Mephistopheles

its a high risk high reward move. i would suggest doing it because our cfers suck

i thought someone had a typo for GM. But lord is she stupid..

Well to be fair, you did bring it up. And if I refer to someone by first name only, and you're confused as to who I could possibly mean, please...let me know and I'll clarify. :) i know who people mean its just to egotistical for my humbled self, as you might imagine ;) i dont like to call alex rodriguez, arod. or even ichiro suzuki, ichiro. the only first name people in sports ill do it to (off the top of my head): Mark Kerry

trading pie would be the best thing the organization could do. hes not very good. hes not what we need.

What do you call Bono? Or Cher? Bono is different. It's not his first name. If Bryant legally changes his name to "Kobe" I'll call him Kobe. Cher has an excuse. How the hell do you pronounce her full name? Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPierre. And seriously, you're making a big deal out of nothing.

Oprah also has a last name. So did Leonardo. So does Lebron. If calling someone by a last name is acceptable, why not a first name if it adequately identifies who you are discussing? Leonardo doesn't work well in our Leonardo DiCaprio world. I call Oprah Winfrey, (gasp) Oprah Winfrey. I call LeBron James, (gasp...hold on) LeBron James.

He has a last name and it's Bryant. He's Kobe Bryant. /rant

I've been running around on Japanese sites trying to figure out how short he was (he is supposed to be an FA this year) but apparently he was like a week or two short of qualifying at the most. Pitchers in Japan are often deactivated for reasons such as "lack of pitching opportunities" and other bologna reasons. It is quite likely that this caused him not to be an FA. Sucks for him. He got jerked around this year too. He actually closed this year (which is dumb considering he's been the second best japanese starter this millennium and the second most consistent as well). He did manage to have a 66:4 K:BB. Oh well, his team doesn't recognize the posting system either. Stupid NPB rules. Fukudome will be here this year, officially. He was actually 29 days short of qualifying but NPB just made a rule for time spent on the DL counting towards service time like it does here. Fukudome missed about half the season with an elbow injury. I'm not sure if that rule was retroactive to time spent on the DL before this season, if not that could be the main reason Uehara isn't.

Sizemore is normally looked at leading off.....he can steal bases, he's fast and gets on base.

Now you're doing this: Replacing a hitter with a better hitter. I wouldn't keep OPS constant because I know that OPS that is OBP driven means more than OBP that is slugging driven. However, in this case the only way Soriano shouldn't bat lead off is if there's a realistic choice and that choice is a better hitter than him. Sizemore is a poor comparison and you justify this by saying they have the same OPS+ (which is a worthless statistic). You tried to prove your point by saying hey this guy is better thus obp kills soriano. the perfect comparison would be someone with an identical EqA and a higher OBP (lower SLG). When looking at this our choice is: .299/.337/.560 - Alfonso Soriano .258/.351/.459 - Nate McLouth .306/.353/.488 - Robinson Cano .263/.355/.441 - Ian Kinsler .265/.364/.463 - Josh Willingham .283/.369/.445 - Bobby Abreu As you can see we're looking at mainly .260/.360/.450 guys who OPS around 810 compared to Soriano's 897.

no but uk losing to florida is fine because uk beat l'ville, uk beat lsu who beat vt. this isn't something that is hard to understand. if a conference performs better when they play out of conference, then when they play in conference there's a better argument for beating up on each other. the sec did fine out of conference, so when the play each other they beat up on each other. the little ten laid an egg outside of conference, so when they play each other its crap over crap. this is idiotic. so, because Michigan lost to App. State, none of their Big 10 wins mean anything? No, but when your conference's leader lost to Appy State, the conference is down this year. Let's not forget they lost to Appy, got their butts kicked by Oregon. It's not just one game. I think the conference leader is #1 in the nation and one of the few remaining undefeated teams. They're tied @ 4-0. Michigan's probably going to beat them this year. Let's be honest: Ohio State is not the best team in the nation. Ohio State is number one because of a soft schedule thus far, not because they are good. Ohio State won't end up winning the national championship. Ohio State won't end up undefeated. To be fair, BC isn't the second best team in the nation either.

no but uk losing to florida is fine because uk beat l'ville, uk beat lsu who beat vt. this isn't something that is hard to understand. if a conference performs better when they play out of conference, then when they play in conference there's a better argument for beating up on each other. the sec did fine out of conference, so when the play each other they beat up on each other. the little ten laid an egg outside of conference, so when they play each other its crap over crap. this is idiotic. so, because Michigan lost to App. State, none of their Big 10 wins mean anything? No, but when your conference's leader lost to Appy State, the conference is down this year. Let's not forget they lost to Appy, got their butts kicked by Oregon. It's not just one game.

no but uk losing to florida is fine because uk beat l'ville, uk beat lsu who beat vt. this isn't something that is hard to understand. if a conference performs better when they play out of conference, then when they play in conference there's a better argument for beating up on each other. the sec did fine out of conference, so when the play each other they beat up on each other. the little ten laid an egg outside of conference, so when they play each other its crap over crap.

beane believes it.

I guess my point is that the Cubs ought to fix their problems drafting and developing American talent as well as focusing on foreign shores. For the time being, the impact of Latin players has been far greater than Japanese or Korean. thats because the best latin players dont stay in latin america ok, so how are players that are staying in japan useful? they dont have a choice. you can get them after nine years if they want to come over (a lot dont) or you can try to sign them before they go pro (Yuki Saito is probably going this route. and he'll be the biggest international amateur prospect since Kendry Morales). Anyways, in other news I love the Cubs recent run in Latin America. I mean they've really committed down there. This summer just one team signed less international prospects than the Cubs, the Giants. The Mets on the other hand singed like 14, incuding a shortstop named Miguel Tejada from the DR (lol). http://www.baseballamerica.com/online/prospects/news/265060.html

maybe we should promote the southern conference, theyre better than the sun belt too. theyre close to the mac if they can pass the mac, then fine

What's with Wofford beating upstart 1AA teams? I think it's kinda funny that they've beaten the two 1AA teams who beat and nearly beat top 1A teams. woffords losses are to elon and ncsu. elon's losses are to appy state and usf. they lost to usf by fifteen statistically the southern conference is actually better than conference usa.

lol Appy State lost to Wofford who got killed by 2-5 North Carolina State lol The Citadel lost to Wofford who got killed by 2-5 NCSU

for the reading impaired. i said nothing of non-conference play. discuss Like Dew and I pointed out, the fact that the conference didnt lose to a team from the DAKOTAS! and lose to Duke, and lose to Appy means that the teams in the conference are better in the SEC, thus the beating them up argument works more.

I guess my point is that the Cubs ought to fix their problems drafting and developing American talent as well as focusing on foreign shores. For the time being, the impact of Latin players has been far greater than Japanese or Korean. thats because the best latin players dont stay in latin america

I don't see myself as an SEC homer, and I don't think the SEC is the greatest conference in history - it's not even that much better than any other conference out there. But, the reason it's perceived to be a whole lot better, in my opinion, is because the expected top teams in the SEC haven't had any real close non-conference games. The Big Ten has seen Michigan and Wisconsin fall badly, the Big East lost Louisville badly, and the Big XII wasn't helped by Texas barely squeaking by UCF and Arkansas State (who Tennessee beat handily). The Pac-10 has probably been the least maligned by most (other than the SEC) and it's only had UCLA lose badly outside the conference. In the SEC, though, all the big upsets have been in conference. Tennessee has lost all its games in the SEC or to a top national team, Florida's losses have come in the SEC, LSU lost an SEC game. The only major SEC teams to lose or nearly lose to a perceived bad non-conference opponent are South Carolina (thought to be middle of the road SEC barely beat UNC) and Auburn (one of the better SEC teams lost to what turned out to be a very good USF team). Simply put, the other conferences have had perceived top teams fall to mediocre or worse non-conference opponents, the SEC has yet to have that. who did Wisconsin lose to out of conference? The Citadel almost beat them. The Citadel! That counts as a loss to an average opponent, easily.

as someone else pointed out... the Little Ten has two losses to D1AA opponents and a loss to Duke, which amounts to the same thing. Great logic. I thought you would be good at logic. It is good logic. You see conference A doesn't embarrass self outside of conference play. Conferences B embarrasses self against D1AA opponents, thus the teams in conference A get the beat up on each other argument more than others.

as someone else pointed out... the Little Ten has two losses to D1AA opponents and a loss to Duke, which amounts to the same thing. Both the SEC and Little Ten schedule games against D1AA opponents. The SEC wins easily, the Little Ten not so much. USC 38-3 over SCSU UF 49-3 over WKU UGA 45-16 over WCU UK 50-10 over EKU Vandy 41-17 over Richmond Bama 52-6 over WCU Arkansas 34-15 over UT-Chat MSU 31-15 over Gardner Webb ----------------- OSU 38-6 over YSU APPY STATE 34-32 over Michigan Illinois 21-0 over WIU Wisconsin 45-31 over The Citadel Purdue 52-6 over WIU NU 27-0 over NE DUKE 20-14 over NU IU 55-7 over In St NDSU 27-21 over Minnesota

Doesn't distract from Work/School

sorry no more applications for the texan bandwagon