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Hasn't this been the knock on Cubs fandom over the past years, that their only support the team because they play in Wrigley. I love Wrigley as much as anyone, but I would definetly be at a bunch of games if they were playing in the cell. I would miss Wrigley for a summer for sure, but it would be a cool experience going to home games at the cell and frankly, would become a large part of Cubs history. There's a huge difference between supporting a team when you are local though and driving 10+ hours like Cuse would have to do. I don't blame him for wanting to wait a year to take that type of trip. If he can't see them in Wrigley, it would probably make more sense for Cuse to drive to an East Coast stadium to see them then to come all the way to Chicago just to watch them in an unfamiliar stadium.

Patriots are expected to release Roosevelt Colvin today to clear cap room: http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/reiss_pieces/2008/02/pats_expected_t.html Are they making room for Moss? If they are, that will keep their offense very good but unless they can find some help their back 7 on defense right now is pretty awful.

I can only comment on the numbers and the limited at-bats he had in both 2006 and 2007, so I'm not completely qualified to judge. From my limited viewpoint though, it's a combination of figuring it out and having a lucky year. 2007 still was likely a career year for him. He will likely regress from a normal minor league translation from his numbers last year. At the same time, I remember thinking about how absolutely lost he was at the plate in 2006 when he came up. He only hit 1 or 2 balls hard the entire time he was up. 3 or 4 of his 5 hits that year were dribblers. It wasn't that he just wasn't getting breaks. It was obvious he was completely overmatched (the best comparison to Soto 2006 would be Koyie Hill 2007, and Soto was probably a little worse). When he came up in September of last year, it was a completely different hitter. He waited back on the ball and drove it well with a much quicker bat. That bat speed was probably due to all the weight he lost in the offseason last year. If he can keep the weight down, he should be a guy who will walk a pretty good amount and have pretty good power for a catcher, and that will make him pretty good offensively for his position. Thanks for your answer CCP. He had a wonderful year last year and imo he'll struggle a lot more this year. I hope you're right and he has figured it out plus I'm sure a little luck played a part as well. I don't think he's going to sneak up on the pitchers this year either and they will be looking for weaknesses more than they did last year. Add to that, the possible struggles of Theriot and Pie and you have 4 possible holes in the lineup. Didn't Soto always have a decent Isod? Yes, Soto has always had an excellent ISOD, usually between .80 and .100. That's going to be the biggest reason why he won't fall too far is that he knows how to take a walk, so even if he struggles with the power aspect he has his patience to fall back on. I wouldn't worry too much about Soto being a hole. An average catcher put up a .711 OPS last season. Soto should be able to put up that with his walks even if he only hits 5-10 HR's next year. I think the only two positions that the Cubs have to worry about having a below average offensive player in are SS and CF.

I can only comment on the numbers and the limited at-bats he had in both 2006 and 2007, so I'm not completely qualified to judge. From my limited viewpoint though, it's a combination of figuring it out and having a lucky year. 2007 still was likely a career year for him. He will likely regress from a normal minor league translation from his numbers last year. At the same time, I remember thinking about how absolutely lost he was at the plate in 2006 when he came up. He only hit 1 or 2 balls hard the entire time he was up. 3 or 4 of his 5 hits that year were dribblers. It wasn't that he just wasn't getting breaks. It was obvious he was completely overmatched (the best comparison to Soto 2006 would be Koyie Hill 2007, and Soto was probably a little worse). When he came up in September of last year, it was a completely different hitter. He waited back on the ball and drove it well with a much quicker bat. That bat speed was probably due to all the weight he lost in the offseason last year. If he can keep the weight down, he should be a guy who will walk a pretty good amount and have pretty good power for a catcher, and that will make him pretty good offensively for his position.

It's very interesting to see the difference between how people viewed prospects between the end of the season and now. The last 3 pages of this thread have a lot of arguments about the BA top 100: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=44019 One of the biggest arguments was if Colvin would make the top 100. It turns out he did, and Raisin nailed it right on the nose on him being right around 75th. The two people on the Cubs list who have probably raised their stock the most since September have to be Soto and Gallagher. Soto wasn't considered a top 50 prospect before his time in the majors, and Gallagher was an iffy bet to be in the BA top 100 before his AFL performance. Probably the most interesting in hindsight quote of the thread (the he refers to Colvin): It turns out that not only is Schafer on there, he's rated 25th overall.

I'd say Fontenot would be the opening day starter with Cintron and Cedeno backing him up. Patterson is not working at second base at all this spring training, so he isn't really an option.

It seems like Lou considers Marshall a veteran starter at this point though.

And yet 4 of the 5 people who were robbed are actually the ones who aren't nearly as rich.

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.