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Yes they did. And it was glorious. It's great when even good ole Rat Face's whining can't make a difference for them. i'm mad at myself for not watching this. i guess i was still in mourning over IU blowing their perfect BT season. Yeah Iowa is bad Hey, we have a winning record. You were the only team and are the only team that will lose to Indiana in the Big Ten this year Indiana has lost Big Ten games this year by 2, 4, 5, 6(ot), 10 and 12 points. They led by at least nine points in, I believe, four of those games and by double digits in three of them. Pomeroy also has them finishing 2-16 in the league. IU has been very competitive in seven of its nine conference games; it is by no means a certainty they fail to win another game. Exactly. I wouldn't say it's likely (I only give them a 30-35 percent chance to actually close out another game, although I think they will have 3-4 more close games along the way) but it's not like Iowa proved themselves substantially inferior to other Big 10 teams with last night's game. It was essentially a carbon copy of the Michigan game..but this time Dumes made the right decision with a minute left to seal the game instead of allowing the other team to force OT. If Dumes had hit that 3 against Minnesota, they may have been the one to go down instead. I doubt that IU can keep 4 out of their next 5 games within double digits, but they'll still have some chances near the end of the season to win a game, and they'll likely play the 6 seed close in the BTT before falling late (maybe play the 7 seed if everything fell absolutely right for IU).

I'm a bit concerned that Te'o is going to technically be eligible for the draft after only 1 year with the Irish (he plans to leave the team for 2 years after his first year and then come back), but there's almost no way he'll jump to the NFL after a 2 year layoff so the team should have him for at least 2 years and hopefully more. He'd be recruitable again when he comes back, no? That's how UCLA got Ben Olson a few years ago. EDIT: I can't see Te'o picking a school for one year, he'll at least play the one more season after his mission. From what I've gathered he's not able to be recruited, but he can transfer without sitting out a year when he comes back. In Olson's case, he made the decision to transfer and therefore coaches were able to recruit him openly.

I'm a bit concerned that Te'o is going to technically be eligible for the draft after only 1 year with the Irish (he plans to leave the team for 2 years after his first year and then come back), but there's almost no way he'll jump to the NFL after a 2 year layoff so the team should have him for at least 2 years and hopefully more.

As others have said, I really doubt Dempster would have come cheaper. Every other major free agent pitcher (besides Sheets who is apparently currently injured still) has cashed in this offseason. Dempster was considered on the same level as Burnett and Lowe at the start of the offseason, and he got the lowest contract of the 3. Bradley is much the same way albeit to a lesser extent. TB liked Bradley more than Burrell (they settled on Burrell when it was obvious Bradley was going to sign with the Cubs), and they gave Burell 2 for 16 so they likely were offering Bradley 2 for 18 or 2 for 20. The Cubs were willing to give him the semi-guaranteed 3rd year which is the main reason that Bradley came here. I do agree that they could have positioned things to take better advantage of these bargain free agents though.

The money doesn't quite match up (2.95 million for the first, 3.5 million for the second) but I definitely agree with you that if Wigginton would have agreed to come here, the second option would have been far preferable. I'm not sure he would have because of the PT issue, but I bet Hendry preferred Miles even if Wigginton was interested, which IMO is a mistake.

In 2007 when we traded Izturis who was our second middle infielder from June to September? Mike Fontenot was our only middle infielder for half of the 2007 season. Izturis got traded on July 19th. Scott Moore came up for 5 days, and then Cedeno was put back on the major league roster on July 24th. He then went back down on August 21st and came back up at the beginning of September. From what I remember and can piece together from the transactions they made, the Cubs only had 1 middle infielder for slightly over a month cumulatively. 9 days near the beginning of May, two weeks at the end of May, those 5 days in July, and the 10 days at the end of August. Of course, a big difference between this year and that year was that the Cubs had options they could bring up from AAA very easily (Fontenot and Cedeno), which made it much easier to carry 1 middle IF for a few days. They don't really have that luxury this year and so they'll likely have to sign a veteran to fill that spot.

Rosenthal reporting it. No money figures released yet: http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/9173224/Source:-Orioles,-Wigginton-reach-two-year-deal It always was pretty likely that he was going to go to a team that would likely give him a decent amount of PT, and the Orioles likely will do that. Edit: One Orioles source is now reporting 2 years, 6 million. Apparently Wigginton insisted on the 2nd guaranteed year before he would sign.

The giving him away for nothing now instead of seeing if he can do anything in ST and if he can't releasing him then. I understand that the Cubs have Minor League rosters they need to fill but couldn't they just sign a ML FA. If they bring Hill to ST and he still hasn't figured it out try sending him through waivers. If he doesn't clear then so be it. If he did then they'd have another shot at fixing him. Hill has more of a chance to help the Cubs than whoever they got in this deal. How good would Hill have to be in ST for the Cubs to keep him? He would pretty much have to show his control problems were completely behind him to win a spot. And the likelihood of that after a full year of huge control problems is very small. However, with the Orioles they'll likely keep him on the roster if he can just show some potential to throw strikes again. He doesn't necessarily have to do it consistently to hang on a couple months. And then if over time they fix him, he probably nets a prospect between 15-25 on the Orioles list. That potential prospect has a better chance of helping us than Hill does of coming to camp and consistently throwing strikes all of ST.

Oops. Guess it's called Super Pick em. Here's the link to it: http://games.espn.go.com/super/frontpage

He said that they were going to do a bunch of prop bets for the Superbowl, but ESPN decided to do the separate Superbowl Challenge instead that has all those props listed.

Absolutely agreed. This is the 2nd game in a row where two monumental players that IU lacks were shown. 1) a 2nd big man. When Pritchard went out today the difference was massive. Even when he came back in the game, Ohio State was able to go inside time after time because he couldn't foul out of the game. 2) a point guard that would completely take Daniel Moore's minutes and some of the ones of Jones. Indiana's point guards turn it over way too much. And it's hilarious to watch Daniel Moore penetrate. He drives past his guy fine..and then he has absolutely nothing to do after that. He can't drive and kick anymore because the player from behind knows that he can just block his shot and so they don't need to collapse on him. I'm surprised with Dumes. His decision making on the court has actually gotten better over the course of a full game (although still 4-5 times a game where he just makes an awful decision, but most of the time he seems to be playing team ball right now). IU has done a pretty good job of getting their offense better now by working off Dumes or Pritchard and passing the ball quickly. Overall though they're still too limited, which means they have to overplay and take risks a lot of the time, which leads to those stupid mistakes like SSR was talking about. And they're going to have to steal one this year because those facts aren't going to change. Wednesday night becomes a massive game for this program now as it's easily 1 of the 2 best chances left.

He's supposedly absolutely brutal behind the plate. I don't know why the depth chart would still have him as a catcher as he hasn't been behind the plate in a couple of years. Plus Lou probably is still angry at Fox, so he likely wouldn't get a chance anyway.

i dont disagree with what youre saying, but here's the thing. well, two things. one, do you really believe that bako's handedness factored in? he's the backup catcher. a guy who will play in 1-2 games a week, if that. two, it's kinda tough to improve upon a 717 OPS from your backup catcher. i'd be curious to know if there were/are ANY backup catchers available that could top that this year. I hate to believe it, but it seems to be true. There have been numerous quotes that would say that...such as this one from one of Sullivan's stories:

The latest report I heard from a couple weeks ago was that Dunn was looking for 4 years, 56 million.

What are we really risking by giving him that chance? Best case scenerio, he finds his control, and we suddenly have a stacked rotation. Worst case scenerio, hes as bad as he was last year, we lose him, and dont get some career minor leaguer in return. The best case scenario now is that Hill finds his location, but it's sometime during the season while the Orioles remain patient with him. That's also much more likely to happen then him suddenly figuring it out in Spring Training. The Cubs potentially get a decent prospect because he figures it out, but they didn't have the luxury of pitching him in the major leagues until he possibly did.

Fonteneuax Lil' Babe Ruth isn't enough to disprove my point. Landing Fontenot, Hart, and Spears (admittedly, the last two are huge question marks still, but they at least have some potential to fill a major league role if not a big one) is a pretty solid return for the shells of players that the Cubs have sent them. The Pie deal is kind of separate from the rest, and we'll see how that goes. The rest is the Cubs giving up broken down players with little value (Sosa, Patterson, Bynum) and Hendry seems to be pretty good at scouting the Orioles system to get at least intriguing options.

I think it's a huge reach. The guy is 27, he's been horrible in limited major league innings and his health means there's no way you can count on him for more than 50 innings. Hes been horrible while being used out of the bullpen. Hes never been in a 5 man rotation at the ML level that I can think of. Also like I said durability is his biggest issue, but if healthy Guzman has good stuff. Actually he's been a starter more than a reliever at the major league level (most of it in 2006). It's not only durability problems that cause him to miss starts. Guzman has several times had trouble with his arm after pitching 4-5 innings in a row. It's too big of a risk for the Cubs to even let him attempt to start, let alone think he's a decent possibility to make the rotation.

cherrypicked the endpoint? umm, if you want to include a 4th year, wolf is still better. and how is it roughly equivalent? because you say so? like you said that relievers ERA's are usually a lot lower than starters (they're not)? sorry, but you're going to have to give me something better than that before i'm convinced. ERA+ says so (which is normalized for parks), which is why Marquis has the slightly better ERA+ over the last 3 seasons (or 1, or 2, or 4, or 5 seasons if you want to change the endpoint). That doesn't mean that ERA+ is the end all be all of even past pitching stats. There are definitely a lot of other factors. But it's hard to say Wolf is a clearly superior pitcher when he has put up a worse ERA+ number in 4 of the last 5 years. Then you add in the durability and that's just the icing on the cake.

what's the league average for a SP and a RP? Last year Starter: 4.46 Reliever: 4.09 2007 Starter: 4.64 Reliever: 4.20 thanks. i didnt think that it was "much lower" as kylejrm said. where'd you find that info, by the way? http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/aggregate?sort=ERA&split=127&group=9&season=2008&seasonType=2&statType=pitching&type=reg bottom of the page. That's filtered into starting pitching only..you'd then filter it by reliever only to get bullpen numbers.

what's the league average for a SP and a RP? Last year Starter: 4.46 Reliever: 4.09 2007 Starter: 4.64 Reliever: 4.20

How do you know Hoffpauir will be on the opening day roster? I should have said probably. Otherwise, there wont be anything remotely resembling power on the bench. I imagine Lou would choose the extra bat on the bench over the extra arm, especially since we have so many guys in the pen capable of pitching multiple inings. Here's Lou's recent quote on that matter: Lou has consistently wanted 12 pitchers since the day he got here. I would consider in very unlikely that he would have a sudden change of heart.

Well, at least IU has been very competitive in 5 of their first 7 Big 10 games. They just make way too many mistakes to usually be able to finish the deal. Looking at their schedule though, I only see 3-5 more chances for them. But even if they do go 0-18, it won't be without putting a serious scare into half the teams in the league.

i love how people make that "thrown out at 2nd base on a walk" thing into some completely idiotic move. didn't he just overslide the bag or something? oversliding the bag isn't idiotic? not really, no. it's a mistake, but it's not like he forgot how many outs there were or ran around the bases backwards. This quote afterward probably didn't endear himself to the fans:

Olson wouldn't seem to go with the previous reports. Usually a guy would get his name in print immediately with that much service time and not be still declared as a "minor league pitcher". It's possible (from earlier in the offseason Hendry didn't sound particularly high on Olson) but it would be certainly be not standard reporting for it to be him.

An infielder of some kind will have to be added, yes. It sounds like they are debating if they want a middle infielder or a corner infielder. That player will likely be signed in free agency and take Hill's 40 man spot when he's traded.