tempting as the 11th member. No need to add St. Joes, Dayton, LaSalle, etc... as they really bring nothing to the table as far as TV sets go, but if they went to a larger 14 or 16 team conference, it wouldn't be the worst thing on earth as all of the schools would be relatively geographically and size consistent. By the way, DePaul went on the road and laid a 78-61 beatdown on Arizona State in Tempe. 5 in a row for DePaul. WTF?

I actually don't mind 14. Then the 1 seed means something and those guys are playing all the way to the end of the season. Additionally, no 10 win team would likely ever get boned out of making the playoffs. On the other hand, the AFC playoffs this year would be even more wretched. It would help out Fantasy Football as well.

It's only a matter of time. If they would have just thought this way all along and not offered membership to any school with a football team, they could have kicked out the football teams, kept the Big East name and MSG for their conference tourney. Instead, they are probably going to have to go it alone without an auto bid to the NCAA tourney for a year or two and try to start a new conference. Bad planning. That being said, could be a very strong hoops league with like teams. Would be nice to get to 10 teams and play a home and home every year. That could be cool: Georgetown, Villanova, St. Johns, Providence, Seton Hall, DePaul, Marquette and then add Xavier, Butler, and St. Louis. All located in major metro areas in the East/Midwest. Cool idea.

That number doesn't look good, but I'd like to see some other coaches records when trailing at the half. Usually when you are losing at halftime you are not playing well. On the other side, I think he's something like 50-10 when leading at halftime, which seems pretty damn good. 14 wins when trailing at halftime over 9 seasons is something like 1.7 wins per season, which doesn't seem all that bad. Maybe I'm way off though... Edit: And when I say 'doesnt seem all that bad' I mean relative to his overall coaching record. I'd probably be a little surprised if that was Bill Belichek's record, given that he wins 12 games a year, but for a near .500 coach like lovie, that sounds about right. I guess the whole train of thought is that Lovie is a bad coach when it comes to making halftime adjustments, not possessing the right offensive gameplan and being unable to help rally the team from a deficit. And that would be a fine train of thought if we knew that Lovie's record is worse than other coaches out there. Using Advanced NFL Stats, if you are down 3 points at halftime, you have a 35% chance to win, down 7 points, you have a 25% chance, and 10 points a 17% chance. So, a 23% chance (14-46) on any halftime deficit is probably about average, as is an 80% win probability with a lead (50-10), maybe better than usual with a lead.

I saw that line earlier and was surprised. Chicago is home and they've been losing to runners, not through the air. But still, they look like garbage on both sides of the ball and should lose big. Yeah thats way too much respect given to the Bears Packers will cover that by at least 3 times. No way the Bears keep this within 10 points unless there is some garbage TD at the end.

What about the A10? They're not good enough for the A10.

Wants someone to go to 3 years. I'm fine with it, if we do. Obvious statement is obvious, but it would all depend on the AAV for me. I have no idea what this guy is going to get. I would guess something like 2/13. 5-7 million seems to be the rate for good relievers. Seems unnecessary for a team that likely won't be good this year to go a deal that big on a middle reliever who has had, what, 1 or 2 good years. Too fickle of a position to tie that money up in. But, hey, ticket prices aren't going down and they aren't spending much on anyone else, so what the hell.

DePaul was losing by 14 at the half to Chicago State last night. Rallied to win by 10. Would have been the worst loss of the year for any BCS level program. Progress!!! Just join the Horizon league and call it a day.

A Justin Upton to Philly for Cliff Lee + Cash is being discussed. Why? I don't know.

Who knows, though? Some people take different situations differently. Some people get super stressed about work or talking to women or taking a test but can go out and dominate on the field or in a board room or whatever. Maybe worrying about his family's financial future or getting hurt before his big payday was more worrisome to him than just going out and playing in a game, even if that game is an important one. Everyone's personality is different, so that could be a bad comparison. Or it could be true and he will bat .100 in the 2015 World Series. Let's hope there is actually a meaningful game for him to play in one of these days.

I still find it hard to believe that Chris Williams is worse than most of the guys they have played this year.

that's horribly embarrassing for every other team if true. but i doubt it is. Why the hell weren't the Cubs in on this? Like they have money to spend on other players? I know OF is probably not the Cubs biggest need, but collecting assets is. Melky at that price is an asset, just like Scott Baker.

Got 99. Great game!

I don't think they offer this anymore unless it's grandfathered in. Actually, they do and have expanded it to more seating locations this season. Got the email to go on Saturday, December 8th. Probably going to pass as I am already a 1/4 holder in season tickets with friends. Was hoping I'd get the call in about 5 years to get my own seats for my family. Oh well. Also, for clarification on the above discussion, the Combo plan is only available for the Budweiser Bleachers.

Just checked and I have moved up over 9,000 spots since last year! Holy crap.

Wittenmeyer was on with Mully and Hanley and suggested that the medical reports on Haren did not check out good and that is the reason why the Cubs walked away. Said he "couldn't confirm it", but that's what he heard.