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nah not likely, TSN prefers defense over offense. Soto and Blanco are both pretty damn good defensivley, and the fact that Soto should actually produce some offense, its very likely the Cubs will have the 2nd or 3rd best production in the NL from Catcher. I can't accept that Soto will produce offensively yet. Not a big enough sample size @ MLB level. Here's hoping he does, he would be an amazing NL catcher if he brought his defense to the table and doubled it up with a little O. You don't think Soto can put up a .700 OPS next season? That would qualify as producing offensively for a catcher.

I don't really agree with that. If Gallagher is on the team, I think he'll have a legit opportunity to start ahead of Dempster/Lieber/Marquis (if he's on the team). We all know how Lou feels about Marquis, and I doubt he feels much better about Dempster starting. I think Gallagher is going to have an uphill climb to start coming out of Spring Training. Unless Gallagher is amazing in spring training, or one of Marquis or Lieber get hurt, those two will likely start the season as the #4 and #5. That doesn't mean Gallagher won't get his shot though. A few good triple A starts, a few bad starts by one of those two, and he could easily be in the rotation for a long look by June 1st.

So when is the IU apology coming for their fan behavior? Im sure they plan on issuing it soon For what? The Uconn game? If so, it has already been done. Several of the players did some PSA's that they played on the video board during the game. What does it matter anyway? IU didn't make them issue a statement. How about for mister attention whore and his salute to the Illini fans? Class pure class You don't issue an apology for one fan flipping the bird after being heckled all game. If that were the case, you would have A.D.'s issuing apologies after every Big Ten road game. Come on. Gordon Sr. is probably an attention whore, but if he and his family actually was hit by beads, it's not stunning that he would have something to say on his way out. For the record I don't think anything I actually saw was out of line. I'm just saying that when everyone in college basketball outside of your fans is blasting you today, it's probably not the right time to complain about class from others. For all of the Indiana people that were outraged by it, do you remember what you did to Luke Recker when he came back to Assembly Hall 5 years ago? He got the same treatment as Gordon, maybe worse. The Recker treatment was appalling. One of the absolute worst times to be an Indiana fan. He didn't deserve any of that.

So when is the IU apology coming for their fan behavior? Im sure they plan on issuing it soon From the story in the Indystar today: I think that's a lot to be done to try to curb the practice. The story also mentioned that the referee warned Frazier for the bump, but decided against calling a technical foul for it because he had never called a technical for something that happened before a game, although it was within his discretion to do so.

Well we know we are a terrible team and that they are supposed to be a good team. Yet everytime we have played them they have barely beaten us. We also played Duke, they had no such problem taking us to the woodshed. They lose Gordon and White next year. In the next three years we add the most talent we have ever had, IU could be on probabtion. Are you still failing to see why we think we will be better going forward? and who's to say that your great recruits don't all bolt after THEIR freshmen year? At what point did I say any of them were that good? Maybe Jereme Richmond can do that, but even then I doubt that as we will be pretty good and he won't get to run loose like Gordon does. i honestly don't know anything about your recruits, which is why i'm asking. from what i can gather, you have good recruits, but not so good they'll leave early, but good enough to be better than Indiana for years to come? how are IU's recruits? They have a very good one for '08 whose name eludes me. After that they have struggled because of the impending NCAA investigation. Trust me, people better kick us now while we are down. IU is not struggling in recruiting whatsoever. For 08, they have Devin Ebanks (ranked 12th in the county), a pretty good point guard (Holloway), and then two good role players (Roth and Pritchard). That overall gives them the #15 recruiting class for 08. In 09, they've landed a decent power forward and are on many lists for many of the nations top players. There is absolutely no indication that their recruiting is struggling because of any investigation. I do agree that Illinois will be a lot better in the next few years though. I expect to see several more years of a very good and unfortunately very heated rivalry.

Exactly. Imagine if someone came on here the morning that Z re-signed claiming to know Z's agent and that a deal was about to get done (when nobody saw much of a chance of something getting done with Z). They would have a cult-like following on here and people would hang on every word. Actually, this sort of happened. Somebody scooped the Z deal the night before it happened when nobody thought it would happen during the season :D. Heh, I actually would've completely missed it. I was at the doc getting my broken nose fixed that day. What happened? This was posted by BleacherBadger the night before Z was signed: People of course were skeptical until the next day, but the info was still very well appreciated, and the next time BleacherBadger picks up something I hope people will still be skeptical, but remember that he already scooped that.

I'm sorry, but the bolded part is comical. "I have never been to France, but I can only guess that the wine here is far more superior" I'm not saying that NSBB is not a superior site but it is hard to make such a statement if you have never been there and goes to show that some people have a strong bias against the OH in general. Agreed. They are both great sites. Obviously after this trade I'll spend little to no time on the OH because I really won't care about the things they discuss. Honestly though, OH is a good example of what NSBB is building towards. It encompasses all the sports in the city, it has social broken down into several categories, and it normally has about 5 or 6 times as many people as NSBB does on it. That of course doesn't mean I like OH better. Bigger is not always better. I can see this site having a layout that is at least somewhat similar to theirs with many of the same categories in the future though. One thing is clear though, NSBB is not OH Jr., and I'm glad OH news has been confined to this thread. I also look forward to when this trade will be done. Even though I enjoy reading the very large community over there, running over the particulars of one deal can become very boring.

Exactly. Imagine if someone came on here the morning that Z re-signed claiming to know Z's agent and that a deal was about to get done (when nobody saw much of a chance of something getting done with Z). They would have a cult-like following on here and people would hang on every word. Actually, this sort of happened. Somebody scooped the Z deal the night before it happened when nobody thought it would happen during the season :D.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mariners/2004170043_webmari07.html Who gives a crap about a news conference, all we want is an announcement. That is one long physical.

A .750 ops split is not good. Not really, but it's a lot better than what the Cubs have currently. Is there anybody currently available that could consistently give the Cubs better? Shannon Stewart Shannon Stewart is better against right-handers than left-handers. He hasn't had a single season of .750 OPS or better against left-handers out of the last 4. Plus he has had only 6 games played in CF in the last 7 years combined. Payton is better than him in both those aspects.

A .750 ops split is not good. Not really, but it's a lot better than what the Cubs have currently. Is there anybody currently available that could consistently give the Cubs better?

I doubt that did you see the contract Carlos Silva just got? Crappy innings eaters cost 10 mill a year minimum in today's market. You're not gonna get a top level prospect for him but someone would take him. If that's the case then why is he still here? Nobody wants Marquis. Why is he still here? Because the Cubs aren't desperate to move him. They may not be in love with him, but they still won't trade him unless they get some type of value from him. There have been several different reports that teams are interested in Marquis. They just haven't given a package that the Cubs are willing to take for their most costly and most dependable 4th/5th starter option. We may wish they would dump the contract of Marquis, but the Cubs have given no indication that they are willing to do that.

I was never one who was very worried about money just for 2008 (although still worried about money for 09, so if we can dump salaries to make the payroll less for next year, that's still a good thing). If the Cubs can absorb Payton's salary, then I think he is a good throw in. The Orioles will probably just give him away, and he is a pretty good example of the platoon partner that Hendry is looking for in CF. He also doesn't hit right-handers well enough to really be a threat to take away Pie's job. If Payton gives the Cubs a .750 OPS against left-handers (which he's been at or above each of the last 5 years) that will be a big help to what Pie would likely do against those same pitchers. Now if Payton's salary precludes them from making another move, then I wouldn't take him. He is way overpaid, and if they actually plan to use that money on somebody else than I'd rather the Cubs do that. However, in the middle of February that becomes more and more unlikely that they would be using the budget somewhere else.

I'm pretty sure those are EqA's.

Yeah, the only way Voyager works is if you disregard series continuity completely and hope for good individual episodes. Sometimes they delivered, many times they didn't. It was basically TNG-Lite, while DS9 had actual story arcs and showed signs of foresight and planning.

I wouldn't want to count on Piazza either. 39 years old, had a bad season last year, injury prone, and was terrible defensively in 06 and didn't play an inning in the field in 07. He would likely be better with the bat than Blanco, but he would break down very quickly if he was put back in the field again. He might be a slight upgrade over Blanco, but not really enough to sign him. My guess is Blanco comes back to his regular .620-.640 OPS this year.

If the Cubs traded Murton, I might be interested in Kevin Mench as a right-handed bat off of the bench. I'm not sure he would accept the role though because of how few starting at-bats he would get.

I'd give up Marshall in a second over Gallagher. I have no idea what use the Orioles would have for him though. Starting pitcher is a good guess. The last thing you need when rebuilding though is low ceiling ML ready players. Marshall's a good cheap back end starter for somebody who wants to contend soon. The Orioles have plenty of those types of guys though. They need either positional players, or pitchers with a high upside (Gallagher or Veal). Out of all the teams in the major leagues, Marshall might have the least value to the Orioles. He's almost worthless with what they are trying to do and the current contents of their farm system. By the time the Orioles were possibly getting good in 2010 and 2011, Marshall would be getting expensive and still wouldn't be any better than he is now.

I'd give up Marshall in a second over Gallagher. I have no idea what use the Orioles would have for him though.

The Baltimore Sun writer was on the radio and said that if the Cubs don't up their offer for Roberts then he doesn't think he'll be traded. I don't see us putting both Gallagher and Marshall in the deal. Maybe Gallagher and Marquis. I see something like Gallagher, Colvin, Cedeno for Roberts and Payton. I would take that! I know some of you guys would be apposed to it since the need at SS, but payton could probably platoon with Pie right? I could platoon with Pie, but just like Jay Payton, I would suck at it. Pretty sure as bad as Payton is hes much better than you haha jk no offense. How much worse is he than Bryd? Probably worse than Byrd overall, but much better for what the Cubs would use him for. Payton has put up at least a .750 OPS against left-handers each of the last 5 years. Byrd's better against right-handers than Payton, but the Cubs should be playing Pie against right-handers anyway. Payton is way overpaid this year, but as long as the Cubs were willing to take on that salary he'd be a useful piece to the ballclub.

It's an interesting theory, but what this person doesn't really realize that the officials both cannot stand over the ball like they did at the end of the Jacobs play and also keep the time running. They either have to signal a first down immediately and let the Giants snap the ball, or they have to stop the clock. On the next play, They also have the ability to stop the clock on a pileup to make their possession call before restarting the clock. When they determined that the ball was down by contact, Coughlin then called the timeout. I might agree with the video that the Giants got 10-15 seconds extra time, but certainly not enough to change the game.

Colvin is blocked in the Cubs system, and his value as a prospect isn't suddenly going to get a whole lot bigger while playing in the minors. It could get a little bigger if he has a huge season, but it's already pretty high and it could come crashing down with a bad year. I've been a big Colvin supporter, but if you're going to stick with Pie in center than there is no room for Colvin anywhere. Veal is showing the first signs of becoming the pitcher who is always long on potential and low on production. Could he get his control together? Sure, but the chances of it are becoming less and less. You're not going to get anybody better than Roberts using those two players. In fact, I doubt those two would get Roberts. Roberts isn't a superstar, but he is a very valuable player.

They probably won't, though. Is it even possible that the Orioles could ask for more than 2 players from the Cubs for Roberts? So far this offseason, the Orioles have traded Miguel Tejada for Luke Scott, Troy Patton, Matt Albers, Dennis Sarfate and Mike Costanzo, in which at least 3 of those guys are 40 man roster guys. They've also signed Roberto Novoa, Guillermo Quiroz, Greg Aquino, Chris Roberson and a few other guys that may or may not be 40 man roster guys, then add in another 5 guys in the Bedard trade with only Kris Benson being released. How many 40 man roster spots could they possibly have available? And the team still would love to be rid of Mora, Hernandez and Payton. Just thinking about it from this perspective, if Baltimore isn't interested in a Marquis/Colvin package (with Colvin not required to be protected yet), I'm not sure how these two teams work a deal that the Orioles can be happy with. The Orioles only have to clear 1 roster spot from the Mariners trade. If they do a 3 for 1 with the Cubs and all 3 players have to be rostered, that's 2 extra roster spots that need to be cleared (making a total of 3 from the 2 trades). The Orioles still have enough bad players on their roster that 3 openings isn't really a huge deal. They'll probably take 1 or 2 questionable young guys off, and then trade a player like Payton or Gibbons for a low minor leaguer to clear the other spot.

Yeah, Belichick was already a good ways up the tunnel before the final snap was made. That's what people were upset about it. And yup, it's just another thing to add on the long list of Belichick's classless behavior. It just makes it even harder for people who aren't fans of the Patriots to root for them in any game.

Every feature that has ever been in Premium is present now. The only difference is that I'm now able to do it within a single set of web pages instead of having to have separate links for everything. so can you clarify what the current and future differences between regular and premium are/will be? I saw Tim say this somewhere, so I'll help him out here: Right now, the only difference between premium and regular is that premium members don't see ads. Tim doesn't quite know what improvements and mods will be added on to this version of the board software, but he'll investigate and as they're added he'll add more features to premium.