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Effectively? Seriously? Does he really think that he's done well the last few years? To be fair to Marquis, for the 2 stats that most pitchers/casual fans care about, he has done pretty well. 4 straight years of 12 wins or more, and 3 out of 4 years of an above average ERA. Most people care about durability as well, and he also has that: 4 years of 190+ innings. I'm not saying those matter (especially the wins) but I can perfectly understand why Marquis thinks he has been effective. I thought Marquis should have apologized as well as Lou, but I'm not surprised he didn't. I'm glad Lou apologized anyway.

There was a chitchat thread once in social. I'm not sure but I think some transactions and or game threads may top this as well. Milestone Post thread and Movie thread The Movie thread is longer. The Milestone Post thread is only 209 pages long. I expect this thread to be the longest on the site currently in a week or so, passing the movie thread. I tried to find a bit of Brian Roberts news to go along with this, but it's not easy. I can tell you that the sentiment from Orioles fans increasingly seems to be that they would like to keep Roberts and wait for the trade deadline rather than get rid of him for middling players like the Cubs have. I happen to not agree with them (I think the Orioles would be best served making the trade if they get Gallagher+2 others) but it is interesting to track how both fanbases perceive the trade as time goes on.

Michigan State, a team who is known for its defense, cannot miss right now. IU could play their A game and be down by 10-15 right now. Instead, they are losing by 30, but as long as Michigan State is shooting over 80% from both the field and from 3 point land, there's not much you can do.

Especially with the Bears having tweaked their scheme slightly in order to take advantage of the strengths of their linebackers, I like the 6 for 36 million deal for Briggs a lot better than trying to match the 6 for 42 million deal that Berrian got. While I still believe the position he plays helps Briggs in looking better than he actually is, I also believe that he is a very good player that will be very close to if not worth that extension, and that made it a very smart move for the Bears.

At least 10 veteran starters around the league make this sort of statement every year. Wade Miller and Jon Lieber are two easy examples of pitchers who did it last year. The Cubs were never planning on Marquis to be in the bullpen anyway, so really its overblown. The Cubs choices in the first place were either the rotation or a trade, and my guess is that he'll be in the rotation Opening Day.

the #'s the news up here reported were 6 yrs, $20 mil garanteed. thats not far from Angelo offered. If they were that close, what stopped the Bears? the garanteed money? seems like BB got a resonable deal. Angelo offered 8 million in guaranteed money. If Berrian really received 20 million guaranteed, the two sides weren't even close to the same ballpark.

Seriously, what the hell? Yea, a few people on there are pretty delusional about Roberts's trade value. I certainly hope this doesn't represent the majority opinion over there. Christ that's stupid. No, it certainly doesn't represent the majority opinion. Most people over there want a little more than most people over here are willing to give up (which is typical). I'd say most people want something like: Gallagher, Murton, Veal, Cedeno for Roberts and Payton Some people want Colvin for Murton, Ceda for Veal, or Patterson for one of Cedeno/Murton/Veal, but the typical trade from an Orioles fan over there is a 4 for 2 with those players involved.

Even without Gallagher, the team has Zambrano, Lilly, Hill, Marquis, Dempster, Marshall, Hart, possibly Marmol, and anyone who might break out this year(Samardzija, Veal, Atkins, Holliman) as available starters. I agree with opposing this deal, but the one thing we certainly have is starting pitching depth(even if Gallagher is dealt) to make sure Les Walrond doesn't see Wrigley Field again without a ticket. i guess i am not even considering marmol since he (a) sucked as a starter and (b) was lights out in the pen. i'm also assuming that dempster will either be terrible or will hurt himself. so then that cuts down the options to zambrano, lilly, hill, marquis, marshall. it's a pretty solid bet that marshall will hurt himself; is hart for real, or was last year a fluke? i don't think samardzija, veal, atkins or holliman are viable options, unless one of them really makes a mountain of progress in a few months. Lieber is also an option, and then Mateo is also an option. Sure there are questions about them as well, but the odds that Lieber/Dempster/Marshall/Hart/Mateo are either all hurt or absolutely awful (and they'd have to be north of 5 to be considerably worse than Gallagher is likely to give you this year) is pretty low.

Great post. Thanks. I had no idea about some of those rules concerning schemes and stuff since I follow the NBA about as much as the MLS. I would argue as well that the level of defense varies wildly in the NBA. Some teams play run and gun (and Phoenix is the biggest example of this, so watching one of their games I can understand why you don't think there's any defense). Some teams play a very aggressive halfcourt defense though. That's why when the NBA Finals have come up with matchups like Detroit-San Antonio, people have called it boring because it traditionally has been a defense first, grind it out matchup. The biggest example of modern defense I can show you is the Indiana-Detroit Eastern Conference Finals 3-4 years ago. They played 6 games, and the motto was whoever made it to 75 first won. They were both talented offensive teams as well, but the defense was just so stifling it didn't matter. I would agree that the Pheonix model is getting more support from teams, even though it hasn't proven very successful in winning a championship for any of the teams who run it.

Michigan State is one extremly overrated team. The selection committee better not make the same mistake that the pollsters are making. USC leads Arizona by 7 with under 3 to play :) Also, go UCLA and Wazzu tonight. Yeah, I'm really hoping IU can beat them at their place for the first time in 15 years on Sunday, because MSU has really gotten worse as the season has gone along. I didn't watch the game-why did Neitzel only play 25 minutes? And only 3 points he scored-that's almost shocking.

That's surprising considering how successful he was in college. Don't listen to Mike Mayock about this one. That guy has a vandetta against McFadden for some reason. I love Mendenhall but if you gave me the choice of either, I'd take McFadden without much thought. yeah i have a hard time believing that the guy was running about 6 yards a pop without breaking some tackles. His high rushing average is due in large part (at least in my opinion) to his breakout runs he'd get alot. I get to see a good bit of SEC football down here and it seemed to me like McFadden's rushes would go something like 2 yards, no gain, 7 yards, 2 yards, 18 yards, 1 yard, -3 loss, 28 yards, 70 yards, 2 yards, etc. He depended totally on his speed and would rarely bowl over people, like Peterson (uber-stud), or juke people out of their shoes, like Bush (a bust). He seemed to just take off and people wouldn't be able to get a hand on him. With the speed the NFL seems to have at LB these days, I don't think he's going to get those big runs like he got in college. Looking over the game logs, I don't think that's true. He had only 5 runs over 30 yards all season long. That certainly doesn't scream breakaway back. He also didn't appear to have too many runs for losses or short gains. It was his runs between 5-15 yards that he did a really good job of and made his average so high.

They played him there 2 games last year, and he was so bad that in the 2nd game Lou switched DeRosa and Fontenot in the IF between the 1st and 2nd inning. So the answer is pretty much no.

No, but every time it's mentioned on TV it will be grating. And having lived in a town that changed a name of a stadium that is about 70 years newer than Wrigley and a lot less revered, it won't be forgotten quickly. People will be grumbling about it 15-20 years from now. Everybody that's not an official media source will still call it Wrigley though, similar to what happened in Denver with Mile High.

You can thank Adam Dunn for that. Dumbasses had him batting 6th. 6th was only Dunn's 4th most common spot in the batting order last year (56 AB's). He was primarily a #5 hitter last year.

That's an interesting question. 2007 average OBP's 7 spot: AL .326, NL .326 8 spot: AL .301, NL .325 9 spot AL .302, NL .241 Then again, the NL is kind of weird. The 3 highest OBP spots? 3rd, 4th, and 6th. 3rd and 4th makes sense, but 6th higher than all the others is very strange IMO.

Is Mungro still on the roster? No. Mungro hurt his knee in 2006, and the Colts didn't feel he was healthy enough to put on their roster for 2007. Since he hasn't signed with anybody since then, my guess is that the injury was career ending.

Your post count shows up for me. It's 7722. It's not post count. Let me show you an example of what I'm talking about. Look at the difference between these two links: This is Tim's member profile: memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=3 This is SanClementeFan's: memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=4 If you open both of those up and look on the right side under user statistics, you'll see what I mean. On SanClementeFan's, it says his total number of posts, and then directly under that it says what his most active forum and his most active topic are. On Tim's, it just says his total number of posts. His most active forum and most active topic are missing. I know what you'll say. Tim is premium and SanClementeFan is not, so that must be the difference. That doesn't seem to matter though. Anybody over 5000 posts premium or not their most active forum/topic doesn't show up. Anybody with less than 5000 posts, it shows up. My question is why that is, and if it is possible to get those statistics back for people who have over 5000 posts.

I don't think former premium has anything to do with it. It seems like anybody under 5000 posts you can see their statistics, while anybody over 5000 posts cannot be seen. Can anybody help with this problem? I'd like to see what mine is, but cannot seemingly because of too many posts.

Hmm...if that's true (and that's hardly confirmation, considering it's 1) an insider who has been proven to be somewhat spotty with info and 2) says "may" and 3) doesn't say if he's speculating or from his source) then I would be ok I guess if the 4th player is not among the Cubs top 12 prospects or so. I just don't think Veal is going to be good, so sending him in a deal isn't all that bad for me. That would also allow us to keep Murton and either use him as the 4th OF or then trade him to get a prospect back for the system. I hate to give up Gallagher because I love his potential, but I think it's worth it for this deal. Especially now that DeRosa is going in for surgery, which although supposed to be a quick recovery, could become a very tricky situation very easily. I'm not letting them have another top 10 prospect though along with Veal. That's personally where my line is drawn.

The Colts cut Booger McFarland and Rob Morris today. Neither one passed a physical. McFarland had a 7 million dollar salary in 2008 with 0 dead money on the cap if he was cut, so it was pretty obvious he was leaving. Morris adds another million or so to the room. He would have been a backup after his injury anyway.

To be fair, they're year in and year out the two most consistent good teams in the major leagues, and they are also from major markets. It makes complete sense to put them quite a bit on the schedule. At the same time, I'm glad to see that they're not playing each other on there. Of all the teams they are playing, their only opponents that typically get on T.V. quite a bit are Detroit and maybe Cleveland. And with possible exception of the Blue Jays game, those should all be good matchups.

I think I'd have less of a problem with selling the naming rights if he was planning to keep the team . Instead, I almost feel like MLB should step in a little bit here. I don't quite think it's ethical for Zell to be making these huge decisions for this franchise while he's in charge when he already is an owner of the White Sox. He has a financial incentive to get all the money out of the Cubs he possibly can in the short-term, and he has a financial incentive to bury the Cubs in the long-term (if the Cubs bomb out, the White Sox get more revenue). Look at his track record: 1) Naming rights. It will probably be structured so most of the money comes up front so that Zell can pocket it. The new owners will see little of the money, but will lose the iconic Wrigley name. 2)Splitting off Wrigley in the deal. This is the one that is the most legal for Zell to do. He can split it off any way he wants. At the same time, this is another thing that will hurt the new owners in the future, and the more dispute there is over Wrigley's lease in the future the more the White Sox and Zell benefit. 3) Renovations to Wrigley. Quite convenient that Zell can arrange a deal to have the Cubs play at the Cell, which puts more money in the White Sox pockets (including his own), and then have the new owners be the ones who will have to go through the headaches of the renovation? There is a huge conflict of interest going on here. While each of the moves are somewhat defensible, putting them together along with Zell's short-term ownership of the team and also his minority ownership in a team who is competing directly for the same market share makes this a situation that needs to be looked into and fast.

I want Laws badly for the Colts in either the second or third round. He fits the Colts defense perfectly. He's got a great motor and is a great tackler even while being a little undersized. Unfortunately, I know the Colts will pick some nobody out of Northwestern Montana State that I'll like just as well in 2 years :D.

so? i bet you hate Len and Bob for being so biased for the Cubs too Len and Bob broadcast on a network that calls themselves the home of the Cubs. It's expected they're going to be biased because they are paid to follow one team. I have no idea if Musberger is biased towards Ohio State. If he is though, that is serious because he is on a national network that is the home of NCAA football, so he shouldn't be biased to any particular team while calling a game. I would agree with your point though that the only announcer I find to be incredibly biased is Vitale. Everyone else just bandwagon jumps for the most part.

There's many scouts who believe that Colvin will eventually have to move to a corner as his frame fills out (he's still incredibly thin right now). However, many scouts also believe that process will increase his power. So he's either a CF with decent power right now, or he fills out and becomes a corner outfielder with a little more power.