fromthestretch

i wouldn't say that so surely. atlanta is putting together a pretty good rotation. it shouldn't take a large amount of wins to take the nl wild card in 2009. i really hope we don't have to face him in the playoffs again either way though. and if we do, maybe the hitters will be prepared for the low and away pitches this time. Atlanta's pitching staff should be fine. Their infield offense shouldn't be bad, but it might not be good enough to make up for the complete lack of offense they could get from their outfield.

He's hit three in 111 plate appearances against the Cubs. However, his .308/.402/.484 career line against the Cubs shows that he has hit well against the Cubs.

agreed, that .273 slugging % would look great in a cubs uniform Miles career slugging- .364 Burke career slugging- .363 Plus Burke is about 4 years younger, better defensively than Miles, and much cheaper. On top of that, Burke has a 44 point advantage in OPS against lefties for his career. If Miles is primarily going to get at bats against lefties, Burke would have been a better option.

As far as Grace, he's going to need the assistance of the Veterans Committee at this point, since he received less than 5% of the votes. And as we all know, the Veterans Committee isn't worth Veterans Committee. Do you honestly think any of those three belong in the HOF? No, but Williams is the closest. Agreed.

As far as Grace, he's going to need the assistance of the Veterans Committee at this point, since he received less than 5% of the votes.

Purdue finally starting hitting their shots yesterday. Hummel played well and appears to have shaken off his injuries. Johnson is off to a nice start, averaging 14.4 points, 9 boards, and 1.7 blocks per games through the first three conference games. He didn't look great in the Penn State game, but he put up double-doubles in the other two. For the other Purdue fans here, am I the only one that gets nervous every time Marcus Green gets the ball on offense? I mean, I like his intensity on defense and his ability to get rebounds against guys much taller than him, but I cringe everytime he shoots the ball. Thankfully, he somehow managed to hit a couple threes yesterday (after airballing his first attempt).

He used to have very good movement on his fastball. IIRC, the Mets have tinkered with his delivery over the years, resulting in a loss of movement.

While they both have value, Dunn still avoids making outs when he's not getting hits. That's key. Even if he's not driving in runs, he's giving the guys behind him a runner to drive in. Don't get me wrong, I think Bruce is going to be a very good hitter. His walk rate may even improve as he matures as a hitter. But even if he gets his OBP up to .330 while matching Dunn's slugging, .330 + .520 is less than .380 + .520. The Reds weren't very good at getting on base when Dunn was on the team. They're going to be even worse at it without him.

Well, if all we are going on is "maybe they'll all improve," then what can be said about them that can't be said about any team? Every team has players that "maybe could get better." But when you project what the Reds have, it's nothing special, just a lot of young adequacy. If you believe that, that's fine. But there are people that believe a guy (Votto) who in his first major league season, at age 24, put up .297/.368/.506/124 OPS+ is not considered "adequacy". If you don't like Bruce, that's fine, but show be where he doesn't project to being "special". I said Bruce replaced Dunn, that's pretty special. A 124 OPS from a first baseman is very, very adequate and very nothing special. From a SS it'd be awe-inspiring. From a 1B, it's blah. In Vottos first season (i hate to have to continue repeating this as if it's not significant), he put up the 8th best OPS among 1B's in the major leagues. Bruce replaces Dunn? He's 21, and his cieling is much higher than a HR hitter that gets about 120 hits per season. The fact that he can play CF (and the corner spots as well) makes him potentially very special. Bruce will hit for a higher average than Dunn and could very well get his slugging percentage to Dunn's level. However, his OBP will probably be significantly lower than Dunn. Votto is solid. Encarnacion doesn't hurt the offense, but he sure as hell hurts them defensively. Phillips has good power for a middle infielder, but will most likely always have a mediocre or bad OBP. Despite what he showed in limited action last season, Dickerson isn't going to hit for a lot of power. Keppinger is terrible. They'll get no offense from the catcher position. When you consider that they lost their best power and on-base threat from last season and that they were a mediocre offense last year with him, they probably won't be that great offensively this year, even with improvements from Bruce and Votto.

That's just nuts and it was Harvard's first win ever against a ranked team First big game Tommy Amaker has ever won come on, he had plenty of big wins in the NIT I'm still trying to figure out how he keeps getting schools to hire him. I was at Seton Hall for his last year there, and they practically threw a party when he said he was leaving Seton Hall to coach at Michigan.

No.

I'll readily admit they haven't exactly looked like a great team for a few weeks, but calling them a "pathetic disgrace" is ridiculous. They're missing two starters due to injury: the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and a First Team All Big Ten selection. Any team is going to struggle when two key players miss time due to injury. If those two have to miss a significant amount of time (especially Hummel), it's going to be a tough conference season. That doesn't make them anything close to a "pathetic disgrace" though. Unless I'm mistaken, yesterday was the first game they've missed. They're not a terrible basketball team - and pathetic disgrace was just the frustration talking. That being said they should not be ranked and are/were very over-hyped. If they do end up 9-9 and are on the outside looking in come tournament time I think pathetic disgrace fits. How often does a pre-season team with that much hype completely miss the tournament? While this is the first game they've missed together, Kramer's missed at least one other (and had another game where he barely played), and Hummel's missed one other game. I don't think it's fair to say they were overhyped. If they were to finish 9-9 in the Big Ten with a healthy team, then yes, that would be a pathetic disgrace. When two of their starters go down, I think you can throw the rankings out the window and make the best with what you have.

I'll readily admit they haven't exactly looked like a great team for a few weeks, but calling them a "pathetic disgrace" is ridiculous. They're missing two starters due to injury: the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and a First Team All Big Ten selection. Any team is going to struggle when two key players miss time due to injury. If those two have to miss a significant amount of time (especially Hummel), it's going to be a tough conference season. That doesn't make them anything close to a "pathetic disgrace" though.

The Vazquez signing wasn't a great one either. And I think I might prefer the one year at $3.5 for Lopez than the contract Miles got. At least if Lopez sucks, you're done with him after one season. Yes, he's better against lefties. However, you know he's going to get at-bats against right-handers, too. If Fontenot struggles, Miles will get more playing time. They might also let him play some short against right-handers here and there.

Then let someone else pay him that money. He doesn't offer anymore versatility than Cedeno. He isn't anymore productive against right-handers than Cedeno. He hits for a higher average overall and is better against lefties than Cedeno. Is that really worth the difference in their salaries? There's a very real possibility that Miles posts an OPS in the mid-to-high .600s in 2009 (Cedeno was at .680 last season).

The fact that the Twins were dumb enough to shell out that kind of money for Nick Punto doesn't mean the Cubs need to overpay for Miles. At least Felipe Lopez has shown something with the bat in the past. Miles has only posted an OPS over .700 once in his career. The Cubs already had a guy that can play both middle infield positions and fill in at third in a pinch while posting an OPS in the .600s. His name is Ronny Cedeno, and he's a hell of a lot less expensive than Miles. He just can't bat from the left side of the plate. The funny thing about this is that Cedeno's career OPS against right-handers is .680. Miles' is .690. So the Cubs are basically overpaying for a guy that really offers no more versatility than Cedeno and is probably worse defensively at short. He does hit for a higher average though, so I guess he's got that going for him.

No one is blaming the refs for Purdue's loss. Most of us realize Illinois played a better game than Purdue.

That would make it Purdue ball. incorrect. the ball would have to go off of an inbounds illinois player and then go out in order to maintain possession. since McCamey was out of bounds, hitting him with the ball was no different than hitting the floor, the hoop, a cheerleader, etc. I could be wrong, but I don't believe that a player standing out-of-bounds is considered the same as the floor or a cheerleader.

I understand your interpretation. Their momentum was carrying them out-of-bounds, but a player isn't considered out-of-bounds until he physically touches the floor there. Regardless of whether McCamey was or wasn't technically out-of-bounds when the ball hit him, it's deemed a dead ball once the ball touches anything or anyone considered out-of-bounds. Let's say for example you are in-bounds and passed a ball to your teammate who happened to have half his foot out-of-bounds. The ball goes to the other team in that instance, since your teammate is standing out of bounds. Wouldn't it stand to reason that if you threw the ball off an opponent that was standing out-of-bounds your team would get the ball?

I think the reason you lost is because we scored more points than you. I also think we are a lot closer to you than you may want to admit. After splitting the last 4 games I think that should be pretty obvious to anyone watching. I haven't disputed any of that. I believe you're confusing me with some other Purdue fans here. I have no problem admitting that Purdue was outplayed last night. Sorry more of a general response than to you. Just kinda leaped on the last post I had read. Got it. No worries.

I think the reason you lost is because we scored more points than you. I also think we are a lot closer to you than you may want to admit. After splitting the last 4 games I think that should be pretty obvious to anyone watching. I haven't disputed any of that. I believe you're confusing me with some other Purdue fans here. I have no problem admitting that Purdue was outplayed last night.

Stevens looks like a quality reliever with a high K rate, Archer is only 19, but has zero control, and I don't know about Gobbs. I hope the Pads want these guys. I can't find a John Gobbs in their minor league system, but I see John Gaub. Big time strikeout numbers: http://minors.baseball-reference.com/players.cgi?pid=34019

I could be wrong, but I don't think that's necessarily accurate. Johnson would be deemed in bounds when he threw the ball, since the last spot on the floor he touched prior to throwing the ball at McCamey was in bounds. I would imagine the out-of-bounds rule from the NBA also applies to college ball, and the NBA rule is that: The ball is out-of-bounds when it touches a player who is out-of-bounds or any other person, the floor, or any object on, above or outside of a boundary or the supports or back of the backboard. If Johnson was deemed in-bounds when he threw the ball at McCamey, and the ball hit McCamey while he was standing out-of-bounds, wouldn't it be Purdue ball at the moment it touched McCamey? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm just curious where you heard that you can't throw it off someone when they are standing out-of-bounds. Regardless in either case we still had a horrible view on if it hit Johnson's foot and I'm not gonna lose sleep over it Well, it's obviously not the reason Purdue lost the game, but I would like some clarification on the rule (knowledge is power :wink: ). If what I indicated above holds true, it wouldn't matter if it hit Johnson's foot, since it would have been deemed out-of-bounds the moment it touched McCamey, if he was standing out-of-bounds when it hit him.

I could be wrong, but I don't think that's necessarily accurate. Johnson would be deemed in bounds when he threw the ball, since the last spot on the floor he touched prior to throwing the ball at McCamey was in bounds. I would imagine the out-of-bounds rule from the NBA also applies to college ball, and the NBA rule is that: The ball is out-of-bounds when it touches a player who is out-of-bounds or any other person, the floor, or any object on, above or outside of a boundary or the supports or back of the backboard. If Johnson was deemed in-bounds when he threw the ball at McCamey, and the ball hit McCamey while he was standing out-of-bounds, wouldn't it be Purdue ball at the moment it touched McCamey? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm just curious where you heard that you can't throw it off someone when they are standing out-of-bounds.

Just curious, but did they show a different angle of that play? Everytime I saw the replay, it was from the original angle, from which it looked like it should have been Purdue's ball. That is pretty much the same angle the broadcasters had, so they didn't really have a better view of things than anyone watching the game on TV. I'm open to the idea that it may have been the right call, but from the one view they kept showing, it certainly looked like it should have been Purdue's ball. i never saw the ball hit mccamey at all. The original angle showed Johnson throw it off his leg. The only question I had was whether it then hit Johnson again before it landed out of bounds. iirc, neither angle shows it actually hit mccamey, you just assume that it did. however, johnson's legs were all flailed out, so there's no way to be sure. even if it goes back to purdue, they were still down. Well, it hit something, because Johnson threw it at him, the ball hit something and then clearly changed direction to head back toward Johnson. To me there was no question about that. From the angle, I just couldn't tell if the ball hit Johnson again before hitting the floor. There's a possibility that it did, which would explain why they gave the ball back to Illinois.