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That's what I'm most excited about-not even that he hasn't given up many runs at all, but the fact that most of his outs are ground balls-if he continues to do that, he'll have a good season.

You're ahead of my radio by a mile, but that's because I don't get this game :D Thanks for the pbp Vance-it is much appreciated.

Link? I don't think an unbiased interpretation of Lou's quotes shows anything except the obvious fact that Prior can't pitch in the regular season the way he has pitched in ST. He said in the game thread that Lou's quote was from the radio pre-game show today.

Yeah, the Big 10 gets his services every year for the final since it's the last CBS game before the Selection Show-isn't it just wonderful? Oh yes - this is going to be wonderful. Yesterday during the Wisc game all he talked about was how the Big Ten was boring because they don't score 70+ a game. Yeah, I don't understand why they keep having him do Big 10 games when it's clear he doesn't like the conference very much and some of the time doesn't know the names of the players on the different teams.

Yeah, the Big 10 gets his services every year for the final since it's the last CBS game before the Selection Show-isn't it just wonderful?

Are you wanting Jones packaged because you feel Pie should be in CF on opening day? no, because i want murton to play everyday. So you're willing to make the season much harder to do that? If you trade Jones now, you either have Pie in CF (where the offense almost certainly suffers) or you have Murton in RF and Floyd in LF everyday, which is a disaster waiting to happen-if it be from terrible defense or Floyd breaking down. Well it obviously wouldnt be a pre-season trade so we would have the luxury of seeing how things play out in the OF as well as give Pie some more time in AAA, so take a big step back from the jump to conclusions mat. Except by including Miller in the discussions he almost certainly meant before Opening Day, along with wanting Murton to play everyday suggests that he wants to make this trade in March or April.

Are you wanting Jones packaged because you feel Pie should be in CF on opening day? no, because i want murton to play everyday. So you're willing to make the season much harder to do that? If you trade Jones now, you either have Pie in CF (where the offense almost certainly suffers) or you have Murton in RF and Floyd in LF everyday, which is a disaster waiting to happen-if it be from terrible defense or Floyd breaking down.

NC State looks tired-they are really standing around on offense now.

i think that marshall should be actively shopped, if he hasn't been already. sending him to the minors might decrease his perceived value. then again, other clubs should know that he won't make the big club anyway so it might not have a huge effect. but i don't see marshall having much of any part in the cubs' future. I definitely agree with this-Marshall's value comes in that he could be a decent major league pitcher very soon. He can't really increase his value in the minors (I can't see him raising his ceiling very much), and so each year he stays in the minors it will only decrease his value-with the Cubs having plenty of top-end pitching prospects, I'd trade Marshall now.

NC State is trying their hardest to come back-it's tough when every time Hansborough gets the ball they call a foul (I've agreed with most of them but some of them have been bad calls). Ok, now that I post this they call a travel. NC by 3, a little over 5 minutes left.

True-Buerhle being bad would hurt the White Sox more than Prior being bad would for the Cubs.

Thanks-I thought that I had heard something like that, but I didn't want to speculate on an injury report without being sure.

Also, look for Cliff Floyd's debut on Monday as well. That's all good news. The flexibility of having Soriano and Jones being able to play center could possibly help roster decisions, and having Floyd available and hopefully hitting well can only continue to strengthen the club.

That was a smart move by the two of them-if they get off to hot starts, they get added quickly before they have a chance to cool off. If they don't get off to a hot start, they would have the rest of camp to impress the staff. I think you're right that I bet the Rangers add Sosa now instead of letting him be a free agent with the way he's hit so far.

It looks like Lou has a pattern-every time there is a "B" lineup, one of the two starting outfielders has been in the 3 spot to anchor the lineup. When the regulars come back, those outfielders usually then get a day off-in this case Jones. Since Floyd won't play till tomorrow or Tuesday, Coats has gotten a lot of at-bats recently, and I'm not sure where Pagan is, that leaves Colvin to take that spot for the day.

Isn't the committee forced to ignore the Big 10 championship when it comes to seeding? Usually, yes. They possibly could construct a bracket with 2 different scenarios based on which team wins the game if they feel it's important though.

Indiana is still getting in over Illinois. They each have no bad losses, and Indiana has the better wins-wins over Wisconsin and Southern Illinois, while Illinois doesn't have that sort of win on their resume (both teams have a win over Michigan State, Illinois has 2 wins over IU, IU one over Illinois, IU has a win over Purdue while Illinois does not). That puts IU higher on the pecking order than Illinois. Could the fact that the BTT tournament was in the United Center come back to haunt the Illini? The committee could see that it was almost a home game in each of their two close wins-they might factor that it when deciding how much of a neutral site it really was. You can call it a home game agaisnt PSU, but I have hard time seeing the argument vs. IU and Wisconsin. They panned over the crowd during the IU game, and a large part of it was orange-there were definitely many more Illinois fans than IU fans there.

I can't agree-Prior in each of his starts averaged more runs per inning than Buehrle did-the only reason he only allowed 4 runs each time was that they pulled him. Prior wasn't pulled yesterday. :-k Maybe I should have phrased that more clearly-Prior most likely would have given up more runs if he had gone more than 1 2/3 innings and 2 innings in his 2 starts, such as if had gone 4 innings like Buehrle did.

Welcome to the forum! To answer your comment, that is a pretty common thing with the top players coming out. For example, Jeff Samardzija just insisted on being on the 40 man immediately as well when he signed a contract with the Cubs earlier this year. It's much more likely that it was designed so that the Cubs would have to bring him up to the majors in a certain period of time than to avoid steroid testing. Besides, I'm pretty sure that even people on the 40 man roster were tested as long as they were playing in the minors, so that wouldn't make any difference anyway.

The Patriots get Donte Stallworth-6 years, 30 million, 12 guaranteed If he can stay healthy, this is a really good move-that's a definite huge question mark though. http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2794615

Indiana is still getting in over Illinois. They each have no bad losses, and Indiana has the better wins-wins over Wisconsin and Southern Illinois, while Illinois doesn't have that sort of win on their resume (both teams have a win over Michigan State, Illinois has 2 wins over IU, IU one over Illinois, IU has a win over Purdue while Illinois does not). That puts IU higher on the pecking order than Illinois. Could the fact that the BTT tournament was in the United Center come back to haunt the Illini? The committee could see that it was almost a home game in each of their two close wins-they might factor that it when deciding how much of a neutral site it really was.

I can't agree-Prior in each of his starts averaged more runs per inning than Buehrle did-the only reason he only allowed 4 runs each time was that they pulled him.

Lunardi just likes to hear himself talk this time of the year. His last Bracketology posted on Espn.com has the last four in as Purdue, Illinois, Drexel, and Old Dominion. The last four out are Air Force, Florida State, Kansas State and West Virginia and next four out are Missouri State, Stanford, Appalacian State and Mississippi State. What in the world could Kansas State and Stanford have done for themselves since this morning that moved them up to the last four in? Either he was full of you know what this morning or is now. He just moves teams around so his reports seem interesting. Not that it really matters, Illinois has one and done written all over them this year. But they are more deserving than Kansas State and Stanford. Yep, well said on everything. Kansas State and Stanford have no right in being ahead of Illinois for a spot tomorrow. Lunardi is becoming an egotistical, arrogant meathead these last couple of years. And I'll agree that Illinois has one and done all over them. BUT, that does not mean they should be snubbed over a couple of other undeserving teams. I don't know about Kansas State but Stanford most definitely deserves to be in over Illinois without question. Yeah, Stanford's RPI of 65 and Strength of Schedule of 36 is WAY better than Illinois RPI of 31 and Strength of Schedule of 31. I am sure an argument could be made either way, but "most definitely" and "without question" is a bit overstated. 10-8 in the Pac 10 is better than 9-7 in the Big 10. In conference, Stanford beat UCLA, USC, WSU, Oregon. Illinois' best win is Indiana twice. Stanford played more games against the Top 100 in the RPI and went 9-12, while Illinois went 7-10 though the extra games and wins were against teams between 51-100 in the RPI (both went 4-8 against Top 50). Stanford played in a better conference and beat better teams and before you play the record game, I'm sure Illinois record would have been a bit different had they played Wisconsin and OSU twice in the regular season rather than just once. And Illinois got both those two teams at home. I'm sure Stanford would have preferred to not have to travel to play UCLA and WSU also. Technically, the at home thing was a problem for Illinois. The rule in the Big 10 this year was-the 3-8 teams could only beat the 9-11 teams on the road, and only Ohio State and Wisconsin could beat everybody on the road. If Illinois had only played Ohio State and Wisconsin on the road instead of at home, that meant they would have played Purdue at home instead of on the road (the other game would have been Penn State, who they would have won on the road or at home). They likely would have beat Purdue at home, and so if they had played Ohio State and Wisconsin only on the road instead of only at home their conference record would be 10-6 instead of 9-7. They did get a break that they only played OSU and Wisconsin both only once in the first place though-the home thing was just not an advantage for them. That was what I was trying to get at. I was implying that had they played Wisconsin and OSU twice in place of another team, they likely would have had at least one more loss, if not two. That's actually probably not true. If they would have played them again, it would have replaced two other road games. UI only won two road games out of 8 in conference play (NW, Minnesota). For it to have resulted in an extra loss, 1 of those two games would of had to have been replaced, which would only be a coin flip that they would get one of those games and add 1 loss. It would be very, very unlikely that both of those would be replaced.

Lunardi just likes to hear himself talk this time of the year. His last Bracketology posted on Espn.com has the last four in as Purdue, Illinois, Drexel, and Old Dominion. The last four out are Air Force, Florida State, Kansas State and West Virginia and next four out are Missouri State, Stanford, Appalacian State and Mississippi State. What in the world could Kansas State and Stanford have done for themselves since this morning that moved them up to the last four in? Either he was full of you know what this morning or is now. He just moves teams around so his reports seem interesting. Not that it really matters, Illinois has one and done written all over them this year. But they are more deserving than Kansas State and Stanford. Yep, well said on everything. Kansas State and Stanford have no right in being ahead of Illinois for a spot tomorrow. Lunardi is becoming an egotistical, arrogant meathead these last couple of years. And I'll agree that Illinois has one and done all over them. BUT, that does not mean they should be snubbed over a couple of other undeserving teams. I don't know about Kansas State but Stanford most definitely deserves to be in over Illinois without question. Yeah, Stanford's RPI of 65 and Strength of Schedule of 36 is WAY better than Illinois RPI of 31 and Strength of Schedule of 31. I am sure an argument could be made either way, but "most definitely" and "without question" is a bit overstated. 10-8 in the Pac 10 is better than 9-7 in the Big 10. In conference, Stanford beat UCLA, USC, WSU, Oregon. Illinois' best win is Indiana twice. Stanford played more games against the Top 100 in the RPI and went 9-12, while Illinois went 7-10 though the extra games and wins were against teams between 51-100 in the RPI (both went 4-8 against Top 50). Stanford played in a better conference and beat better teams and before you play the record game, I'm sure Illinois record would have been a bit different had they played Wisconsin and OSU twice in the regular season rather than just once. And Illinois got both those two teams at home. I'm sure Stanford would have preferred to not have to travel to play UCLA and WSU also. Technically, the at home thing was a problem for Illinois. The rule in the Big 10 this year was-the 3-8 teams could only beat the 9-11 teams on the road, and only Ohio State and Wisconsin could beat everybody on the road. If Illinois had only played Ohio State and Wisconsin on the road instead of at home, that meant they would have played Purdue at home instead of on the road (the other game would have been Penn State, who they would have won on the road or at home). They likely would have beat Purdue at home, and so if they had played Ohio State and Wisconsin only on the road instead of only at home their conference record would be 10-6 instead of 9-7. They did get a break that they only played OSU and Wisconsin both only once in the first place though-the home thing was just not an advantage for them.

Yes-time change tomorrow, and Arizona doesn't change times-so that's why the normal starting time for the games suddenly moved from 2:05 CT to 3:05 CT. Idiots!! (Apologies to our one poster in Tucson.) Well, I lived with it most of my life in Indiana as well, but thankfully last year we gave up one element of our backwards ways :D