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Looks like Eyre will be a Cub next year. The 12th was yesterday, and so apparently he didn't file for free agency (as expected). http://mvn.com/mlb-cubs/2007/11/03/daryle-ward-back-with-cubs-in-2008/

Ward would be one of the worst defensive OF's in LF, but no worse than some of the other butchers out there. At the same time, I don't know if he'd hold up with a whole season of playing the OF at this point of his career.

This exact same thing was reported last year as well in the spring about both Theriot and Cedeno. Neither of them played a significant amount of time in the OF when the season started.

If you don't re-sign Wood with Dempster already going to the rotation makes the bullpen a little thin in quality arms. Suddenly you have a bullpen of Marmol, Howry, Wuertz, Eyre, Hart, Ohman?, and then still 1 more guy. That's a lot of question marks at the back of the bullpen. At the same time, 5 mil for Wood is awfully steep.

not really. the computers have the gators top ten iirc Computer rankings for Florida: 15th, 11th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 13th. So most have Florida just outside the top 10, although slightly higher than their 14th ranking in the human polls.

It's in baseball discussions, currently third thread down.

That's better. I'd like to see another BCS other than 2 ACC but I can't complain. Still...ok I will complain...8 home games and 4 away. 7 home games...4 away....1 neutral. how many top 25 teams play 5 roadies? (not many if any). This years Kansas team has four road games and a crap big xii schedule. Just looking at the top 10, it looks like 5 play 5 road games. 2 play 4 road games and 1 neutral, 2 play just 4 road games, and West Virginia played 6 road games this year.

=D> That line-up = about 70 wins. I think that's more than 70 wins...it would probably be a winning season, though probably not playoff caliber. there is no way that's a winning taem. that team would be awfully lucky to win 75. or they would just be awful. It's not that huge of a drop from this year's team. The differences are Floyd/Murton to Infante, Jones/Pie to just Pie, and the 2007 catchers. Infante is probably around a 100 point drop from Floyd/Murton (maybe 75, maybe 150). Pie probably won't be much worse than Jones and Pie combined to do in 2007 (because Jones had a down year and Pie was absolutely awful in his time last year). Soto is an upgrade over the 2007 catchers. So the lineup looks awful, but it's really not that much worse than the average lineup in 2007. With another good pitching year and another weak NL Central, they would be around 80-85 wins again with that lineup.

This scouting report predicted 3-4 years totaling $12-15 million over the length of the contract, but that was before he had the elbow problems. It's not totaling 12-15 million, it's 12-15 million per year over 3-4 years. Now I've heard that he'll probably get around 10 million per year.

It seems to me that people want to adjust both pitchers and hitters numbers higher when moving from the AL to NL. I'm not sure why moving him to the NL will help at all. Perhaps getting out of Comerica will make his numbers look a little better. It should be noted he does not hit much better vs left-handers. Career stats: .257/.301/.387 vs RHP .245/.290/.382 vs LHP I stand corrected on the hitting vs left-handers thing. I thought I was looking at career stats, but I somehow had switched back over to just looking at this years stats. I think people tend to believe the talent level is simply better in the AL right now, both pitching and hitting. Almost certainly the pitching in the AL Central has been better over the last few years than the pitching in the NL Central will be.

Nothing official, just little snippets like this: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20071105&content_id=2293279&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

That's actually a very good point about the home away splits. Here are the splits for his career: home- .233/.278/.343 away- .271/.316/.425 Take him to the NL and away from Comerica, and you may get much closer to those away numbers for a full season. I'd take that from a middle infield option. It's not good, but it's around average for a middle infielder.

You would think so, but last year was a bizarro year for Sampson. They were toward the bottom of the league in defense but they had the best offense in the conference. I would guess whether that repeats itself or not will depend on their freshmen because their offense will be damn good. Those stats are a lot more indicative of the way the Big Ten plays than IU's lack of defense. How so? Everyone in the Big Ten plays good defense. Right, but among those teams they ranked 7th in defense, 1st in offense. I'm not saying they played terrible defense overall, it was just a twist on what you would have expected from Sampson. I honestly don't know why they played that way in the Big 10. Their defense was definitely better than their offense though. To illustrate, here are some key non-conference games from last year: Duke- 54-51 Kentucky- 59-54 Southern Illinois-57-47 Gonzaga-70-57 UCLA- 54-49 There's their 5 big non-conference games, and the most points IU scored was 70 once (2nd best was 57) and the most points they allowed was 59 (2nd was 57). That's definitely a mark of a better defense than offense.

The Colts are fine in the conditions now. Their offense wasn't suited very well to it in 2004 and 2005, but now they have a much better running game and their short passing game is better than it ever was. Add to that a very good defense, and that's a pretty good recipe for playing in bad weather. In fact, the biggest question mark for conditions right now has to be NE. A heavy emphasis on the vertical passing game, and we'll see how their receivers do as the weather turns bad. In response to Cuse's question about who the Colts were playing with, on offense they had Wayne, Moorehead (yes soul, he is the son of Emory Moorehead) and a practice squad player Craphonso Thorpe for receivers. Clark missed the game, and their two tackles were a practice squad tackle and a guard because all 4 of their regular tackles got hurt. Those really hurt the Colts last night (the defensive injuries didn't hurt that badly because the Colts still played well on that side of the ball even with 4 starters out). Add all that into a poor game from Manning (only about 3 of the 6 INT's were his fault, but that's still a ton for Manning), and one of the worst special teams games of all times and the Colts still lost by 2. That game honestly didn't worry me in the slightest. The Colts have to figure out how to beat the Chiefs and Falcons with nobody healthy (which should still be possible) and then they will hopefully have most of the people back by the time the division rivals come calling.

I think most Colts fans were expecting the loss anyway tonight, which certainly softens the blow. To have the players out they did was incredible that they were still in the game. If they don't get some of these players back, I have no idea how they're going to field a team next week. They barely have the mininum number needed in 4 positions: wide reciever, offensive line, defensive line, and linebacker. They already released Luke Lawton and kick returner because they have so many guys hurt, and I have no idea who else they can release. Here's a breakdown of guys that weren't playing by the end of the game. #1 receiver #3 reciever starting tight end starting left tackle starting right tackle backup left tackle backup right tackle best defensive end best defensive tackle backup defensive tackle both starting outside linebackers dime safety

And now it goes the other way. That was interference on Weddle on the 5, or else Moorehead would have caught that.

Yeah, as a Colts fan I'll even admit we got away with one there :D. I do agree with soul though that I hate when that's interference simply because the pass was underthrown that much, but Jackson needed to have his head turned towards the ball for it to be legal under the rules.

5 interceptions? And they're only down 8 points? That's crazy. It's especially crazy when you add in the fact that the Colts have allowed both a kick return and a punt return for a TD tonight. It's been a strange game.

In 2 games against the Ravens, the Bengals now have forced 11 turnovers. Their other 7 games they have forced 10 turnovers.

No. This is a common misconception. Scenario 1: using the timeout before 2 minute warning After play 1-timeout Cleveland after play 2-2 minute warning Scenario 2: using the timeout after 2 minute warning Play 1-2 minute warning Play 2-timeout cleveland, 1:54 approximately left You save time by using timeouts before the 2 minute warning instead of after. The only situation you don't want to use a timeout before the 2 minute warning is if a play ends with 2:05 or under left. If it does that, then calling the timeout before the warning just gives the other team a free passing play (since the clock would stop automatically after the next down). In all other situations, you want to use it before. You got the scenario wrong. After the first play, they had to run a second one before the 2 minute warning regardless of whether or not a timeout was called. There was 2:55 left. Ah. Sorry for the mixup. They only had 1 timeout with 2:55 left? I don't think it matters which play of 1st and 2nd you call it on, it sets up the exact same situation each time.

No. This is a common misconception. Scenario 1: using the timeout before 2 minute warning After play 1-timeout Cleveland after play 2-2 minute warning Scenario 2: using the timeout after 2 minute warning Play 1-2 minute warning Play 2-timeout cleveland, 1:54 approximately left You save time by using timeouts before the 2 minute warning instead of after. The only situation you don't want to use a timeout before the 2 minute warning is if a play ends with 2:05 or under left. If it does that, then calling the timeout before the warning just gives the other team a free passing play (since the clock would stop automatically after the next down). In all other situations, you want to use it before.

Wow...TT, are you joking or drunk? The SEC has 11 bowl eligible teams this year...11. I think we'd played this game last year, and your SEC hatred is again clouding your judgment a bit, IMO. The SEC's weak teams consist of Ole Miss and Ole Miss alone this year. Vandy isn't bowl eligible yet with only 5 wins. The SEC has 10 bowl eligible teams, tied for the most with the Big 10 right now (not that the # of bowl eligible teams means that much for a conference's strength).

Cements Dorrell's fate. :D But seriously, the only guys you can find to lateral the ball are the offensive lineman? It's great seeing 300-lb Micah Kia rumbling witht he ball...and then throwing it forward. I couldn't believe he started running down the field on that play. If you're an offensive lineman still 20 yards or more from the end zone, don't run until you are almost tackled to pitch it. Find somebody to pitch it to immediately, and then block down the field like you're supposed to. As soon as he started running I knew he'd mess up the pitch.

It's Tejada. He's gonna get traded for way less than he's worth. The Orioles are idiots. I'd have to see it to believe it with Tejada. Angelos has blocked Tejada trades so many times that I can't believe he would ok a Tejada trade now for less than he's worth.

I just don't understand Hendry's logic on this. Where is Matsui going to play? Is he going to split time with Theriot at SS? Matsui has shown he's not capable of being a good shortstop in his time with the Mets. That's why he was moved to 2b. So does that mean Matsui is going to take over 2b? That seems like the most likely option, but why do you replace DeRosa with an inferior player? Just because he has some speed? Does this mean DeRosa is on the trading block, or is DeRosa just going to be some super utility player? I just don't understand. The only thing I do understand is that this sale of the Cubs needs to move faster because Hendry and Co. need to be replaced already. They have no idea what they're doing. Hopefully this means they think DeRosa can play SS, which puts DeRosa at SS/Matsui at 2nd against RHP, and Theriot at SS/DeRosa at 2nd against LHP. There is one thing that is true. If you're going to have DeRosa playing 3rd and the OF on any kind of a regular basis, you need another MIF. Matsui basically replaces Fontenot's spot on the roster, which is an upgrade, although how much of one remains a question.