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BP didn't pick us 5th-that was BA. BP picked us either 1st or second IIRC, and they love our offense overall.

In general, that has been his problem but that really wasn't evident today. Frandsen got a bloop hit ahead of the homer. It can happen to any pitcher. He finished off more hitters today than recent memory. 3.1 IP/ 4H / 2R / 2 ER/ 4SO/1 HR Yes, more hitters than in recent memory. But he's still not at 03 levels. The changeup would help a lot with that. I mentioned this earlier. I haven't seen him use it much at all this spring. I really wonder why. I said a few pages back that he may be keeping it in his back pocket for the regular season. Have a new wrinkle to show hitters. Plus a change up is more effective the second time through the order. Might be his starters mentality not wanting to show it off right away to hitters when he comes into the games. But why? Why wouldn't he work on it in spring training? How is he going to throw it effectively if he isn't practicing throwing it now? And why hold it back? It's not like he's been facing the Astros or Cardinals in spring training. He's been pitching against the Angels or the Giants, teams that he won't see at all this year or will only see once or twice. The whole point of spring training is to work on your pitches. I really do wonder why he isn't working on his changeup. The Cardinals and Astros might not be in in Arizona, but the scouting department is. Including the guys who normally would be looking at the draft right now. They are getting double dipped. As Bob Sanders said the change is there and he is working on his other pitches. Trust me, the pitching staff is doing enough throwing in the side sessions to work on anything they want. Then the daily throwing is another time to work on change ups and fastballs. I taught a guy to throw a split finger and let him toy with it during daily throwing for two weeks. We worked in the pen a week, including not tipping pitches, and then turned him lose with it. It was a nasty pitch and replaced his curve as his out pitch. The moral of the story is that you dont always need to work on things in a game setting to develop them. I don't know why Guzman was holding back though when he was trying to win the fifth starter position. One big reason why he dropped out as a candidate was because he couldn't finish hitters off in games-the change would have helped with that. If he wanted to win the fifth starter job, why would he willingly choose to not use a pitch that could be a big benefit to him winning that job?

Wow-I thought that my bracket was messed up, but somehow I'm up to #2 in that pool. The only game we have differently now for the rest of the tournament is Florida-Oregon-if Oregon wins that game, then I think that's worth 4 points, which is the number I'm behind.

I think she meant that he has a better idea of how to work the hitter, change speeds, and move the ball around the zone instead of using his fastball to just overpower hitters. I think that's how she'd define being a "better pitcher"-to use much worse tools to achieve the same results. The part I disagree with her about is that Miller is close to that form that he was in 2001. I think he has the capability of that, but he needs to show me many more good starts before I think he's that good-right now, I'd classify him as adequate at being a 5th starter.

I don't buy this. After playing and coaching for many years, I just don't think "acting" jobs happen that often, especially in the heat of a moment of a tight NCAA game. Things are happening too quickly to stop and think like that. Now, once players hit the ground, sure some acting goes on. But its giving Xavier's player a ton of credit to think that in a split second upon being hit he decided to put on the act while flying out of bounds. Yeah, I don't think he was acting-but I do think the way his body was positioned it set him up for a harder fall then Oden actually pushed him with. It also needs to be taken into account that this was at the end of a long scramble where there were at least a couple trips and pushing that the refs swallowed their whistle on, so they already were letting some contact go.

I think that illustration was just an example of the larger point. When I talked to my Mariners friend when Lou was hired, he said that he liked young players but that he would quickly deal with anyone who refused to listen to him. He specifically brought up the example of how Boone was defiant towards Lou a lot, and that got him traded to the Reds. This illustration seems to reinforce that point of the consequences of defiance on this club.

When looking at DeRosa, remember also that 1) The fifth spot is not at all foreign to him-he spent almost as much time there as any other spot for the Rangers last year. 2) As Laura said, against a left-hander he is definitely a better option than anyone else for the 5 spot in this lineup. 3) He hasn't gotten very many hits against Zito, but he has drawn 6 walks in 26 PA's and out of his 4 hits, 2 have been HR's.

Theriot in LF and Floyd in RF? Seems to me it would be a better defensive alignment if they switched-of course, they might just be testing Floyd in RF so they can decide if they ever want to think of putting him there during the season or not.

The question is though, why would a team give up anything knowing now that the Texans pretty much had to cut Carr if they couldn't work out a trade. Why give up a pick needlessly and then go through having to re-structure the deal? On to your other points: 1) Not from what I was hearing. What I gathered was that either Williams or AJ Hawk would be the first defensive player to go. But both would likely be gone in the top 5-7, not really worth the risk to trade down if Williams was truly the man the Texans wanted. 2) No disagreement here. That was an awful trade for the Texans, despite the good return they got. 3) I don't see anything that even hints that they didn't make an effort to trade him. Everything I've heard is that they tried all offseason making it known he was available and trying to ship him off. It's just everybody knew he would be cut and were willing to pick him up on a 1-2 year deal. I thought the Jets really wanted Bush and wanted to trade up? It's true, the Jets were at least somewhat interested in trading up-every mock draft had Mario Williams going #2 to New Orleans though, so if Houston had dropped down to #4 they would have missed their chance to draft him.

CBS never switched the game-that was bad. Oregon was up 2 shooting free throws with a second to play, and they never even switched over. They ended up hitting both, so it didn't matter, but UNLV almost had a shot to try to tie that game at the buzzer.

UNLV is coming back quickly-this was a 12-14 point game that now has a small chance of being a close game-6 point game, 1 minute left.

Wow-I was sceaming for Green to kick that out, but he somehow knocked it in anyway. Great shot for him, and it just seems like the top seeds cannot lose this year. 3 1's and 3 2's are already in the Elite 8, and it could be 4 1's-this is just ridiculous. The silly person who picks chalk every year will actually probably win this year.

The play where Horford starting backing in from the free throw line or so and bumped Crone 3 times and then made the basket plus fouling Crone out of the game was just a killer for Butler.

4 minute timeout-Butler down 1, heading to the line.

Butler's getting into some bad foul trouble now-unfortunately, their foul trouble and Florida getting into the bonus might be their undoing. Butler's up 1 at the 8 minute timeout.

This appears to be the type of game Butler wants though. I'm watching the Vandy/Georgetown game so I don't know the pace of the other for sure, but it seems to be a slow, low-scoring game - which favors Butler. What channel is the game on? I've got the Butler vs. Florida game on CBS, but that's it. CBS is airing both games in different regions-myself, I'm watching Georgetown-Vandy on my television and Butler-Florida online.

Oh well-Butler played awful for most of the half, A.J. Graves had some shots that he normally makes and has 0 points, and Florida is hot from behind the 3 point line, and Butler is still only down 6. That's not really that bad at all-if Graves can pick up his game in the 2nd half, it will be very interesting.

These might be the worst announcers ever in the Butler-Florida game. That's the 2nd time that the officials signaled for a timeout, and instead James Brown called it a jump ball and gave it to the wrong team. Not to mention, he said that Sidney Green was Mike Green's father from Butler, not the correct choice of Taurean Green's father from Florida. It's just brutal how bad they are.

There you go Butler! I hope they don't panic when Florida makes their inevitable run, but if any team doesn't usually panic, it's Butler (fewest turnovers per game in Division 1).

Come on Butler-you're getting the shots you like to get-now let's knock some of them down!

I think you mean the kincks-2 years, 1.6 million http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2809958 It would be the first time that I can remember where a player might play in the NCAA tournament and the NBA playoffs in the same season.

Kevin Hart-a pitcher with a high K rate but not much else. He's not much of a prospect. The interesting thing is that Bynum gets a hate on here that some of our other bench options at the beginning of last year do not get, and he was easily our most productive bench player that was here at the start of the year.

Ok-here is my trading so far Damon for Tejada Baldelli for Uggla Markakis for Adrian Gonzalez Beltran, Jenks, and Barrett for Crawford and Hamels So here's my team now: C-Mccann 1B-Adrian Gonzalez 2B-Uggla SS-Tejada 3B-Teahan OF-Guerrero OF-Crawford OF-Carlos Lee Util-Bill Hall Bench-Cuddyer Bench-Renteria Bench-Luis Castillo DL-Nick Johnson P-Halladay P-Daisuke P-Rich Hill P-Hamels P-K-Rod P-Todd Jones I will have two extra spots available now. I'm thinking of picking up Corey Patterson and either Borowski/Dempster. Are those good pickups, and is there any other part of my team where I need to get stronger?

The cut Domanick Davis as well. Their GM should realize that you can, you know, trade players that are on your team and get something back. It said in my link that they tried to find somebody to trade Carr to, but nobody would trade anything for him.

If Ronny turns into a viable starting shortstop, that might be Lou and Co's greatest accomplishment. I would tend to agree with that, and I think it's possible (although not this year) if they put him in situations where he can be successful and allow him to gain confidence and become more composed at the plate instead of wildly hacking at everything. The errors on routine plays, the wild swings, they were all indicative of a player who had lost all confidence and was trying too hard to do anything to get it back.