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Piniella played the matchups today (Cedeno was 3 of 6 against Lowery) and it worked out! Great job Cedeno.

Carr got released today: http://www.houstontexans.com/news/detail.php?PRKey=3377&section=N%20Latest%20News Let's just say that I didn't expect this.

BTW, I heard when Callis was on the radio yesterday (from another board) that he likes Graffanino and Counsell for the Brewers, but that he doesn't like DeRosa or Izturis, and they said that Callis implied that he was surprised that Theriot was a major leaguer at all. With all those assumptions, it makes it easier to understand why he would pick the way that they did, although I wouldn't personally make many of those assumptions.

Just had to point out that I feel that this is just very inaccurate, unless you have an extremely demanding definition of "a lot." Do you realize how bad the production out of CF and 1B was for the Cubs last year? Even average seasons out of Lee and Sori would be vast improvements over last year. Yeah, but we could very easily be last year's Phillies, with tons of runs scored, but enough allowed to negate that. That's true-we could be that. The only pitching staff that I can see in the division though that is probably better than the Cubs though is the Brewers. Everybody else has serious question marks, and most have serious question marks in both the rotation and bullpen, while the Cubs have at least more than 1-2 quality arms in the pen.

Now that's a lineup I like to see. Somebody noted that Izturis's ABs are pretty low this spring. I think it's interesting that Ronny is in there. I can understand why-Ronny is the last position player if they are deciding to keep or not this spring-it makes sense that they want to get him PA's to find out if they need to make a trade or not. As far as Izturis's AB's being low, I don't think it's that surprising. He has batted no higher than 8th for all but about 3 games, and he's not all that far behind some of the others in PA's. For example: Soriano-50 Jones-47 Lee-46 Ramirez-46 DeRosa-45 Izturis-37 Before today, he has started just as many games as several of the other starters (Sori, Jones, Lee, Ramirez), 1 more game than DeRosa, and 2 more games than Barrett.

Contract has a lot to do with it. Ideally or not, he was signed as the 4th starter if anything. 5th starter has been discussed as a battle between Miller, Prior and kids ever since November. If he was a 5th starter then his status wouldn't have been as locked down as it is. There was never any question that he'd be in the major league rotation. He's not a 5th starter. His contract demands that he does a whole hell of a lot more than put up a 95 ERA+ type of season to be considered to have "done his job". I disagree, and I base it on all the other pitching salaries that were signed this offseason. Look at some of them that were around Marquis: Name Last 3 years ERA+ Adam Eaton-87, 90, 92-3 years, 24.5 million Miguel Batista-101, 109, 104-3 years, 25 million (note: being 36 by the time the season starts this year has a lot to do with his contract) Vincente Padilla-96, 96, 104-3 years, 33.75 million Mark Mulder-106, 117, 62-2 years, 13 million Orlando Hernandez-136, 87, 95-2 years, 12 million (40 years old) Here's Marquis-113, 103, 73-3 years, 21 million All of these players have something bad about them, which is why they signed for as little as they did. For Batista and Orlando, it's age. For Eaton, it's just that he hasn't been good. For Marquis and Mulder, it was being terrible in 2006. Padilla has been a little better but still not great, but he got more money than everyone else on this list. How many people on this list could you reasonably expect to be over 100 ERA+ this season? 1/3 of them? The money Marquis got in the most current pitching market is consistent with a slightly below average pitcher. Therefore, if he performs like that, he'll be right at what the market says he should be at. Edit: BTW, that's all the salaries that are around him. I didn't just pick out the bad ones-I tried to pick out 2-3 year deals that were around the money per year that Marquis is making, and I think I got all of them. That is the whole market for paying that type of money to a pitcher.

What backcourt player are the Pacers eyeing? They have huge voids at both guard spots. That GS will put them in mediocrity for many years... That's the problem-it seems like 9 of the top 10 picks are big men. The problem for the Pacers is if they don't get a top 10 pick, they won't have a pick in the draft at all (1st or 2nd round) and that definitely won't help them get any better. If they get a top pick, they may just have to pick a big man and blow up the team through trades.

And at least half of them have been ticky-tack crap. the officiating in that game was awful... are these really the best college basketball refs? They must be, and that's the sad state of officiating. I've seen it in high school games too. Officials just seem to be getting worse all the time. This game was weird, though, in the fact that they would let obvious calls go (JaJuan getting thrown around on the final rebound) and call ticky-tack fouls (hand checks right beside each team's bench) all second half. It honestly looked like two completely different officiating crews in each half. No excuse though, we had a 20 point halftime lead - we should have won that game but we blew it. Believe me Dew, if you saw that play again, you'd agree with me on this one. I've watched it about 5 times, and it was completely incidental contact-the OSU guy was backing up to run down the court and the UT player almost fell on top of him-if he had fallen to the ground, the officials might have been forced to make a call, but there was really no foul there.

The officiating in the game might have been biased towards OSU, but in the last minute if anything it was to UT-the only real questionable call was the one on OSU where the two players hips just happened to collide while the UT player was on the way down. no way, really? What pisses me off more than this game is the fact that Ohio State should already be out. Greg Oden throws a guy out of bounds and somehow that's not a flagrant foul. Go Memphis, then go UNC/USC/Georgetown/Vandy. Please don't let this overpaid, undeserving team win a title. A little bit of hatred there? If we are going to correct all the calls from that previous game, then a foul on Xavier should have been called on the rebound just as an intentional foul should have been called on Oden. Those two non-calls were both bad and canceled each other out. I only said maybe it was biased towards OSU because I wasn't watching that carefully for most of the game, so I only have the people I trust here who says the officiating was biased to fall back on. I did watch the final minute closely though-multiple times, and there were no bad calls that went OSU's way in the final minute.

The officiating in the game might have been biased towards OSU, but in the last minute if anything it was to UT-the only real questionable call was the one on OSU where the two players hips just happened to collide while the UT player was on the way down.

It wouldn't have mattered if Oden had blocked that or not, the ball was still on his fingertips when the light came on. A great game though-it just feels like the higher seeds are going to find a way to advance this year no matter what for some reason.

I was under the impression that there isn't a football-level strictness regarding those kinds of situations, especially when there's a split-second difference. Not usually, but when looking at a clock situation like they were, it is strict like that where the whistle is the absolute end of the play. But since the clock never even started, would that still be the case? The answer is I think yes, since it says in the timers responsibility that the clock is to be stopped even on any inadvertent whistle, but that's an interesting situation that I'm not sure the rules cover that for sure. It would be my understanding that it would have to stop on the whistle because the whistle stops the play (what is there had been somebody running to save it who stopped because of the whistle for example-they shouldn't be penalized for all the extra time that came off the clock before it actually went out of bounds), but I'm not sure the NCAA ever envisioned a scenario quite like that.

I was under the impression that there isn't a football-level strictness regarding those kinds of situations, especially when there's a split-second difference. Not usually, but when looking at a clock situation like they were, it is strict like that where the whistle is the absolute end of the play.

LOL-now they are trying to correct what they said (at halftime of the UT-OSU game) and say the refs were right to take that time off in the Memphis game, completely ignoring the fact that the whistle blew. Even when they correct themselves, they can't get it right :D

It's going to be an emotionally draining game-lots of 8-2 runs each way. Hang in there during the roller coaster.

one second isn't going to make a bit of difference. It makes a huge difference right there-if he had one more second he could have sidestepped that defender and then dribbled up to the 3 point line-with the time he had, all he time to do was sidestep the defender, so he just decided to launch the shot while straight on rather than moving to his right. Whatever Great argument. One second makes a huge difference in that situation. Yes. Maybe one more dribble and 3 more feet. Increases the shot percentage by a lot I'm sure. Are you drunk right now? The difference between 3.1 and 2.0 in that situation is huge. I realize you made a claim and now you want to stick to it, but give us a break. Sober as a judge. How about you?The difference wasn't 3.1 and 2.0. It was whatever it was when the ball touched the floor and the Memphis player touched it and it went out of bounds. So 2.7 or whatever and 2.0. Maybe one diribble and three more feet. One dribble for a D1 player covers about 5 feet at least. Think about how big they are. Yup-and if you watch the replay carefully, the guy catches the ball 3-4 feet from halfcourt, and is a foot or 2 past half-court when he pulls up with 1.3 left and launches with 1.0 left-if he had another .7 seconds, he drives past that guy and gets 8-9 more feet and launches the shot right before the buzzer instead of with a second left.

Four minutes until gametime. I'm pretty freaking nervous right now. :shock: It's a lot longer than that until gametime for you guys-the start time for the game now appears to be 10:17-30 minutes after the first game at that site ended.

one second isn't going to make a bit of difference. It can make a ton of difference, but the call was right. It wasn't out of bounds until it was touched by the guy at the scorer's table. It might not have been out of bounds until then (when watching the replay, I agree with that) but the referee's whistle blew well before that. I timed the time between the hand touching the ball and the whistle a few times with my stopwatch-it should have been about 2.7 on the clock.

one second isn't going to make a bit of difference. It makes a huge difference right there-if he had one more second he could have sidestepped that defender and then dribbled up to the 3 point line-with the time he had, all he time to do was sidestep the defender, so he just decided to launch the shot while straight on rather than moving to his right.

You saying UCLA will get the calls over KU? I haven't watched enough UCLA to know if they're one of those teams (a la Duke), but I've never thought they were the overwhelming beneficiary of calls. I thought that they were definitely the beneficiary of a lot of calls in the last 6 minutes last game, and when I talked to 4 fans who went to the game who are more Pac-10 fans than anything they agreed with me, but I have no idea is that's something that happens on a routine basis or not. Of course, watch out for Ben Howland being the 6th defender on an inbounds play :D

KU definitely caught some breaks. It happens in every game. Does it suck for SIU? Yeah. But that's how sports work. That's how sports works, but that doesn't mean the refs shouldn't be called on it. Exactly-by a day or two from now, it won't matter-but it was pertinent to a game thread like this is because it affected the game. Edit: BTW, I'm not saying that Kansas didn't deserve to win-they definitely could have won even if those calls were reversed-it's just not known for sure which way it would go.

All Raisin is saying is that KU had more opportunities to make mistakes and still win because of the referees. Both teams could have minimized their mistakes and played better, sure. However, they played pretty equally and made about the same number of mistakes-the difference in the score could certainly be attributed to a few calls by the referees. SIU still had their opportunities to try to make up that disadvantage, but they shouldn't have been put at that disadvantage to begin with.

I liked the shot attempt-SIU isn't the type to be able to get a quick layup, and a 3 like that is better than any other 2 point attempt. He got a clean look at the basket, it just didn't go down.

They switched me to the Kansas-SIU game for about 30 seconds, and have now switched back to A&M and Memphis-they better switch back out of timeout. Here it is.

Yeah me too! Stupid ass econ exam. I HATE YOU ECON. I'd be careful with that kind of language around here... If it makes you feel better, it hates me too. It's too late. You already got Raisin going. My prediction for tonight: Tennessee wins by 9. To be fair, the Mizzou Economics department is a freaking mess. Agreed. When a 50% is passing and possibly a high D, you know the class is whack. I've heard of classes where 50% was an A :D