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I absolutely would rather have Blanco up there against a left-hander than Fontenot or Edmonds. 3 year splits against left-handers for each: Fontenot: .247/.305/.370 Edmonds: .169/.233/.293 Blanco: .287/.321/.420 Other than 2007 when he was playing with a major injury, Blanco has been better than a .700 OPS against left-handers every year since 2004. He had a .759 OPS against them in 2005, an .870 in 06, and .771 last year. The danger is that you lose Edmond's superior bat for the rest of the game. But if you're in the 8th or 9th facing a left-hander, Blanco is a much better option for that at-bat.

Isn't their draft spot safe due to finishing in the bottom half of the league (top 15 in the draft)? It really doesn't matter to them, except for Minny's comp pick pushing SF's picks down one spot. Being in the top 15 of the draft just means that the Giants will lose their 2nd round pick for Renteria instead of losing their 1st.

It was addressed on the previous page. The deadline is Dec. 1. Actually, that's a slightly different question. The Cubs have until December 1st to offer arbitration. If the Cubs do offer it, Wood has until December 7th to accept it.

They do have a deadline..December 1st is the last day the Cubs can offer arbitration to Wood.

Kind of disagree with this simply because of how much the North sucks. It won't happen anyways unless Texas Tech runs the table then loses the Big XII Title. Plus Florida would need to lose again, then beat Alabama in the SEC Champ Game. Well, I'm certainly not disagreeing with that. And it's highly doubtful to happen. But it would suck major ass if Mizzou finally won the conference championship but because of the strength of the Big 12 got left out of a BCS game. In any BCS selection rules I've read, the 3 teams rule doesn't come into play until after the title game and conference champions are both put in. I would be surprised if that would leave Missouri out in the cold (and if it did, that rule would immediately be changed to make sure it never happened again). But I really think that would be the one and only way for 3 teams to make it from one conference.

:banghead: I never understood what the big deal about this was. 1) If a team is in the top 8, they should be in a BCS bowl, considering there are 10 teams who make BCS bowls. 2) Notre Dame actually has a tougher road to automatic qualification than the minor conferences. 3) While Notre Dame cannot be excluded in the top 8 like other major conference non-champions, Notre Dame cannot sneak in during a bad conference year ranked 19th or 23nd like the likely Big East and ACC winners are right now. If Notre Dame joined the Big East right now, would their appearance in BCS bowls be more or less frequent using the conference rules to get in? Probably more. 4) Even if Notre Dame didn't automatically qualify, the bowls aren't going to pass them over anyway. That's the one time that it potentially could be a problem, although it hasn't really happened yet that a deserving eligible team got passed over for ND (at least according to my recollection) So conference teams will sometimes get left out if they have a great season, but will sometimes get in if they only have a good season. Notre Dame has to have a great season to get in, but they will always get in if they have a great season. There's advantages and disadvantages both ways.

PPR league, but to counterbalance it also has 1 point per every 5 carries for a RB. Pick 2 RB's, 2 recievers, and a RB/WR Portis, Addai, Forte, Andre Johnson, Bowe, Boldin. I just can't figure out who to bench this week.

NO NO NO! I'm sure it's nothing but speculation, but still. It depends if they are talking about a full-time starter or not. If the Cubs sign Furcal, they are very likely to not go after a RF. So that moves DeRosa to RF, which leaves Fontenot to play 2B. Fontenot's biggest problem is that he cannot hit left-handers, and sliding Theriot over to 2nd in a platoon with him handles that situation nicely. That leaves the lineup as: Against right-handers: Soriano, Furcal, Lee, Ramirez, Soto, DeRosa, Fontenot, Fukudome Against left-handers: Soriano, Furcal, Lee, Ramirez, Soto, DeRosa, Johnson, Theriot I doubt that happens, but mostly because I doubt the Cubs are unhappy enough with SS to spend big money on Furcal.

Anybody can beat Indiana this year. They are another mid-major team right now. Pretty good talent, but at the same time with severe deficiencies in size and not many unbelievable athletes. Don't get me wrong-I expect IU to beat most of the small schools on their schedule. But any of these schools can beat Indiana because IU can't dominate the paint like a normal major school can do.

The Cubs are already paying most of the cost of those backloaded deals as of this year. Our free agency players (excluding the arbitration players) received 16.15 million in raises from 08 to 09 (I'm counting each signing bonus in the first year, both in the past and with Dempster's contract). Those same players next year? (now counting Dempster) 4.225 million in raises. A huge difference. Between 2010 and 2011, the players under contract then actually go down by .15 million overall. So as you can see, most of the damage from backloading has already been paid. So unless another several hugely backloaded contracts come around, the Cubs payroll situation isn't really going to get much worse than it is right now, which the Cubs seem able to absorb at the moment.

Depending on how the signing bonus is divided up (and my guess is that it will be put on the accounting books for this year, especially with the ownership change) that is a pretty even deal without too much backloading. Interesting to see that it's actually a 3 year deal with a player option for a 4th.

I've got to wonder how much his bed crapping in the playoffs cost him. Soto not holding onto that tip might have cost Dempster 10 million dollars this offseason (not blaming Soto..just stating a possibility). The perception is completely different if that changed. But I think he might have gotten the same offer from the Cubs anyway..he just might have had to leave even more money on the table from another club.

We should be able to sign at least 2 more A/B free agents, and possibly more than that. It's hard to say for sure because the rules are interpreted in several different ways and hasn't ever really been officially clarified. I can't see the quota being a problem though..the Cubs will still be just fine signing another type A or two (if it be Wood, Howry, or anybody else).

Speaking of that, here's one unnamed executive who believes that Dempster will sign this deal: The rumor from this article is that the Yankees are prepared to offer Burnett 5 years, 80 million. http://www.nypost.com/seven/11182008/sports/yankees/yankees_prepare_a_j__offer_139209.htm

I still don't understand how he could not know this. It's not some obscure rule, like the one fumbled snap that was negated in Philly last year. Everybody knows NFL overtime is 1 15 minute sudden death period. And apparently he wasn't alone in that either. From the ESPN report: Just wow.

Apparently McNabb didn't know there were ties in the NFL until the last play of OT yesterday as shown by this video: http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/Donovan-McNabb-didn-t-know-that-NFL-games-could-?urn=nfl,122568

So the smart money would be on Hill being exposed to waivers some time before the season starts. I would have to think so. If I were placing odds, I'd say 50% that Hill is exposed to waivers, 35% that he gets a spot in the bullpen, and 15% that he wins a spot in the rotation. I'd say the chances are high for a minor trade involving Hill either in the winter or in Spring Training. The Cubs won't want to put him in the bullpen, but they won't want to expose him to waivers either. Someone will give a small amount of talent in order to make sure that they get him.

I certainly hope that isn't true. If it is, IU will have to get better with experience alone. Because they currently only have 1 total scholarship for 2 years from now, and 1 scholarship available 3 years from now. That's after next year where they've already oversigned by 1. The team they put on the floor next year is pretty much the team they will display for 3 years in a row. They'll have all the pieces next year. The question will be if they can grow up fast enough and if all the pieces will fit together next year. But their guards and forwards should both be strengths of next year's team. If the players are as advertised, they should be a tournament team (barring some bad preconference losses before they start to gel, which is certainly probable). But at the same time, with this many question marks, it's hard to tell how many of those players will not be nearly as good as they should be.

Hill has to make the 25 man roster this spring. Every person on the 40 man has to either use an option or pass through waivers to get to the minor leagues. Since Hill doesn't have any options, he would have to be exposed to waivers if he can't make the squad unless they found a way to keep him on the major league DL.

Kerry might have given the Cubs one hometown discount before the 07 season. That one is a little unclear. Last year's deal was certainly not a hometown discount. Kerry took the highest money per year deal that he could, and that was from the Cubs. Other teams were offering a 2nd year, but at dramatically lower money (and the Cubs incentives were attractive, as Kerry proved when he made double his contract this year). I would be very happy with Kerry accepting arbitration, but I don't think there's any way he will. He will take that multi-year deal from somebody else.

Defend not offering him arbitration. There is no defense for that. But there has been no indication that they won't offer him arbitration either. It will likely be a moot point anyway. Wood will likely sign before December 1st, and so the Cubs offering arbitration will be a formality.

The Brewers had a few guys making around 5m as set-up guys. I think the Phillies also paid Tom Gordon around 5m, but he was on the DL. Plus nobody said that Gregg wouldn't end up being the closer next season. As for being a type A, Gregg just has be somewhat decent this year and he will. But after how he pitched the last two years, I don't know why we would suck next year at his age. Besides a two week stretch when Gregg was probably pitching hurt, he was pretty good last year. Riske? Who'd they trade for him? Actually, speaking of the brewers reminded me that the Torres trade is a pretty good comp...Ceda is much more highly thought of than either guy the Bucs got. I think Torres is an ok comp, but not nearly close enough to get much true value out of the comparison. Torres was 5 years older, was coming off an absolutely awful season (5.47 ERA, 1.405 WHIP..advanced statistics show he was rather unlucky in 2007, but we know how much that actually factors into trade value). Plus there was no possibility of free agent compensation down the line because it was known that he was starting to get the itch to possibly retire. Plus, the highest number of games Torres had ever saved in a season was 12, and he was traded purely to be the setup man he had been for most of his career. Essentially, Torres last year would be Bob Howry this year if Howry was still under contract. That's opposed to Gregg who is 5 years younger, is coming off 2 good years, has those back to back 29+ save campaigns which inflates his value, and is a good bet for compensation after the season. Those are quite a bit of differences for trade value, enough to make it really hard to be worthwhile to figure out exactly how much more trade value did Gregg have than Torres. All we know is that it was a significant amount. ERA? Seriously? 2007 torres k/bb: 1.57 2008 gregg k/bb: 2.91 Torres had a babip 20 points over expected and a flukey hr/fb greggs babip is 60 points under expected and the lowest hr/fb of his career See my bolded above. Sure, using ERA is a terrible way to judge relievers. It's slightly better for guys like Torres or Gregg, who tended not to come in or leave during the middle of innings (and therefore have to deal with less of the problem of which runs got charged to which pitcher during a big inning where both failed to do their job), but it's still terrible. However, we weren't talking about their production as a comp. We were talking about their trade value. ERA becomes important in that case because GM's will treat it as important. Sure, they're willing to look at other stats, but even with they look at other stats it might actually have the opposite effect of what is intended. For example, look at LOB%. In 2007, Torres had an outlier year and only left 64.5% of his runners on. That was very unlucky of him and he could have been expected to bounce back on that. Show most GM's that number and they would say that Torres failed to do his job in 2007 of stranding runners, and that his value should go down as a result because they're buying low. So yes, the Torres comp may be much closer when looking deeper at the production, but the ability to get a lot in trade was not close between the two. So looking at who the Pirates got back is not a good gauge of who the Marlins should have gotten back.

The Brewers had a few guys making around 5m as set-up guys. I think the Phillies also paid Tom Gordon around 5m, but he was on the DL. Plus nobody said that Gregg wouldn't end up being the closer next season. As for being a type A, Gregg just has be somewhat decent this year and he will. But after how he pitched the last two years, I don't know why we would suck next year at his age. Besides a two week stretch when Gregg was probably pitching hurt, he was pretty good last year. Riske? Who'd they trade for him? Actually, speaking of the brewers reminded me that the Torres trade is a pretty good comp...Ceda is much more highly thought of than either guy the Bucs got. I think Torres is an ok comp, but not nearly close enough to get much true value out of the comparison. Torres was 5 years older, was coming off an absolutely awful season (5.47 ERA, 1.405 WHIP..advanced statistics show he was rather unlucky in 2007, but we know how much that actually factors into trade value). Plus there was no possibility of free agent compensation down the line because it was known that he was starting to get the itch to possibly retire. Plus, the highest number of games Torres had ever saved in a season was 12, and he was traded purely to be the setup man he had been for most of his career. Essentially, Torres last year would be Bob Howry this year if Howry was still under contract. That's opposed to Gregg who is 5 years younger, is coming off 2 good years, has those back to back 29+ save campaigns which inflates his value, and is a good bet for compensation after the season. Those are quite a bit of differences for trade value, enough to make it really hard to be worthwhile to figure out exactly how much more trade value did Gregg have than Torres. All we know is that it was a significant amount.

Unfortunately, no one is ever fully healthy over the course of a season. Guys go through stretches with pulled muscles, illness, and all sorts of other physical problems which would hinder their performances. I'm unwilling to write off a guy's performance over the course of a year due to injury unless it turns out he was hiding some major injury that would require surgery or a lot of time off in order to heal. Gregg did have knee surgery after the season to correct the problem. He should be fine for spring training and it wasn't like his ACL was falling off or anything, but it wasn't a minor injury either..considering he's not even supposed to even get back on a mound for a couple of months.

This is a tough deal to evaluate without knowing what the Cubs are planning to do with Gregg. Did the Cubs make this deal knowing they have another closer candidate now in the fold and declare Gregg the closer in March? If so, that adds value to him. Did the Cubs see that Gregg would likely be a type A reliever after the year and essentially see this as a 1 year move? If so, that adds value again. If the Cubs grabbed Gregg to be a setup man or if they give him a long-term contract, this is a pretty bad move. If this is a let's contend in 2009 with another solid reliever and make sure to not move Marmol to the closer role and then let him go for the picks? It's a pretty solid move then. Essentially, the Cubs paid inflated value for Gregg's closer credentials. They better continue to build that inflated value so that when they sell him, they can sell him for a similar price.