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Thanks, that makes more sense. If it's 0-0 after 1 inning would they continue it the next day even though they haven't played 4.5 innings? No. Any games stopped before 4.5 innings (or 5 if the visiting team is ahead) are completely erased and started again.

So how stupid is the NFL? I mean, Broncos-Raiders on Monday Night? I realize that it's a rivalry and all but the Chargers-Broncos (since they obviously want a West Coast game) would have been a heck of a lot better than Denver-Oakland. The NFL wants to save the Chargers-Broncos game for a better time slot. They aren't going to put a great game in a slot that starts at 10:15 at night on the East Coast. It hasn't really been a good matchup any of the 3 years they've had this late game.

Aramis has been up and down in the early parts of seasons. He was good in 04, below average for him in 05, bad in 06, and good again last year. So there really isn't any consistent pattern that shows that he'll be good or bad this April. Theriot will be playing everyday, but that just means that he'll replace the numbers of Theriot/Izturis/Cedeno from last year. Since all of them were terrible last year, Theriot being terrible doesn't hurt the Cubs any more than last year. As far as CF, remember that Pie had 170 terrible at-bats last year that really cut into CF production. Even if he's bad this year, he should be better than his production last year, so CF can't be that much worse than last year. Floyd/Murton turns into Fukudome, and that probably is a slight to decent upgrade. Finally, the C production this year should be better than the mess of last year, even if Soto doesn't meet expectations.

Games are continued when the game is either tied, or if the road team has taken the lead during the inning that the game was stopped in. They become the final score (after 4 1/2 or 5 innings) when they are rained out in other situations. For example, the Cubs game against the Pirates last year was continued the next day because the Cubs had scored runs in the top of the inning to take the lead. If the Cubs hadn't managed to tie the game before the rain came, even if they were still batting, it would have been a final and a Pirates victory.

As far as the first bolded quote, who are you talking about? As far as the second bolded quote, they were a league average offense last year. What makes you think the Cubs offense would be worse this year?

I think the biggest thing to come out of this game is Z. The last 2 years have had such terrible starts for him that it's been hard to recover. If he has managed to bypass some of that, then he could have a season that is closer to 04/05 than 06/07 (although they were all good). Fukudome is also nice to see, although most hitters are going to have a day like this sometime during the season, and everyone knew that Fukudome would be at least average. It will take longer to find out if he's pretty good or very good. The others don't strike me much either way. Some looked good, and some looked bad, but it's just one game. The opinions that I held before the season I still hold and probably will for at least another couple weeks.

I think you may have missed a few at-bats :D Lee pitches by at-bat: 5, 6, 1, 5, 2.

Strike 2 (at the knees slightly inside fastball) was the pitch that Pie was constantly taking for strike 3 last year though. It may look inside, but if the umpires are consistently calling it you simply have to adjust. That doesn't mean I'm concerned yet. I'll give him the time to adjust first.

Xavier has 3 key seniors leaving and has a good but not great recruiting class coming in. Miller's value will never be higher than it is now. If he ever wants to leave Xavier, this is the time to do it. And there are definite benefits to leaving a non-major conference and taking a job at a major school. I wouldn't blame Miller if he didn't want to come to Indiana right now, but he definitely should seriously consider it. If he turns it down, he may never get an opportunity like that again.

So he's repeatedly shown he's only willing to put his worst hitters in 37.5% of potential lineup spots? Well, it's somewhat counterintuitive to say that a player belongs at either the very top of the lineup or the bottom of the lineup. Everybody says that Lou can just put Pie and Theriot 7 and 8. It is quite meaningful to point out that Lou won't put those two back to back very often because neither one fits his mold of what a 7 hitter is supposed to be.

I have no idea. Lou has so many strange ideas to go along with his right ideas that it's hard to tell why he does things sometime. I guess he thinks Fukudome is effective protection behind Ramirez against right-handers, but not against left-handers? It looks like if he stays with that lineup (Johnson-Fukudome-Lee-Ramirez-Soriano-DeRosa-Soto-Theriot) that the lineup against left-handers will be set. Against right-handers, I feel that the key to getting a good lineup will be Pie. If Pie hits, Lou will feel more comfortable with him and move him up in the lineup. That will open up the 8 spot for Theriot (and Lou has repeatedly shown that he only wants to have hitters like Theriot 1, 2, or 8 if he can possibly help it). If Theriot then leaves the top of the order, Fukudome becomes the natural fit to replace him. Then the only question becomes if Soto or DeRosa are hitting well enough to protect Ramirez in Lou's mind, or if he will then move Soriano down and bring somebody else up to the 2 spot. If Pie doesn't hit, my guess is that the lineup against right-handers will not change significantly. I think Lou has a definite priority list when making his lineup. Put Lee and Ramirez 3 and 4. Then put your worst hitter 8th. In Lou's mind, that's Pie. Now, put all other non-power players in the 1-2 spot. That's Theriot. Then, the 5th spot is next to be filled with your best protection for you great hitter in the 4 spot, and Lou thinks the best person for that is Fukudome . After that, you fill in the other 3 spots with whoever is left. I really think that's the priority in how Lou fills out his lineup card on a normal basis.

From what it sounds like, the Cubs wouldn't have pursued A-Rod no matter their cash reserves. It was a position problem rather than lack of available cash. Now you can say that's a horrible move to not consider moving him back to SS, and you'd at least have a pretty good case. I just don't think the Soriano signing and the lack of interest in A-Rod had anything to do with one another.

I understand what you mean about quality of team, but I'd call leading with 8 minutes to go in the national title game pretty close. I sort of don't want Pearl because of all the talk. Feuds in the Big 10. Fans calling into to shows complaining about his offensive style. He doesn't unite the fanbase, which I think is a big key to this hire. Alford is a double whammy. He isn't a great coach, and he causes a civil war within the fanbase. Please stay away from him at all costs. Bennett is probably a very good hire. His coaching style is such that the Knight crowd will like him. He's a very good coach and not a Knight, which means that the people who have moved on from Knight will like him. I'd also really like Miller. I think he's a fantastic coach, and all of IU's fans could get behind his coaching philosophy So I'm looking for 2 criteria. 1 is a great coach, and another is one who can appeal to all parts of IU's diverse fanbase. Some people may say that if you get number 1, you'll get number 2, but I just don't think that's the case in this situation.

I'm quite convinced that an option between leaving directly out of high school/having to stay in college for 3 years would be disasterous for both college basketball and the kids. Many more kids would come out that under the old rules would have passed down the opportunity to come out, but had never planned on staying more than a year or two in school. Many more kids would not be ready for the NBA and flame out. Baseball does well with this rule because most kids know they aren't going to be ready before 21 for the pros, and so they choose whether to go to school or not on other factors. That's simply not the case in basketball. At the same time, college basketball would lose all those potential good players and the year or two they put in, along with the great players that are forced to stay after high school now.

That offseason is one of those strange ones where Marquis's contract is not good, but it was one of the better pitching signings of the offseason. I'd rather have Marquis's contract than Zito, Schmidt, Eaton, Padilla, Igawa, Mulder, and Woody Williams. Suppan is a tossup. He got paid more money last year, put up worse basic production, and is signed for 1 more year than Marquis. However, he got hurt by the bad Brewers defense, and he's a likely candidate to be better than Marquis going forward. We'll also see on Daisuke. He certainly wasn't special in year one, but he was pitching in a really tough division and it was his first year in the U.S. He'll have to improve significantly to be worth 6 years and over 100 million dollars though. Lilly and Meche are the only 2 success stories out of all those pitchers so far (I'm throwing out Mussina and El Duque because they were never truly on the market). Miguel Batista would have been a little better than Marquis as well. Teams were a lot more careful with pitching this year, although part of that was due to a weak crop. Only 2 pitchers got multi-year deals: Silva and Kuroda.

:rotfl: This was posted on page 3. I'm pretty sure that was when the initial reports surfaced about Hill and Pie being those two players, which was quickly shot down by both sides.

I like them all, including the forceout rule. I absolutely hate the forceout. I'm not a huge fan of the forceout, but I feel the defense has too big of an advantage otherwise. In college you only need 1 foot, and in the pros you can't get shoved out if you were going to have 2 feet inbounds. To have neither means that many of the routes that are run on both levels won't work anymore.

I absolutely want wildcard teams to potentially have homefield over division winners. It creates an incentive for both wildcard teams and division winners to keep playing at the end of the year. I actually like all the potential rule changes except for the forceout rule being eliminated.

Isn't the drop in EqA for Theriot entirely because of PECOTA projecting his stolen bases will drop? I think they have his OBP and SLG numbers almost exactly the same as last year. I found his OBP and SLG: Theriot had a .266/.326/.346 line last year. PECOTA is projecting .270/.330/.347 this year. Basically the same line before you factor in steals, and I think that's very hard to project. Then, it comes to if you believe Cedeno's translations. I do not, but only because I believe a player like Cedeno, who has an obvious hole in his approach that throwing it to very specific spots can get him out, is one of the hardest players to translate that there is. Cedeno murders bad pitching and always has. Most AAA pitchers cannot consistently get it to a spot where Cedeno wants to swing at it but can't hit it. My fear is that many MLB pitchers can.

Theriot has abysmal range. His arm is so poor that he's playing in a few steps, which severely hampers his ability to get to anything. He's solid on what comes right at him... but he wont get to anything else. Theriot also has quick instincts to respond to the ball being hit, which allows him to get to a few more balls even when playing in. I wouldn't call his range good, but it's probably average. And I was one of the ones who thought he'd be absolutely terrible defensively there.

Regardless of who could win in a track meet, Fontenot is the overall better baserunner. Murton is way too hesitant, especially at third base.

I suspect that Belkast doesn't grasp the meaning of the word "brilliant". I suspect Belkast is full of it. A stopped clock has a better record than he does. His "guy" is probably the Oriole equivalent to a janitorial Roast -- a workerbee who finds scratch paper in trash bins he's cleaning. Belkast has caused much of the trouble this offseason (he was the one who was spearheading the trade is close both times) and he doesn't all the track record built up as much as some of the others either. Even if you put much stock into any of them, I wouldn't put much stock into his source whatsoever.

I'm not sure about your first point. Baltimore fans seem to love him. He is a flashy leadoff hitter that steals bases, plays the game "the right way", and is a big community guy. That's a big draw to bring in the casual fan in any market. As far as trade value, I agree completely. I think his trade value will only get down because he'll be getting closer to the end of his contract, and then the Orioles won't be able to re-sign him in 2 years. The only reason to keep him is to placate the fans for the next couple years.

Wow, pretty bold prediction for Soto, with Martin, Molina, McCann all young and in the N.L. Offensively, I say he is SIGNIFICANTLY better then Molina, about equal to McCann and Martin. Defensively, Soto is clearly better then McCann and Martin, and is on par with Molina. So it is definately a possibility Soto could make the ASG, considering he is playing for a major market team, he should get enough publicity. I wouldn't call Soto on Molina's defense level quite yet. Soto is a good defender behind the plate, but he can't completely stop the running game like Molina can. He is probably about at Martin's level defensively, and better than McCann. And as for offense, I think most people would be thrilled if Soto matches Martin or McCann's averages over the last 2 years, but he certainly will be better than Molina offensively unless Molina's season last year was the start of a quick improvement with the bat.

Pie was never platooned in the minors, though. Nor do I think he was platooned early in his winter-league stints. So if his farm and winter stints so large and somewhat consistent splits, it may be harder to blame them on sample size or opportunity. I don't know how Pie's career will play out. He got a couple of hits versus LHP the other day, and my impression was that while he was bad versus LHP this winter league, he was actually even worse versus RHP. So maybe he's going to be fine or no worse versus lefties than versus righties. I don't know. But there are numerous LH hitters who don't hit LHP well, even when afforded extended opportunities. It's hardly "old school" ignorance to recognize that not-uncommon reality. Will Pie be one of them? I don't know. But it's certainly possible. And even if we knew right now that Pie was going to spend his career as an .850-OPS guy versus RHP but a .680-guy versus LHP, a guy who should rightfully play his career in a platoon if used right, I don't think that being "only" a platoon guy should mean we should trade him right now. A good lefty platoon player is very valuable. Pie's had a grand total of 58ABs againt LHP in MLB. And those at-bats match what Pie did in Iowa against left-handers in 2006 and 2007, and in West Tennessee in 2005 (there are no split numbers available for any farther back than that). Pie has had more than a 200 point split between right-handers and left-handers in each of those years, and he hasn't been platooned at any of those spots. It's been a dramatic and repeated split. If it were just the major league numbers, I would completely agree with you. When the extremely limited major league numbers match what all the available minor league numbers have been consistently saying for years, it becomes a much bigger issue.