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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

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.

which means-if the Cubs go with 12 pitchers, who exactly do you hope for (besides Wuertz of course-I know that you'd give one of the spots to him).

Those are not the only criteria-and at this point, things like RPI are basically ignored by the committee. For the last bubble teams, it's all about maximizing the top wins, minimizing the bad losses, and playing well down the stretch. Purdue is much better in the wins department, Illinois is better in the losses, and they both have finished well. Their profiles are very, very close-I'm not sure how anybody could say it was wrong either way it went. Also one last criteria that is sometimes used is which team you'd rather not face-I'll let people put their own opinions on that one, although I have mine right now for most of the teams in the tournament. I thought it was said explicitly that it is not taken into account "who you'd rather not face" And excellent word subtlety saying Purdue is "MUCH better" in the wins while Illinois is "better" in the losses. The thing is it's really the other way around, the only thing Purdue has on the Illini regarding wins is that they won the head to head matchup. Illinois has an extra win over IU to combat that. I'm not comfortable with a home win in a conference where road wins are impossible to come by being the difference between two teams. Especially when that same team lost to the worst team in the conference earlier in the year. The conference wins are very similar-it's in non-conference wins where it splits off Purdue's best 4 non-conference wins-Virginia, Depaul, Oklahoma, Missouri Illinois' best 4 non-conference wins-Bradley, Missouri, Miami (OH), Florida A@M The difference in Purdue's wins is decently big there. Looks even bigger when you put Florida A&M in as one of their best 4 when Austin Peay, Belmont, and UIC are all better. U of I's nonconference schedule is ranked 38 and Purdue's was ranked 92. They're both 7-3 in their last 10. Illinois is 9-7 in road/neutral games and Purdue is 5-9. The difference in their non-conference schedule is misleading. A closer look shows why this difference is not as large as it appears to be: Illinois Purdue Maryland-16 Butler-30 Xavier-33 Georgia Tech-52 Bradley-39 Virginia-54 Missouri-90 Depaul-68 Miami OH-102 Texas A&M CC-82 Belmont-117 Missouri-90 Austin Peay-118 Loyola-Chicago-100 Illinois-Chicago-160 Oklahoma-101 Jackson State-176 Delaware State-114 Florida A&M-184 Indiana State-141 Idaho State-192 Western Carolina-245 IUPUI-211 SE Missouri State-291 Georgia Southern-241 Wagner-297 Savannah State-289 Northern Colorado-336 Illinois played 3 teams in the top 50, Purdue played 1. Purdue though played 6 teams between 50-100-Illinois played 1. They each played 3 between 101-150. The reason their SOS is so different is because Purdue's 4 bad opponents have much worse RPI's than Illinois-once you get under 150 though, does it really matter? Both Purdue and Illinois should beat any team under 150 anyway if they are at 160 or 300. I would submit that their SOS is actually pretty equal when you correctly dismiss the differences between teams under 150 as inconsequential to a bubble team-they are all there for easy wins anyway.

Maybe they wouldn't be interested in what the Cubs are offering and would be interested in somebody else's offer. I was just pointing out that opting out of his deal gives ARod the biggest freedom, without too much of a risk of throwing away money. That's true, but he'd have to take a discount to play for the Cubs. I can't imagine our budget could handle a 20M dollar player, not at least without trading one or more of Lee, Ramirez, Soriano, Marquis, Lilly and not re-upping Z. If he wants to play for the Cubs as this rumor suggests, his best shot to do so without giving up much cash is to get the Yanks to eat part of his remaining contract in some trade scenario. If he cares more about the money, he should opt out and sign with Boston, who would love the opportunity to pay back the Yanks for Clemens. I obviously don't know Arod, but I'd think after being the highest paid player and being unhappy for so many years, taking 15-17 per for 4 years or something like that and playing in a town that will worship you and a manager that you respect would be something he could swallow. Yes, but the Cubs couldn't. At least not if they resign Zambrano, who will very likely make about 15-18 per season. Now, if the Yankees were to pick up about 4-6M per year of ARod's remaining 3 years, that, combined with what Texas is paying, puts him down into the 12-15M area, and the Cubs might be able to afford that and Z also. If the Cubs don't resign Z, it becomes easier to sign ARod at the price you mentioned. That's really a difficult choice. It's hard to stomach paying any pitcher what Zito got, even one who's young and effective. If the Cubs let Z go, ARod would be a great alternative this offseason, if he indeed does opt out. I don't see the Cubs getting both barring an absolutely brilliant trade, and even then, it would probably mean putting the Cubs into the 110M range with payroll in a couple of years, and I doubt the Trib is going to go that high. 110 mil is the payroll this year-did you mean higher than that? Is it that high? ESPN's salary page isn't accurate for this time of year so it's hard to tell. I thought the payroll was going to be around 100-105M this season. In the thread Tracking Cubs 2007 payroll (a sticky in the transactions thread) they have the latest payroll as 113.58 million. Now, they might not be completely accurate, but they have the closest figures from all that has been reported, so it's probably somewhere around there.

Those are not the only criteria-and at this point, things like RPI are basically ignored by the committee. For the last bubble teams, it's all about maximizing the top wins, minimizing the bad losses, and playing well down the stretch. Purdue is much better in the wins department, Illinois is better in the losses, and they both have finished well. Their profiles are very, very close-I'm not sure how anybody could say it was wrong either way it went. Also one last criteria that is sometimes used is which team you'd rather not face-I'll let people put their own opinions on that one, although I have mine right now for most of the teams in the tournament. I thought it was said explicitly that it is not taken into account "who you'd rather not face" Well, I did a quick search and I think this quote does say that the committee does take that factor into account (although I remember a more explicit quote than this-from Andy Katz's article talking about Texas getting in as an extreme bubble team:

What about Michigan State?

Those are not the only criteria-and at this point, things like RPI are basically ignored by the committee. For the last bubble teams, it's all about maximizing the top wins, minimizing the bad losses, and playing well down the stretch. Purdue is much better in the wins department, Illinois is better in the losses, and they both have finished well. Their profiles are very, very close-I'm not sure how anybody could say it was wrong either way it went. Also one last criteria that is sometimes used is which team you'd rather not face-I'll let people put their own opinions on that one, although I have mine right now for most of the teams in the tournament. I thought it was said explicitly that it is not taken into account "who you'd rather not face" And excellent word subtlety saying Purdue is "MUCH better" in the wins while Illinois is "better" in the losses. The thing is it's really the other way around, the only thing Purdue has on the Illini regarding wins is that they won the head to head matchup. Illinois has an extra win over IU to combat that. I'm not comfortable with a home win in a conference where road wins are impossible to come by being the difference between two teams. Especially when that same team lost to the worst team in the conference earlier in the year. The conference wins are very similar-it's in non-conference wins where it splits off Purdue's best 4 non-conference wins-Virginia, Depaul, Oklahoma, Missouri Illinois' best 4 non-conference wins-Bradley, Missouri, Miami (OH), Florida A@M The difference in Purdue's wins is decently big there-Illinois though has no bad losses, while Purdue has two-Indiana State and Minnesota. It's really about which one is valued more. As for that last criteria, I'm trying to look up that story because I'm curious about that now.

Lunardi has the #s wrong. Illinois has beaten MSU and IU twice. 2 of their losses came to Iowa and UM. That'd make them 3-9 at worst, and if you're being compared to the locks in the tourney, how does the Purdue loss get included in the #s? It's possible I heard him wrong-I wanted to make sure to get all of the teams in the proper spots quickly and get to the other game (I rewound and watched it again while I was writing that post), so when I put that statistic in at the last moment I didn't watch that particular statement again, but rather went off my memory from 3-4 minutes before.

Those are not the only criteria-and at this point, things like RPI are basically ignored by the committee. For the last bubble teams, it's all about maximizing the top wins, minimizing the bad losses, and playing well down the stretch. Purdue is much better in the wins department, Illinois is better in the losses, and they both have finished well. Their profiles are very, very close-I'm not sure how anybody could say it was wrong either way it went. Also one last criteria that is sometimes used is which team you'd rather not face-I'll let people put their own opinions on that one, although I have mine right now for most of the teams in the tournament.

Wow, and then only about .1 or .2 seconds went off the clock on that out of bounds, but the refs declared the game over anyway-I guess the refs can now make the clock say whatever it wants.

They're still looking at it. Apparently the clock might not have started on time so there may still be time left. They are messing this up-there was a timer's error. That shot never should have counted, but it did. The referees cannot change it, and arbitrarily putting time on the clock makes no sense whatsoever.

C'mon Stanford. The fascinating thing is that he said that once the committee closes nominations, they start to look at all the bubble teams records against the locked tournament field, not just necessarily certain RPI numbers. Apparently he believes that Stanford jumped up because of their good record in that particular statistic.