CubColtPacer

What defines a good conference tourney? Interesting matchups? Great Games? Bubble madness? Elimination games (loser misses the NCAA?)? There's so much that goes into a conference tournament that it's hard to say what is the best without the criteria to judge it by. low/middle seeds that have a chance to win. No clear cut favorite. Teams jockeying for NCAA tourney seeding (if not getting in period). Etc. Ah, well I'm biased, but I like the Big 10 tourney this year if that's the case. Any of the top 7 teams could win and I wouldn't be surprised (and possibly 8 if Michigan gets hot). The quarterfinals could have Mich vs Ohio State, who just played a thriller last Saturday and could do so again, Iowa-Purdue, which is a great even matchup that Iowa needs to win the tournament and Purdue needs to secure their spot, Wisconsin-Mich State, who have played two thrillers in the past 3 weeks, and IU-Illinois, which has this sudden even better rivalry going and Illinois probably needs it to get into the tournament. Because of how the bracket is going to have matchups, the Big 10 tournament is going to be unbelievable, and I don't think the top seeds have that much of an advantage over everyone else.

Thanks Bruce! It's nice to see that they are giving some time to Theriot at short. I'm not someone who wants Izturis replaced in-house immediately (I'd support a trade for a big upgrade, but I don't think that Izturis is going to be near the offensive black hole that people think he will be) , but the last staff avoided putting Theriot at SS at any time at all costs-it's nice to see that Piniella believes that he can at least play the SS position at a backup role.

I'm not worried about what these guys think I'm worried about what Mark Prior thinks and feels. I think that Prior is following the regiment that House has him on and it's going to be a gradual processs. My question is if as many have said that Prior has never had a pitching injury why is he taking so long to come back and what exactly is wrong with him? Well at this point he has to have a mental block as well. I really wonder if this isn't similar to the Knoblach, Ankiel, Sax thing. Could be, I was thinking that he has the superstar effect. I've seen kids dominate for awhile and when they finally hit the top level they meet failure for the first time and how they react to that shows a lot to me. I never liked what I saw from Prior when he was struggling and I'm not sure he has the mental makeup to be able to fight when he isn't on top of his game. He's still young and I hope he can prove me wrong but he has a ways to go before he can be the pitcher he was in 2003 or 2004. The 2003 Prior is gone. That's why it hurts so much we didn't win it all that year. I still think he can get back to being a good pitcher, his window is shrinking though. What is that stat or thing that posters bring out when a pitcher is overused? What was Prior at in 2003...I just thought of it, abuse rating. That or Dusty's stupidity. Game 2 we are up what 9-0 and we let him throw 130 pitches. Thanks Dusty, thanks a bunch. thanks for reminding me of this. the rest of my day is ruined. with a little luck and a lot of beer, i may be able to recoup later in the week. oh and great use of veres in a key spot. wasnt that his last major league appearance? theres a reason for that. I think it was his last appearance in the majors to this point-he still has a shot of being in a major league game this year with his comeback attempt.

What defines a good conference tourney? Interesting matchups? Great Games? Bubble madness? Elimination games (loser misses the NCAA?)? There's so much that goes into a conference tournament that it's hard to say what is the best without the criteria to judge it by.

Yeah, the Horizon league hosts their tournament at the site of their conference champ-Wright State got that honor due to a tiebreaker. It encourages more attendance at these games where if mid-majors tried to find a neutral site to play they might not sell out.

A division winner has to be 4th or better, yes. They are not guaranteed home court advantage though-home court in the NBA goes to the team with the better record, not the team with the better seed. so what's the point of being the 4th seed if the 5th seed gets home court over you? Well, it's not really about being the 4th seed for home court-if they didn't put that rule saying they couldn't slip any farther, than a team could win its division and be the 7th or 8th seed and have to play one of the top 2 teams in the first round. Being the 4th seed means they at least only have to play the 4th best team in conference at best (because the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd seeds would have better records than the 5th seed). That's the advantage a division winner gets in not having to face a top team right away-they don't necessarily get homecourt though. right, i guess that's true. So the good news is that if the Bulls stay stuck at #5, they could have home court over Toronto, for example, should the records stay similar to now Yup-and that wouldn't really be a bad scenario for the Bulls. It would mean that they would have to play the Pistons in the 2nd round, but as for first round matchups I think I'd rather have the 5 seed with homecourt than have the 3 seed and play Miami.

A division winner has to be 4th or better, yes. They are not guaranteed home court advantage though-home court in the NBA goes to the team with the better record, not the team with the better seed. so what's the point of being the 4th seed if the 5th seed gets home court over you? Well, it's not really about being the 4th seed for home court-if they didn't put that rule saying they couldn't slip any farther, than a team could win its division and be the 7th or 8th seed and have to play one of the top 2 teams in the first round. Being the 4th seed means they at least only have to play the 4th best team in conference at best (because the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd seeds would have better records than the 5th seed). That's the advantage a division winner gets in not having to face a top team right away-they don't necessarily get homecourt though.

Too old-Micah Hoffpauir will be 27 this year.

In a poll about who is the college basketball player of the year on ESPN.com, Kevin Durant is winning all but 4 states. One of the states he is not winning? Texas.

A division winner has to be 4th or better, yes. They are not guaranteed home court advantage though-home court in the NBA goes to the team with the better record, not the team with the better seed.

The NFL salaries are almost in the MLB Starting Pitching salary category. Exactly, but MLB salaries can just keep going up and up-the cap is not going to go up by enough each year in the NFL to be able to justify this escalation in salaries-teams will be in salary cap problems by signing mediocre players to these huge deals.

Daniel Graham-5 years 30 million, 15 million guaranteed-signed by the Broncos. This makes me laugh-the Colts signed Reggie Wayne to a 6 year, 40 million dollar deal with 13 million guaranteed and were criticized just last year. Now Graham gets almost the same amount being a middle of the pack tight end? The market is insane right now-with the NFL salary cap, any team that stays out of free agency right now will be in much better shape down the road.

You like Wright State? Or do you just not want a bubble team to get in? It 's over now-2 bids for the Horizon League apparently.

The strange thing is that Z is the pitcher I least want to see pitching during ST. I mean, Z is the one pitcher who we all kind of know what's going to be there Opening Day. I'm much more interested in seeing the other 5 starters (or starting candidates). Of course, when it comes to the regular season, I'll be more excited when Z pitches then the others :D

IMO, they are largely overblown. I think he had a bad week and a half stretch where he had multiple error games, but was fine before and after. One of those games was a game I went to at Carolina. I believe he had three errors total that game, including two in one inning. I think it was rather ironic that on the day this question was asked he commits 2 errors.

To have 4 errors and only give up 2 runs-that was a great pitching performance all around today. Good work.

Yeah, I'm around as well-anybody know who the error was on?

Cubs scored on Jones 2 run single after Epatt single and D-Lee double. Not completely sure on line on Marquis-he gave up a few runners, with only one flyball out and no runs through 3 IP.

Saying "hope I'm wrong" seems like he's giving him a chance to me. you're right. However "So other than sucking in 2002 and 2003". . and "suck at pitching" is not so positive. who said i was being positive about him? i said i hope he does well. listen, he's really pretty much sucked for the better part of the last five years (including sucking especially hard in the most recent season). if you want to pretend that didn't happen, go ahead. if he was on the cardinals right now, i truly doubt you'd have anything positive to say about him. so i'm not going to sit here and pretend i'm excited about him. and me doing that is not going to have any effect on anybody doing anything anywhere. I'm over it. Just forget about it. Be as negative as you want. would you have a positive outlook for marquis if he had signed with the mariners or the cardinals or anyone else in baseball besides the cubs? If I had heard they had fixed a supposed mechanical flaw? I'd say that he had a decent chance to be good, and a decent chance to be very bad-which is about what I'm saying now :D

I'd be fine with that-that's a good to very good 5th starter.

I still don't understand this one. A 2nd and 7th for Wes Welker? He's a 3rd/4th receiver and average return man. Getting a 2nd for him is surprising. I don't understand it either. I doubt the Pats would have given up so much in a regular trade-Welker was a RFA, and for the Pats to sign him away would have required 2nd round compensation anyway, so the Pats were going to lose that. By giving up their 7th rounder as well, they were able to sign him to a much smaller deal than they would have had to by just signing him. The question is-what do the Pats see in him that they want to sign him in the first place? I'm not sure, but they are pretty good at finding talent, and so I'm worried to find out.

Isn't it funny how every good GM has their niche in the draft? For example, Bill Polian of the Colts is exactly the opposite of Angelo. Polian is the best in the league at his first pick in the draft, and he is the best in the league at picking up great undrafted free agents. As you said, Angelo is the best at the time in between those two points. I just find it interesting that GM's have trouble in certain rounds, but do very well in others-it would seem to defy sense (I mean, a good talent evaluator should be a good talent evaluator all the way through) but it definitely happens.

And here's a complete overreaction to the deal by Steve Rosenbloom, and David Haugh. Wow-those are overreactions. It sounds like what the Chargers papers said last year when Brees was let go, or when the Colts haven't spent anything in free agency the last few years and have been ripped for it each time. Obviously it worked out for both those squads-this is probably the best move for the Bears as well-with the way both of them were unhappy, you really had to trade one of them.

I agree and that seems to be the stumbling block. Of course a trade for a good SS involving Jones and Izturis would be perfect. Who's even out there that would be an upgrade at SS other than ARod? Tejada Oh yeah, I forgot about him. I wouldn't give up the farm for him like I would have last year though. I'd love to find out how steep the asking price is. I'd do it for Guzman and Gallagher (and I'm one of Gooz's biggest fans), assuming Izturis is also involved. I can't see that being anywhere close. Remember how the Angels were willing to offer Santana and a top prospect or two (and the Astros had a huge deal also offered), and the Orioles said no. Angelos has declined so many deals for Tejada that the GM wanted to make-by the time Angelos would say yes, the Cubs would be giving so much talent that it wouldn't nearly be worth it.

Hutchinson? Walter Jones actually. I'm not sure about the rule, but he was the one who got franchised 3-4 years in a row and was not happy about it whatsoever.