fromthestretch

Prado will still get some time at 3B. Jones has only played over 130 games twice since 2005.

He has a career OPS of .661 in over 300 plate appearances against the Cubs. It's not like he turns into Babe Ruth when he sees a pitcher in a Cubs uniform.

did you expect someone else? Gotta love the comment next to Jeter's name in the list of this year's Gold Glove winners at the top of Baseball-Reference.com.

he might not commit 40 errors by himself but combined with Castro, 50+ is certainly doable. The funny thing is that you said earlier you would prefer to sign Johnson than a poor defensive first baseman like Dunn. In 129 games at first base in 2009, Nick Johnson posted a defensive WAR of -0.8. Dunn was at -0.3 in more games this season.

I'd rather spend on Crawford than having to eat another 25 to 30 mill when we realize Dunn is a horrible fit as a 1b for a team with a 3b and SS with scattershot arms. It always amuses me when people imply that Ramirez is going to magically commit 40 errors at third because of Dunn. Dunn isn't going to win any gold gloves, but he isn't nearly the disaster at first base that some people try to make him out to be.

My guess is that you're not going to be able to get Pena on a one-year deal. If Dunn leaves the Nationals, I wouldn't be surprised to see them offer Pena at least two years.

Harry Heilmann.

Normally, I would agree with this, but it's tough for me to forget just how bad he looked as a freshman. I'm hoping the reports are true, and he really has stepped up his game.

Purdue is still going to be very good. Robbie Hummel isn't all that great. Tough loss, but I sitll think they can be a very, very good team. Hummel isn't that great? I'd say he was the best player on that team, and they don't have much depth. Correct. Purdue will still be good, but losing a guy like Hummel is a big blow to that team. I'm really hoping Sandi Marcius can fill the void somewhat, although he's not going to be the outside threat that Hummel was. That's going to have to come from someone like D.J. Byrd. We know what we've got with JJ and Moore. In my opinion, DJ Byrd is going to make or break this season. Byrd or maybe Terone Johnson has to be the third option. Everyone knows JJ is going to be doubled and Moore will get plenty of attention too. Barlow isn't a good enough shooter, and I don't really expect much out of the new big guys (Marcius/Carroll) their first year. Everything I heard going into last season made Marcius sound fairly polished for a freshman, so my expectations are somewhat high for him. Not First-Team-All-Big-Ten high, but I expect him to be a much better inside presence than Calasan ever was, especially considering his size. Hopefully, he's had some time to shake off the rust from sitting out a season with a broken foot. I'm hearing from multiple sources (I think even you may have mentioned something similar on here awhile back, as well) that Bade has improved by leaps and bounds over last season. I don't expect Barlow to be an outside scorer, but he has the potential to be able to create shots inside the arc and drive to the basket. Hopefully, he's matured a bit, since he was kind of a d-bag as a freshman. ETA: I also hope Ryne Smith's playing time is significantly reduced this season.

Purdue is still going to be very good. Robbie Hummel isn't all that great. Tough loss, but I sitll think they can be a very, very good team. Hummel isn't that great? I'd say he was the best player on that team, and they don't have much depth. Correct. Purdue will still be good, but losing a guy like Hummel is a big blow to that team. I'm really hoping Sandi Marcius can fill the void somewhat, although he's not going to be the outside threat that Hummel was. That's going to have to come from someone like D.J. Byrd.

Not for the head coaches. The assistants do all the work. that's just not true. I wouldn't say the assistants do all the work, but at many schools they do a large majority of it. I'm sure there are some head coaches that like to be more involved than others, and for some, the level of involvement might depend on the recruit. But for the most part, there's usually an assistant coach that handles most of the legwork when it comes to recruiting.

Sounds similar to Shin-Soo Choo, which isn't exactly a bad thing.

And Purdue loses another offensive player to injury, as Siller (WR) is out for at least a few weeks with a pretty bad foot sprain. Not that I had high hopes for the Boilers this year, but essentially losing a key offensive player each week is going to make this a very rough season.

I'd rather the football team suffer these injuries than the basketball team.

I believe this one is on MLB Network, as well.

Not quite sure what he's done to lower his stock. He just posted his fourth straight season with a sub-2.00 ERA, and I believe he had a career best K/9 this season. His home run rate is also ridiculously low.

The Yankees don't need anyone in their farm system to replace Jeter. They'll just outspend everyone for the best available player at a given position. The Yankees don't need anyone in their farm system to replace Posada. They'll just sign Joe Mauer when he becomes a free agent I can see Brian Cashman putting a red circle on his calendar to mark the start of the free agency period for November 2018.

Sure...Opening Day 2012.

Completely guessing: Foster, Bowie, Downs(although intuition tells me Garland). EDIT: Not even close. Well, Downs was close, but that's it. EDIT2: What's the threshold, 180 IP? I can only find 1 guy in 1998. These are the three I found with at least 179 that year: farnsworth: 184 IP (102.2 at Iowa, 81.1 at West Tenn) brian mcnichol: 179 IP at West Tenn phil norton: 186.1 IP (120.1 at West Tenn, 66 at Daytona)

Wainwright threw 182 innings in the minors in 2005.

I believe I read somewhere that Shark is getting the start tonight. Silva apparently has an elbow issue. ETA: Not where I originally saw it, but this link backs it up: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100912&content_id=14579608&notebook_id=14581536&vkey=notebook_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

For some reason, your sentence reminded me of "I'll have a bloody mary, a steak sandwich, and a steak sandwich."

All you want is for people to focus on the positive aspects of your proposal? That's absurd. It's a bad proposal and the fact that it has no chance of coming to fruition does not make it unnecessary to point out that it's a bad proposal. I think you just like to argue. I wanted feedback. That includes positive and negative feedback. If you think it is a bad proposal, fine, tell me why. Don't just say "this is lame." One big reason is that you apparently didn't take anything into account other than what you perceive to be an ideal football situation. You didn't factor in what kind of impact this would have on any other sports, including basketball. There's also an academic side to conference alignments, which you completely ignored. The current situation may not be ideal, but I highly doubt it's going to take something this extreme to make it better.

So, you took Purdue, an Indiana school, out of the Big Ten, in which you kept IU, and stuck the Boilers with a bunch of schools from Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and decided to throw in a New Jersey school for good measure? And then replaced Purdue in the Big Ten with Ball State, another Indiana school? I'm really not seeing how that makes sense geographically.

Yeah. It had to be a game I was at, too. I'm happy with where Soto's at right now. Lol, you are ok with him being the best offensive catcher in baseball? That's good to know. I hear that that Joe Mauer guy still plays. I might be mistaken. I think he's talking about how Soto leads all catchers (min. 350 plate appearances) in OPS this season...by a decent margin.