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DeRosa hasn't been released yet, although he is supposed to be released today: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3262416

Is it true that James Hardy ran a 4.47 40? That's faster than some people expected. He could get into the first round.

Go to user control panel, then to friends and foes. The people you put as your foes is the ignore list.

Fraught with irony, this emoticon is. Come on, all this crying and feeling sorry for the players is over the top. Its not like these players had been recruited by Sampson for a long time, and formed a real close bond to him. Hell if I was the players Id be pissed off and telling him to kiss my ass. If im the players Im thinking, "you get caught once, and get in trouble, but yet you still dont stop and now you are embarrassing the hell out of us and this school?' Take a hike. But I guess thats just me Sampson recruited all but one of these players. And yes, many do see him as a father figure. It's obvious from everything that has happened over the last couple days that the players were very, very close to Sampson. They probably shouldn't have been, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation.

I would agree that Willits should only be used as a pinch hitter with nobody on. That's not exactly a detriment though. The Cubs could use a player like that on the bench. Ward and Murton are the two best to bring on with runners on. Cedeno and Blanco give you the occasional power, but neither are ideal with the bases empty. Willits becomes the guy who pinch-hits with the bases empty. I'm not saying that we desperately need to trade for him to accomplish that, but I think he would be useful as both a platoon partner and a pinch hitter. That's still only worth so much.

Wait, wait, wait. If you had to choose ONE stat that showed how good a player was at getting on base, you'd choose OBP?!? Wild stuff, man. :) I knew that sentence sounded really bad, but I just couldn't phrase it correctly. :D

Considering that other than HR's, those are worthless stats,...I'd be indifferent, I guess. Let's not go overboard here. Batting average is hardly worthless. Batting Average is a stat that people like Joe Morgan use to show that players like Juan Pierre are good. True, but that doesn't mean it's worthless, just overvalued. If I had to pick one stat to measure how well a player did in that department (getting on) it would be OBP. OBP doesn't tell everything though, and a player's batting average, especially over a long sample, is good to know as a complement to the OBP stat.

Quite a week for Nebraska basketball after the win over Texas A&M today.

He's still under contract, what kind of pick do you think we could get for him? A 5th rounder maybe? Houston couldn't get any type of pick for David Carr last year. I'd be very surprised if the Bears get anything for Griese especially at his contract.

Overall, I don't think Dusty ever had a young/old thing. He would stick by whoever he thought was the best player, which it rarely was. For example, he stuck by young players like Patterson, Cedeno and Bynum even when they were putting up awful production. He was kind of in the middle with Murton and Choi, and really didn't like Dubois, Cruz, or Hill. Votto actually is probably a better mold for what Dusty likes in a first baseman than Hatteberg because Votto has more power, which is essential in Dusty's mind for that position to have. I also believe that quote means nothing though. Look at the last sentence. If Dusty decides to go with Hatteberg, all he has to do is shrug is shoulders and say I guess it wasn't his time.

Votto career minor leagues: .289 .385 .476 Choi career minor leagues: .275 .379 .511 Votto=Choi Hatteberg=Karros Only significant difference is Hatteberg hits lefty handed, making it less likely for a platoon. Of course, we could always add Randall Simon to the equation. :wink: You'd have to add in the accident for Votto to make it a full comparison. Choi won the starter job out of spring training, and while platooning was getting the majority of the starts until the collision. Even after the collision when Choi came back they had a competition for the job the next 3 weeks where they split up the starts evenly before Karros finally won the job.

And what exactly are they protesting? That Dakich - a Knight disciple - got the interim gig instead of McCallum, Sampson's guy? Yeah, that is exactly what the university needs, guys: another cheater. \ It's not fair to call McCallum a cheater. The NCAA implicated 2 assistants along with Sampson (Senderhoff and Meyer). McCallum was found to be completely innocent in the whole matter. I haven't heard anything about Meyer being let go, which shows how much about PR this actually as.

Do you see Bennett as a guy who can win a national title? Does he run the same type of system as his father or Bo Ryan does at Wisconsin? I'm not sure that type of system will work at a top school. I love what Bo Ryan does, don't get me wrong. That system can win conference titles, and it can take ok talent and make great basketball teams out of them. Ryan is probably the best coach in the Big 10 right now. However, I don't see Wisconsin winning a national title with that system ever. It's simply too limiting to win consistently against the best teams in the country who don't make the kinds of mistakes that Wisconsin thrives on exploiting. It's just a concern I have about Bennett. I'm not even sure I explained it well there.

I disagree completely. I think the university slapped the players in the face with the way they handled the situation the last 24 hours. It put the players into a horrible position with the way it was dragged out and the meeting last night (which was both unnecessary and put the players into further media bombardment). I think both sides should just say mistakes were made and move on with the full squad tomorrow night. At most, make them come off of the bench.

No, sorry. All I have is what I've heard from coaches in the area. I know that holds very little water -- great, some random internet dude says he heard Drew was dirty. But high school coaches, en masse, think he's shady. I don't think that would bode well for in-state recruiting, much less IU's reputation post-Sampson. From what I've heard, I really, really don't want Drew. Oh, I believe you. I was able to point the person to the story about how Drew uses negative recruiting, which isn't technically illegal but drives other coaches crazy.

Can anybody point me to any links regarding Scott Drew's recruiting questions? It would help in another discussion I am in.

It's nothing necessarily bad about him. It's just that the players don't know him very well. He only joined the basketball department over the summer, and he only became an assistant in October or November when IU's assistant Senderhoff resigned. On the other hand, McCallum was a key in recruiting several of the players, so they feel a much closer bond with him than Dakich.

Knight is never coming anywhere close to Indiana. That sounds good nationally, but most people are in the area know it's not going to happen. He has had lawsuits against the university for years. The school can't even get over their hatred of him to honor him in any way, let alone hire him. Plus Bloomington would go into civil war if he was rehired. People would actually take up arms and take to the streets and fight it out (a bit of an exaggeration, but it's basically true). Skiles isn't a serious candidate either. He's a darkhorse, but no favorite. The rumored candidates continue to be Bennett, Miller, or Brownell. Anybody else has to be considered a darkhorse at this point, although Greenspan has always had a very close to the vest coaching search.

Latest update out of Bloomington:

McCallum met with Greenspan right before practice today: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080222/SPORTS0601/80222053

I feel bad for IU fans. They don't deserve this mess. At some point Kelvin Sampson needs to think about the kids and tell them to play out the year. Especially since he made a point at the MSU game talking about how this is all about the kids anyways. If Sampson doesn't convince the players to continue playing I will lose all respect for him. No way the players should give up this season for any coach. IU still has a good chance to win the Big Ten and some games in the tournament. This isn't the summer; it's near the end of the season. If you haven't lost all respect for Kelvin yet, I doubt anything he can do will cause you to. You know what I meant. I think I've been by far his biggest critic on here among IU fans. Didn't mean anything personal, just meant he is about as low as can get ethically. There isn't much he can do short of admiting his transgressions and apologize. Sorry if I came across as trying to rip you. For college coaches, I think that honor can be reserved for Dave Bliss. I actually think the Knight and Sampson situations are very comparable. Both did things that are magnified because of IU's fanbase. Both had very legitimate reasons to be fired but weren't and were given other punishments instead. Both of them then got fired with not much additional added. The biggest two differences are that Knight's possible problems were physical (going after players and assistants and possible assult) while Sampson's problems are with cheating, and that Sampson's firing occured during the season while Knight's didn't. For both, I feel like they deserved to be fired but the way it was went about was very, very badly done.

I feel bad for IU fans. They don't deserve this mess. At some point Kelvin Sampson needs to think about the kids and tell them to play out the year. Especially since he made a point at the MSU game talking about how this is all about the kids anyways. I would agree with this, although it hasn't been the IU way recently. When Knight left and the players threatened to leave, Knight encouraged every player to transfer. When Davis left, he encouraged players to transfer. Hopefully Sampson doesn't make it 3 for 3.

I've heard every time in the book today plus sources are saying there is no press conference. I'm not sure anybody knows what is going on. There is one thing I do believe though. One report has that if Sampson is fired, the players want McCallum to finish the season as the coach, not a coach in Dakich who they had never seen before the start of the season.

If those were my 2 options for batting 2nd (which I believe they are since Lou doesn't want to put them both at the bottom consistently) then I would bat Pie 2nd against right-handers and Theriot 2nd against left-handers.

Guzman lost his rookie status after 2006.