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Add Cassell and then send off Thigpen to (somewhat) replace the pick you surrender? Really good move for the Chiefs. I am surprised so many people think this is a good move for the Chiefs. Cassell is moderate upgrade over Thigpen, who was pretty good last season on a really bad team. So the Chiefs gave up the 35th pick for an unproven QB who played with a good O-Line and excellent WR's last season. To boot, Cassell's cap figure will probably more than Thigpen and the 35th pick combined. Meanwhile the Pats now have two picks in the 2nd Rnd, clear money and get younger. I think it's a good move for both. The Pats had to trade Cassel and got a pretty decent return for a guy without a lot of experience that they had to move. And Thigpen wasn't pretty good. A QB rating of 76 with a completion percentage around 54% with 18 TDs and 12 INTs isn't much to be impressed with. Obviously, the team wasn't very good, but he did have Dwayne Bowe to throw to. Cassel, who admittedly had better weapons, had a QB rating 13 points higher, threw three more TDs with one less pick and completed almost 10% more of his passes. I think both will improve, but I think Cassel's better now. Cassel has also had better coaching than Thigpen, meaning he should be farther along in his development. I should add I don't dislike Thigpen, I just think Cassel's a better bet to develop into a good NFL QB. And I think overlooking adding a veteran like Vrabel to a young team can't be overlooked. Cassel's also 2 years older, had the easiest receiver in the entire NFL to throw to, and didn't have to play from behind all season like Thigpen did. Those are huge advantages that help drive up a QB's efficiency numbers. Plus, Thigpen was able to use his mobility to escape and throw away a lot of passes that Cassel took sacks with that hurt Thigpen's passing numbers. Thigpen also ran for 80 more yards than Cassel and had a 6.2 Y/A compared to Cassel's 3.5. There really isn't a ton to suggest that Cassel is a lot better than Thigpen. They both still have huge question marks surrounding them. When you add in that 1 of them is receiving 14 million dollars more than the other one (and Thigpen was cheap for the next 2 years) it makes you question why Cassel is such a better buy to give up a big draft pick for. Now Vrabel is a nice get. And a 2nd rounder is a pretty good price for the two of them together. But I don't see how the Chiefs need Cassel enough that it is a good price for them. They could have used that draft choice on an impact player and then gotten another impact player in free agency and likely still have a little money left over for another decent player.

Here's the link on ESPN.com. It doesn't yet say what the Chiefs gave up, though. I'm sure Tyler Thigpen is just thrilled about that. This is definitely a Pioli move. But if he had to give up as much as I think he probably would have to, I'm not a fan of it. The Chiefs had enough other holes that replacing their decently capable young QB shouldn't have been on the top of the priority list. Obviously that could change if he gave up less than expected, though.

It is going a little slow, but we probably need to go slow so we can figure out the compensatory selections before that part of the draft comes around. I mean, we've done 10 picks in 2 1/2 days. 10 days per round (which would be slightly slower than we've gone so far) is still going to have us in the 6th round or so by the time the draft comes along.

This is obviously the issue. That and the ego[expletive] of having the city revolve around you. Seriously who cares about this? It makes the conference and the tournament look small-time. The Big Ten plays this nonstop media war with everyone calling them boring and bad and behind the times, and they go and stage their annual event in Indianapolis?? There's something to be said about the image you project, and your image is constantly disparaged, why not do something grand and extravagant and showcase yourselves like you're a big deal. Not go to the biggest city that will give in to your every want. And nobody's addressed the fact that Chicago is the Big 10 alum capital of the world. There are probably without exaggeration 10 times as many alums in Chicago than there are in Indy. It adds a lot of community atmosphere. You walk out of the stadium and instead of jumping into a cab you're walking around with thousands of Big 10 fans. You go to restaurants that are expecting the rush at odd hours of the day and are also filled with other fans. You feel like you're at a great event rather than just going to a series of basketball games. Does the ACC tournament look small time? How about the Big 12 tournament? Image should at best be a secondary concern. The best atmosphere for those who buy tickets should be first. But I would definitely argue that the Pac 10 tournament is not any more "prestigious" than the ACC or Big 10 tournaments just because it's held in LA. Do you think it is? People don't usually think about that. If they think about the venue at all, the big question is if it is a great place for basketball. Very few would scoff at Indianapolis hosting a college tournament because they already host the biggest college basketball event of them all. If it's good enough to be the spotlight for the whole nation, it's certainly good enough to be the spotlight for one region. Besides, going to Chicago certainly doesn't qualify as doing something "grand or extravagant". It's not like the Super Bowl where the things that go on around the games are as important as the game itself. For the average viewer, all they are doing is watching a basketball game and seeing the arena. The alums thing hasn't been brought up because it's mostly irrelevant. Most years the tournament will sell out, and when it sells out it doesn't matter how many alums are in the city...it's not like many are going to go downtown just to try to find other fans of their team.

I have no firsthand knowledge of it, but from what I've heard most bars in Indy are open until 3. That was the time that was said in all the stories about the problems with switching to DST. I think Chicago would have an easier time selling out. But sales problems are only going to happen once in a great while. Final fours were in Indy for 15-20 years before the NCAA arrived. The continued existence of them has nothing to with the NCAA being in Indianapolis. I believe Exile might be referencing some newspaper articles from the Indy Star a year or two back where there was more public support for Indy than Chicago from coaches and fans. Unfortunately, I can't provide a link as those articles cost money to access. Indy is just as much the center of the conference as Chicago. Northwestern, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are closer to Chicago. Penn State, Ohio State, Indiana, and Purdue are closer to Indy. Michigan, Michigan State, and Illinois are almost exactly the same difference from both. I don't see how much other entertainment options you need anyway. The basketball games take up most of your time. If you have access to good restaurants (or bars if you're inclined), what else do you really need? (not saying that's all there is in Indy, but there isn't going to be time to go see much else if you're there for the tournament) Chicago's size may have actually worked against them in the selection process. A lot of fans coming to Indy enjoyed that Indy bases everything around the tournament while in Chicago it's just another event.

Lilly gave up 1 hit and had 2 K's in the first. The Cubs exploded in the 2nd. Deeds tripled, Rivas singled him in, Taguchi got on due to an error, Theriot singled, Reed got out but drove in Rivas. Then Hoffpauir hit a 3 run homer, followed by a Dubois out, then a Soto single, then a Fontenot homer. Deeds then singled and Rivas got out to end the inning. So 7 runs in all and the Cubs lead 7-0.

It's not like Atlanta is very "central" to teams like Boston College, or that NYC is "central" for DePaul or Marquette. If you wanted to do a true rotation of Big 10 cities you could do Chicago, Indy, Milwaukee, Detroit and Columbus or something (though the latter would probably be overly unfair) Yeah. I threw out Columbus because OSU is actually located in the city and it's also not centrally located. Detroit is really thrown out because of its reputation. It would be harder to convince a lot of fans to travel there. Milwaukee would be fine as a 3rd site.

3 hits and a walk for the Cubs in the first but no runs thanks to a caught stealing and a strikeout with the bases loaded. Lee, Ramirez, Soriano, Bradley, and Fukudome are all sitting today.

That was SEC. I thought the ACC was moving it to Atlanta, but I'm probably wrong. It's going to be in Atlanta 2 out of the next 7 years (including this year). Greensboro gets it the other 5 years. People like the ease of travel in Indianapolis. The stadium is within walking distance of the hotels teams and fans are staying at, restaurants, etc. If I remember right people weren't too fond of the area around the United Center. Plus, the Fieldhouse is generally considered a better facility than the United Center. I don't see why the tournament has to be held in the biggest city. But I don't like the 5 year agreement. I think the tournament should have kept moving between the two sites so that each year there would be different teams with the homecourt advantage. I would even propose doing it at even more sites but I don't know of any more that are centrally located in the Big 10 that would be a good place to go. When they decided they were going to pick 1 place for 5 years though, it seemed obvious that it would be Indy. People seem to enjoy the tournament there more than Chicago and that's what the committee ended up deciding as well. And I think other conferences show that the Big 10 is not alone, either. If the Big 12 wanted to be in the biggest city, it would be Dallas or San Antonio. But their next two tournaments are in the much smaller cities of Oklahoma City and Kansas City. As I already mentioned, the ACC is going to have 5 of their next 7 tournaments be in only the 3rd largest city in NC. The SEC is going to Tampa, Nashville, Atlanta, and New Orleans in the next 4 years. None of those 4 cities are as big as Indy (Atlanta is if you are very liberal about the metro area-the other 3 are definitely not as big). Really, only the Pac 10 and Big East are tied to their biggest cities, and neither of those conferences have a really good alternative to pick either (and in the case of the Big East plays in a site that has huge amounts of college basketball tradition behind it).

Hagler isn't a surprise but the fact they didn't want to keep Keiaho for 1 million? I'm rather shocked by that. He had injury issues but was pretty decent when he was in there. I guess they decided they had 2 small outside linebackers and that Session was the better one. Well, I've definitely moved LB way up the draft need boards. Right now, I have no idea how they are going to fill that spot. The only one I'd even consider on the roster is Wheeler, and I still haven't really seen him play.

Yeah. Poor guy. How can one reasonably expect to live any sort of comfortably on a lousy $10 million a year? I wonder if he can qualify for welfare on that sort of pay. So you'll be giving back a large portion of your lifestyle to bring you down to the world average? people are taking pay cuts all across the country. some are taking reductions on their salary to remain employed (as opposed to being laid off) and others that aren't employed are taking lower salaries to get a job. it's happening in baseball, it's happening to white collar workers and it's happening to blue collar workers. this isn't exactly rocket science here. People are taking pay cuts because they need the money. Manny isn't desperate for the money. The way I look at is if Manny wants to risk not having a job in order to try to get the most money he can, then why shouldn't he? He hasn't come out and said the Spreewell line of "need more money to feed my family" or anything like that. He's just looking at investing and making a huge risk. He could get a high rate of return on it (if they give him more years) or he could lose it all. That doesn't mean I'm on Manny's side here. But he's doing the same thing as the club is. They both are offering contracts that will get them the maximum return on their investment. Neither side needs sympathy..it's simply business.

Harrison won't be a free agent until next offseason. He is just trying to get more money out of the Steelers right now with an extension.

There's no way they try and play Fontenot fulltime, and that doesn't save them $5m, when they replaced him with Miles, who makes $5m over 2 years. You got evidence to the contrary that Font is not in the everyday plans? DeRo was great, he'll come back to earth but I don't wish that on him. But he wasn't going to sit on the bench making $5.5. He just happened to be the odd man out in the new plan to have Font adding a LH bat everyday - not for 290 AB's. It saves them $3.3 mil this season. When you raised your payroll by $13 mil tha's nothing to sneeze at. I think he's saying that there's no way that they're going to let Fontenot play against most left-handed pitchers. He's a platoon player, and so his limit was somewhere around 450-475 AB's anyway. There were other ways to find him those additional at-bats. For example, if they had pursued the Fontenot as backup SS idea (which I agree that Fontenot is poor there defensively but so is Miles) they could have had him take Cedeno's 82 at-bats there last season. Cedeno got 4 starts and Patterson 1 at second base against right-handed pitching. Give those 5 starts to Fontenot and you have another 20 AB's. Then you look at at-bats DeRosa got. He started 63 games at other positions. Between Ramirez, Soriano, and Bradley, it's likely that DeRosa could even get more games backing each of them up this year. If he got 80 (45 from Bradley, 20 from Soriano, 15 from Ramirez) that's another 45 AB's for Fontenot (taking out the games where a left-hander would be on the mound). So now Fontenot is near 400 AB's and DeRosa has over 500. Then if you wanted to give Fontenot his full complement of at-bats, you could rest DeRosa a few extra days against right-handed pitching and they each could have around 450 AB's. It wasn't an either or situation. You could have given Fontenot close to as many at-bats as he'll get this season and still have enough AB's for DeRosa to be happy and productive. I think he's saying that there's no way that they're going to let Fontenot play against most left-handed pitchers. He's a platoon player Everything about Font is limited to argue one way or the other so how come you can determine he's no more than a platoon player. Given that, he has been pretty productive vs LH pitcher to assume he'll need to be platooned. Again, judging by the fact that they chose DeRos to use in a payroll saving move, that's more evidence that they think Font can carry his weight vs most LH pitchers. I know everyone is in love with 2009 Mark DeRosa. That's why so much of this offseasosn has been criticized. But by June, when we'll be reminded that that players doesn't exist anymore, we'll see things differently. Fontenot has a .247/.305/.370 career line against left-handed pitching. That's not a productive line. And even that line is propped up by a .346 BABIP. His AAA stats are better, but he has even a further disconnect between his line drive percentage and his BABIP there. He's not really an option to play more than a handful of games against left-handers based on his past. Plus, the Cubs would yank him even in the middle of games last year when a left-handed pitcher came on the mound (remember the 9 run inning the Cubs had where Fontenot hit a home run and then was pinch-hit for that same inning because a left-hander had come in?). They are not likely to suddenly reverse that and trust him against left-handed pitching when they have a right-handed hitter sitting on the bench. I'm not looking for 2008 DeRosa. That guy is likely gone. But 2007 DeRosa is fairly likely and he would have been a very valuable asset to this team. Instead, the team will have to hope that 2-3 players can all work out and fill that role. I certainly hope that will happen, but it's definitely a much bigger question mark than if DeRosa were here.

There's no way they try and play Fontenot fulltime, and that doesn't save them $5m, when they replaced him with Miles, who makes $5m over 2 years. You got evidence to the contrary that Font is not in the everyday plans? DeRo was great, he'll come back to earth but I don't wish that on him. But he wasn't going to sit on the bench making $5.5. He just happened to be the odd man out in the new plan to have Font adding a LH bat everyday - not for 290 AB's. It saves them $3.3 mil this season. When you raised your payroll by $13 mil tha's nothing to sneeze at. I think he's saying that there's no way that they're going to let Fontenot play against most left-handed pitchers. He's a platoon player, and so his limit was somewhere around 450-475 AB's anyway. There were other ways to find him those additional at-bats. For example, if they had pursued the Fontenot as backup SS idea (which I agree that Fontenot is poor there defensively but so is Miles) they could have had him take Cedeno's 82 at-bats there last season. Cedeno got 4 starts and Patterson 1 at second base against right-handed pitching. Give those 5 starts to Fontenot and you have another 20 AB's. Then you look at at-bats DeRosa got. He started 63 games at other positions. Between Ramirez, Soriano, and Bradley, it's likely that DeRosa could even get more games backing each of them up this year. If he got 80 (45 from Bradley, 20 from Soriano, 15 from Ramirez) that's another 45 AB's for Fontenot (taking out the games where a left-hander would be on the mound). So now Fontenot is near 400 AB's and DeRosa has over 500. Then if you wanted to give Fontenot his full complement of at-bats, you could rest DeRosa a few extra days against right-handed pitching and they each could have around 450 AB's. It wasn't an either or situation. You could have given Fontenot close to as many at-bats as he'll get this season and still have enough AB's for DeRosa to be happy and productive.

They discovered Sampson's phone calls but it took 8 months or so to do so. The fact that Sampson's staff was able to break the rules over and over again for months before being caught was primarily the reason for the failure to monitor charge. It's somewhat amazing to me too on that second part, but it's one of those things that I've had to grudgingly accept that it seems to be a lot harder to comply every time with NCAA regulations than we would like to believe.

if they got in trouble for paying their players, they wouldn't be a force. goes both ways. Has this even been suggested anywhere with regards to basketball? And even if what CCP said is true(doesn't seem to be based on much other than the fact that yes, many schools self-report minor violations), it doesn't change that it's colossally stupid for Indiana to make even 1 mistake with regards to phone calls. To expand on my point, Indiana is on PROBATION for making excessive phone calls. They made an extra phone call, and self-punished by not making any phone calls during a random week in December. What's the point of probation, if you're still allowed to just decide your own punishment when you break the rules? Why didn't they just dock themselves another scholarship this season as punishment? Or did they use all those up for their horrible APR scores in the coming years? The point of probation is not to handle every single little secondary violation. Otherwise the infractions committee would have to be meeting 25 times a year in order to handle all the problems from the schools on probation. For example when Oregon was put on probation, a public records request found they committed an average of 10 secondary violations per year while on probation, but that was well under the Pac 10 average. Plus Indiana was not put on probation because of the phone calls themselves. They were put on probation primarily because of their failure to properly monitor. In this case, the compliance office caught it quickly, reported it, and took action.

My guess is that 9 of the 11 schools in the Big 10 have had that same report during the last year. It happened to be in the press this time (2 months after the self-punishment) because of the troubles IU got in before. For a normal school, it's not news worthy.

any way you slice it, trading derosa and bringing in bradley was an upgrade to the team. Those weren't mutually exclusive ideas though. In fact, signing Bradley should have been a big vote towards keeping DeRosa (DeRosa allows you to take Bradley's great production when he's in there and not have a monumental dropoff when he's not). Even if the Cubs were at their absolute major league payroll limit, there were other ways to slice 3.3 million off the payroll.

why? why should the cubs have kept the 34 year old mark derosa? look, i like mark quite a bit. but we have to remember that he's just mark derosa. and he's 34 coming off of a career year. it's awfully unlikely that he repeats last year. i think people are getting carried away here. admittedly in about half the at bats, sure, but mike fontenot was better than derosa last year. he's also younger and much cheaper. it's really not that hard to see why the cubs traded dero. i'm thankful that they did when his value was at an all time high, which isn't exactly hendry's normal m.o. Fontenot is only going to pick up between 150-200 at-bats of DeRosa's. That leaves 300-350 at-bats that will have to be filled by different players. Is there anybody on the Cubs roster that is going to take those at-bats that is likely to be anywhere near as productive as DeRosa? Barring Bradley, Soriano, and Ramirez all playing 150+ games, I don't see who else is going to be there that will not be a downgrade on those at-bats.

I agree mostly, although if he were on the Colts he could play DL. He's actually slightly bigger than Robert Mathis and has a faster 40 time to boot, and Mathis with those limitations is one of the best pass rushers in the league. But for most systems he will have no choice but to play OLB..although he has the height to grow into a little more weight if he's set on DL.

Hudson could have the last couple weeks as well as Cruz. But the Diamondbacks would have had to agree to an arrangement. They probably are only considering that route with Cruz because they're worried about nobody signing him before June. If they felt that Hudson would eventually find a deal, then they would naturally refuse to make special arrangements for him, and it turned out they were right.

I don't think signing him to a minor league deal is an option unless he is released. Someone please correct me if any of this below information is inaccurate as I am not totally 100% on this. If he's traded, the team who traded for him has to put him on their 40 man roster and then he would have to make the 25 man at the end of ST or get exposed to waivers again. If he's claimed on waivers, the same thing applies to the team who claims him. If he clears waivers, the Indians will just assign him to their AAA affiliate (I don't think he has enough service time to demand to be a free agent). Even if he somehow became a free agent, I doubt he would want to sign with the Cubs. Marte is a former star prospect, and if they have a choice in the matter they would like to find somewhere that they can play and prove themselves. I would have no problems with a minor league deal, but I don't think that's really possible. If the Cubs want him they'll need to be highly considering keeping him on their major league bench.

The IU football one was funny. And true. Yeah, I thought that was the best part. The handshake one got a laugh out of me too. My dislike for Notre Dame can be directly traced to the pseudo-IU fans that also root for Notre Dame football. I despise those people. You can go ahead and despise me then :D Though I had a little bit of a different path to it then most. My parents passed down a tradition of Notre Dame football from when they had grown up in southern Michigan. I was on my own in college basketball, and my 6 or 7 year old mind didn't know that you should pick the same school for everything (and plus, ND basketball had absolutely no publicity in my area back then and were not on TV, so my fandom in them would be pointless), so I just picked the closest school to me. I was just slightly too young to remember the last title from either school though so I've managed to be present only for the largest droughts for both. I do know the bandwagon jumpers that you talk about and get frustrated by them as well. I bet many of them are gone by now with all the struggles of the two teams lately.

I would love that lineup (and Lee's DP's would actually be minimized hitting 2nd with the pitcher and then a slugger directly in front of him). But Lou has shown absolutely no indication that he is going to move Lee. In his first projected opening day lineup, Lee is batting 3rd and Ramirez 5th. I don't think they are moving Lee anytime soon.

While I myself am not quite ready to give up on Kosuke, the thought of trading him for Bedard is quite intriguing. The guy had one bad, injury plagued year, and Id be all about him. Even if Johjima would have been involved as a backup catcher, and they then could have gotten Cedeno in the same deal. As for Washburn, Id just assume take back Traschle or Lieber, but Kosuke, Cedeno, and Olson(asuming the Pie/Olson trade happenes) for Bedard, Johjima, and Heilman doesnt sound half bad. Then, we could have re signed Edmonds for cheap and platooned him with Johnson. That article doesn't say they they would have offered Bedard. It says the Mariners were one of the teams interested in Kosuke, and then listed Bedard as one of the players they have been shopping this offseason. Also, bedard didn't have "one bad injur plagues year". He's injured just about every year and 2007 was the only time he's come even close to being that good. Yeah, I took the article as examples of the kind of bad contracts Hendry might have to accept in a trade. Bedard was offered arbitration by the Mariners. If they wanted to let him go, they could have simply non-tendered him. They would be looking to recoup some of the huge amounts that they traded to get him.