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Not Ha though! A walk and a double for him. If they have any hope for him at all in center, I'm annoyed that they're letting Adduci play CF so often right now. My pessimistic side says that the scouts don't seem to like him at all so maybe there's not much projection in him, but then I keep coming back to that he is holding his own at a very young age at a premium position (if he's playing center).

Indiana struggles making shots at times and lives off free throws. They also hack a lot on defense. I'd be concerned about Indiana misses leading to transition buckets for Miami. And Indiana plays good team defense especially at the rim, but Lebron is so strong that it's hard to stop him at the rim. George specifically on defense tends to do best guarding smaller players who like to dribble, and he's done a good job on Rose the possessions he's been on him. I think the Indiana-Chicago series would get so physical again that they'd have to call lots of fouls, and that will serve to even the games up. Boston I know less about and am going more off the season series against the two. But I'm not sure Miami has much of an answer for Rondo, and Boston's frontcourt difficulties aren't that much of a problem against Miami. Bradley could match up with Wade, and Pierce makes LeBron work. Chicago's rebounding and ability to slow down Pierce would be my concerns with Boston facing them, although I think Boston has a better chance of beating Chicago in 7 games than Indiana does Miami.

I think it's natural for fans to do that (to look ahead to the first competition that is considered equal or better to themselves). The Bulls are better than whoever will be in the 4/5, although each of those teams will have a realistic chance of beating the Bulls in a series as well. But if I was handicapping the Eastern Conference and had to choose between Chicago/Miami as the ECF or any other combination, I think any other combination is a little more likely. It's almost certain one of Chicago or Miami will make the ECF because they are the best two teams, but they aren't so far ahead to think that it's extremely likely both will make it. Although the chances become much greater IMO for one of them to be upset if either Boston or Orlando flip seeds with Indiana (especially Boston). I don't think that is likely to happen, but IMO Boston-Miami and Indiana-Chicago gives better chances for an upset than the reverse. Atlanta could win the first round but almost certainly not the second, Orlando has a wide range of possibilities, New York has the potential for a huge upset but will likely go down quietly, and Philadelphia has no chance.

There's no exact date. It's sort of complicated. (warning, this is all sort of gleaned from various web sites, and with baseball you never know if there aren't some secret rules they just haven't bothered to tell anyone about). Every day on the major league roster (or the DL) during the regular season = 1 day of service time. Rizzo already has 68 days of service time. 172 days of service time = 1 year. However, the major league season is always a little longer than 172 days. It can vary year to year, but the most common season configuration is 181 days long. So he can get 9 extra days, give or take, per season just by being on the roster all year long. If we don't want him to be a free agent after the offseason of 2017, we have to make sure he has less than 1032 (172x6) days of service going into that offseason. Or put another way, we don't want his current service time + his 2012 service time + his extra days to get to 172. If he gains 9 extra days of service time for each of the next 5 years, that's 45, plus the 68 he already has = 113. That means we could afford to use him for 58 days this season before it costs us a year of eligibility in the future. Realistically, he has to stay in the minors until mid-August to be sure of not gaining the extra year of service time. You can't get more than a year of service time in any year. So those extra days will not help Rizzo.

Two sacrifice flies combined with no walks.

I don't think I'll ever understand how that team competed so well in Big 10 play. They not only won 1 game, but they had chances to win 5-6 others (most notably blowing IIRC was a 6 point lead to Michigan in the final minute). When the Iowa win finally came, it was considered to be finally finishing a game out rather than just a random occurrence. But that team had a lot of streaky inefficient shooters/scorers (Roth, Dumes, Jones, Story). When they were shooting the ball well, the team hung around. When they struggled, the team got absolutely destroyed.

slotting a 6-12 team losing their best player over B1G champs returning all five starters and adding a consensus top-10 freshman class, makes perfect sense I agree Michigan should be ahead, but who were they starting? They had 6 players playing more than 11 minutes a game, and they lost 3 of them.

The baserunning IMO is the right way to manage this particular ballclub. The risk/reward ratio of stolen bases becomes so much better when you're sending up worse hitters than normal. I just hope our runners don't learn any bad habits and remain too aggressive when the club gets better.

There have been a bunch, but I haven't seen too many since Burke went pro if you were wondering about Michigan's placement. Before he left, they were typically between 5-10 in the rankings, and one I'm seeing after he chose to go has them at 17th.

Your thinking lines up with mine until the end. I think Fleener was the obvious pick if he was there. It does look a little early for Ta'amu, but he is a guy they could really use. I'll gamble and hope he's somehow there next round. I don't think they'll take Reyes just because of his size, and the Colts have some quality players around that size already. I don't know much about the corners that are left, so I'll go wide receiver. Jeffrey seems like too much of a departure for the Colts so I'll take a risk and go Reuben Randle, LSU. But I don't feel good about it.

Exile, any thoughts? Obviously the Colts could use help all over the field. It's really strange looking at draft profiles and realizing the Colts are going to go after the complete opposite type of players than they did just last year.

The big question in evaluating 2012 was where the missing money went. The Cubs only spent a fraction of the money they had available to them. Why was that? I can think of 5 main possibilities: 1) The Ricketts have been lying all along and are really cash poor. This is an incredibly unlikely one because of all the other moves they've been doing. Dominican complex, buying the McDonalds, even bringing in the highest paid GM in the game. It just doesn't add up. 2) Theo had the money available to him and chose to put it back in the Ricketts pockets where he won't see it again. Another very unlikely scenario. Theo could have done lots of things with the money that doesn't involve hurting the future. Acquiring assets on 1 year deals, hiring more staff, building better databases. He wouldn't just give that much money back. 3) Theo had the money available to him, and chose to instead spend that money in future seasons. This one is a little more likely but still unlikely IMO. Once you raise the payroll again with that extra money you've saved, it becomes harder to lower it back again when that extra money runs out. 4) Theo tried to lure free agents, and they turned him down/haven't signed. Obviously, in some ways we know this is true. Cespedes for example turned down the Cubs who were pursing him. They are very likely pursuing Soler and have some money set aside for that. Who knows what other free agents the Cubs were close with. It still seems to be way too much of a money difference to just be striking out in free agency though, especially because the Cubs chose to fill most of their spots fairly early. 5) Theo had the money and chose to spend it on other areas of the organization. This one makes the most sense from what they've said. There's been lots of work being done behind the scenes this offseason. Minor league staff turnover. Front office additions. Dominican complex. Building the new computer database. Paying a second manager/general manager. There's been a lot of things that weren't present in the Hendry era that have more to do with the baseball side than the business side. So either Ricketts is paying out of his own pocket to make the improvements, or it's likely coming out of Theo's overall budget. I tend to think it's a mixture of 4 and 5. But whichever one you think it is dictates how hard Theo was trying. If he really only had 20 million or so to play with on the major league payroll, then his buy low moves look a lot better as an effort to make this team competitive. If he pocketed 30-35 million just because he could, then he's clearly trying to use his leash. If he didn't have the money available at all, then that's a potential major problem.

yay six man pen I wonder if the Cubs are the only team in the league with only 6? I know a couple years ago there was maybe only 1 team doing it. I am happy with it as well, but I'd be surprised if the Cubs haven't gone up to 7 by the end of May, and it will probably be before that.

What do you mean it averages 27.5% of the 2012 payroll? It only accounts for a percentage of the 2012 payroll once. It's pretty clear with all the money that most non-Cubs teams are willing to spend on players that money is expected to be there to afford all these players. Cincy's current payroll is roughly double what it was 7 years ago. If it doubles again that percentage will plummet. The obsession with payroll flexibility really confuses me. I would much rather have really good players than the flexibility to sign mediocrity. The Reds are closer to median payroll now than they were in 2004 which was the last time they were down that low. There isn't as much room for them to grow anymore, so they are dependent on MLB growing salaries across the board. I used the 2012 number because that's the only payroll number we know as of the moment so that served as a baseline. Obviously as I mentioned that percentage will go down as the payroll increases, but I would be stunned if there payroll was double or really anywhere close in the next 7-10 years. Payroll flexibility has to be balanced with the scarcity of playing time. For the Cubs, playing time is more scarce then money, so signing stars to that sort of deal makes sense. For the Reds, payroll flexibility is a big deal. They'll have some difficulty surrounding him in the early years because of how much his salary is, and in the later years he'll decline. That's a big problem. It's an even bigger one when they could trade him and get major assets back for him from a team who doesn't have to be as concerned by the financials.

Just Buford, unless DeShaun Thomas leaves. And they have a talented freshman group that mostly sat the bench this year. 0 recruits coming in at this moment. They'll be strong, especially with Sullinger, but I don't think most people expect he'll be back.

#Humblebrag Haha, I figured it might get taken that way. In this case, there's little to brag about...Indiana's question marks are still going to be question marks whether they're #1 or #10 to start. I'm just surprised. I wasn't for sure that they would be considered the favorite in the Big 10, let alone the favorite in the country. I guess most of the top teams from this year are losing significant pieces.

I'm surprised that so many places are setting IU as their early #1 team in the country for 2012 or at least top 3 (I'm guessing they're assuming Watford is coming back). Is there really nobody better on paper out there? I figured IU would start in the top 10 and maybe top 5, but I really didn't think they'd go right to the top. Of course which person ends up leaving IU to make room for the recruiting class might change that number.

This is sort of a compilation of previous posts, but this deal is bad on several levels. 1) There was no need to do this now. The Reds just took on more risk for maybe 25 million savings? That doesn't make much sense. There aren't many seasons Votto would put up that would significantly increase his price, and there are things that could happen that would make the Reds regret the contract quickly. 2) This deal averages 27.5% of the Reds payroll for 2012. The payroll will likely rise a little over time, but that's still a huge percentage to give to any one player, especially when you have little flexibility to get out of it if things go poorly. 3) The contract is already highly questionable to begin with if the Reds only options were to extend him or let him go to free agency. When you consider how much they could have gotten if they traded him, it becomes crazy. The pieces they would get and the payroll flexibility they would have would have a very high chance of being worth more than Votto alone. The big positive in this deal is PR. If the Reds can build their fanbase by showing how they're committed to keeping their elite players, then revenues go up and his contract isn't that big of a deal. But I'm not sure how much of a realistic possibility that is.

They are only in front of Milwaukee by 4 games. Missing the playoffs wouldn't be impossible for them at all. I would be surprised if they fell below Milwaukee only because 4 games is a lot to make up over a 15 game span, and I really don't think Milwaukee is good enough to win 10-12 of their final 15, which is what it will probably take. The second to last game of the season is Philly at Milwaukee and that game also decides the tiebreaker, so that could be an interesting one if the race tightens between now and then. Philly struggling now is not a surprise. They had a ridiculously easy schedule the first 25-30 games, and since then they have been paying for it. They still have a crazy good point differential because they are 24-8 in games decided by 10 points or more and 4-15 in single digit games. The Atlantic division race should still be interesting as well. Boston is playing the best, but their schedule down the stretch is brutal. Philly has easier opponents but a lot of road games left, and New York has a mix of both. Philly has the tiebreaker over Boston but not the Knicks. Then of course you have Indiana and Atlanta fighting over who gets to likely get homecourt advantage over the Atlantic winner with the loser having to go to Orlando. I'd have to imagine that Atlanta would be ok with either scenario since they match up well with Orlando, while the Pacers really don't want to play the Magic.

They're one Zeller away from a bottom third finish. Hopefully he wises up and cashes in. I doubt even losing Zeller would send IU to bottom 3rd. Probably 6th or 7th (which is still a steep drop from the 1st-3rd that they'll be likely be predicted to finish otherwise). The 2012 team without Zeller or Watford would be young, talented, and would severely lack size. How many minutes Perea and Jurkin were ready to contribute as freshman would go a long way in figuring out how good they could be. They'd still be very talented at the 1-3 positions, but they'd probably have to play a lot of 3 guard and 4 guard lineups in that scenario. Of course, that's all hypothetical because I don't think Zeller is leaving.

I mean, things are pointed in the right direction. But has he really exceeded your expectations? He's exceeded mine. Crean is returning IU to a place it hasn't been in 20 years. This year was only the 2nd time in the last 15 years or so that IU had a 4 seed or better in the NCAA tournament. Next year should be even better. 2013 and 2014 look very bright as well with the recruits that have already been lined up. He took a program that had been in decline for some time that was currently in shambles and made it relevant again. Was I hoping that year 3 might have been a little better? Sure, but I didn't expect that one of his best players would actually be a liability because of injuries either that year. And year 4 was wildly above my expectations. I wasn't sure Crean was the coach that could get Indiana top 10 recruiting classes and competing for national championships again other than the Mike Davis 2002 way. And now the first part has been done, and the 2nd part looks very hopeful.

The scary thing is that you are right about how bad his 2011 was (though the .280 BABIP didn't help), but it was still probably the second-best 2011 of anyone in the current lineup. Stewart and Barney were the only ones that were clearly worse though (and of course LaHair is an incomplete). Castro was the only one that was clearly better. DeJesus should have been better than Soto last year even though his results didn't show it. Soriano probably had better peripherals than Soto as well. Byrd was around the same as Soto. And Soto earned that BABIP last year. It is a little under what you would expect from his LD percentage, but his putrid 14.2% IFFB percentage is a big reason why for that, and he actually had more infield hits than his average is. Plus his line drive percentage and BABIP are only slightly less than .1 apart for his career, which makes sense since he's pretty slow.

Soto's numbers were pretty bad across the board last year (nothing like 2009 when he was an obvious bounceback candidate going into 2010). I wouldn't be hitting him 8th, because even with last year's numbers he isn't the worst hitter on the team. But it is very concerning to have that bad of a season without at least some sort of reason for it.

Unless they trade Garza, I don't see selling being that big of a damper on the win total. They may trade Byrd to make room for Jackson, but unless Byrd is having a big year that isn't much of a downgrade if at all. Rizzo will likely come up midseason and probably be as good or an improvement. Wood or Wells can come up and provide decent production and be close to just about anybody in the rotation besides Garza. The parts they're going to want to sell are for the most part just won't be all that valuable to the club this year.

He had one more option. He had to go through optional waivers because of how much service time he had. So if he gets to the minor leagues, no one claimed him (although it is a courtesy not to claim players in that situation since the Cubs could pull him back).