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I don't know what more it will take to make it a rivalry. The players don't seem to like each other. The fanbases don't seem to like each other. And the teams are not horribly mismatched anymore. The Bulls are still definitely better but the Pacers are coming fast, and both teams should continue to improve in the next couple years. If there was a playoff series between them, the Bulls would be favored but the Pacers would have a shot to actually win the series. Will it actually take the Pacers beating the Bulls in a playoff series to make it a rivalry? I think that's a pretty strict definition that would lead to pretty much no rivalries in the sport.

IU will have lots of opportunities to move up and down in the next few weeks. They're already done with Ohio State, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Penn State. Only 1 game left against Michigan State and Michigan. There isn't really an automatic win or loss left on the Big 10 schedule for them.

I can't decide if the officiating was horrible in that game, or if Indiana just didn't copy Wisconsin's defensive strategy to guard the 3 point line, and then when people drive past you just hammer them at the rim and hope the officials swallow the whistle. Indiana only attempted 8 3's tonight and yet Wisconsin only got called for 10 fouls the entire game.

Yeah, him and Bianchi. I wonder if Corpas cleared already or we may lose him still. Personally, I kind of figure he'll make our opening day pen, if he's around. I doubt he's got much of a chance to make the opening day roster if he's being outrighted at the end of January. Ahh, good point. Maybe Sonnanstine has the better shot? I just figure we'll have some sort of "veteran presence" hanging around, other than Wood and Marmol. On the other hand, having a pen full of Dolis, Beliveau, Carpenter, maybe Gaub or Mateo, could be fun to go along with Marmol, Wood, and Russell. In a kindasorta throw away season, you'd probably develop 2 of those guys into guys you think of as solid contributors for the future. 1-2 of Samardzija, Wells, or Volstad will likely also be in that bullpen.

Would a Szczur move likely be the corresponding move to Jackson being called up? IOW he'd see one or the other. I wouldn't think so. Szczur hasn't proven himself at Daytona yet. He'll either start at Daytona and likely move up to Tennessee during the year, or they'll be aggressive with him and have him at Tennessee the whole year. He shouldn't be at Iowa (or Chicago) until 2013.

How does that preserve the late-inning excitement? The thing that drives the decisions at the end of a game is that you have a spot with a really poor hitter in it. Keeping a DH in the 9 spot does nothing to help that. Starting pitcher spot. Presumably, once the starting pitcher is removed, he's saying you either let the reliever bat or use a pinch hitter. A home team will be slightly disadvantaged in such a situation if you simply allow them to use the DH until the starting pitcher is removed. If both pitchers goes 6 1/3 then the DH can't bat in the bottom of the 7th, but he would have been eligible to bat in the top of the 7th. Oh, I like that idea. As you showed, it does have some flaws. But it brings even more strategy into the game like picking your DH carefully since he won't be available at the end of the game, and also how long to ride your starting pitcher based on if you're hoping for another bat for the DH. It does seem a bit too out there to ever be adopted though.

How does that preserve the late-inning excitement? The thing that drives the decisions at the end of a game is that you have a spot with a really poor hitter in it. Keeping a DH in the 9 spot does nothing to help that.

Yup, the Pacers had 50. Although the Bulls had 40 of their own. And I think that's the 3rd or 4th time the Pacers have had 50+ this year. Pacer fans were excited to see that Hibbert had a good game against the Bulls. We thought he was much improved, but he's always had a lot of trouble against Noah. I'm kind of surprised with the Bulls injuries that Korver only got 10 minutes last night. Watson a little bit too, although he wasn't hitting anything. The Bulls starters played even more minutes than usual didn't they? I know they play more than most teams, but averaging 38.2 minutes among the 5 starters seems high. (the Pacers starters also played more than usual-averaged 34.4 last night with the top guy playing 37 minutes).

I have a feeling both sides will be saying that after every matchup this year. They're both physical and with tough defense and that creates some interesting sequences out there. The one near the end of the first half and then the one at the end of the game were loose ball situations that I haven't seen much of in other games. I still don't see the Pacers being able to beat the Bulls in a 7 game series (especially since I know right now the Bulls are a lot more banged up than the Pacers are, who are basically just missing Foster), but the games will all be really tough.

This part isn't really true. The NL has better #7 and #8 hitters than the AL #8 and #9 hitters. Even when you compare it 7 and 8 to 7 and 8 it's close. The worst hitter besides an NL #9 hitter is an AL #9 hitter, and it's not particularly close. The NL does seem to put poor hitters in the #2 spot though. Here's last year OPS advantages: #1 spot- NL by 11 points #2-AL by 62 #3-NL by 12 #4-NL by 33 #5-AL by 22 #6-NL by 3 #7-AL by 9 #8-AL by 5 #9-AL by 164 Total: AL by 20 I was surprised to see from how much we talk about sluggers going to the AL that the NL led in both the 3 and 4 spot last year, and by a decently large margin in the 4 spot. Oh well. I'd still rather have the DH. And does this track back consistently? I looked at the last 3 spots in the lineup for the last 6 years and with some normal statistical variation, yeah (sometimes the AL had a larger advantage in one spot, but for example in at least 2 of those years the NL 8 spot was better than the AL 8 spot). I wonder if the AL advantage is truly to the DH or because AL teams are in better markets/have more money than the NL. If there was the same amount of money available, then the AL spending big money on DH's should be able to be counteracted with the NL having more money for other positions. I don't think adding the DH will help the NL's imbalance much at all.

This part isn't really true. The NL has better #7 and #8 hitters than the AL #8 and #9 hitters. Even when you compare it 7 and 8 to 7 and 8 it's close. The worst hitter besides an NL #9 hitter is an AL #9 hitter, and it's not particularly close. The NL does seem to put poor hitters in the #2 spot though. Here's last year OPS advantages: #1 spot- NL by 11 points #2-AL by 62 #3-NL by 12 #4-NL by 33 #5-AL by 22 #6-NL by 3 #7-AL by 9 #8-AL by 5 #9-AL by 164 Total: AL by 20 I was surprised to see from how much we talk about sluggers going to the AL that the NL led in both the 3 and 4 spot last year, and by a decently large margin in the 4 spot.

You think Szcur had to be close to making the top 10 OF list? I know opinions vary on the guy but I didn't think there were even those who were high on him that would list him up there. Last year, BA had only 10 OF listed in the top 100 prospects (12 if you count guys like Alonso who were listed as 1B/OF). Sczcur is supposed to be in their top 100 list this year. So Sczcur could very well be close or on some top 10 lists as an OF, but that doesn't necessarily say much about him being an elite prospect.

No it wasn't. It was a setback to teams that are willing to spend more in the draft. The Cubs were one of a few organizations in that position. Everybody has enough cash to spend bigtime in the draft, and more and more teams were doing it. 10 teams broke the 10 million mark last year. And the market sizes of those teams were all over the board. The CBA helped the teams who hadn't caught on yet and it's a significant problem for the Cubs in the short-term, but the trend was showing that it wasn't going to be an area of advantage for any team for too long.

Eli Manning strikes me as a whiner who makes that "the reciever ran the wrong route" face every time something goes wrong. Of all the reasons to dislike Brady, having played at Michigan is not very high on the list but it's still on the list. If Brady wins, I'd still take Joe Montana. It seems like the Giants defense gets more credit for the first super bowl win. Also his recievers that made incredible catches at critical times. Whether that's fair or not is open to debate. If the Giants win this one, he'll probably get most of the credit. Yeah, we all know that QB's get too much credit / blame. My question is, within the ranks of QB's, where would Eli rank? Eli shouldn't rank all that high IMO. The two playoff runs should count for a lot, but only 2 to 3 regular seasons where he was good to great is a big problem. He still turns the ball over way too much which is part of the reason his team hasn't been that good in the regular season (they've only won more than 10 games once in his career). If he keeps churning out regular seasons more like this past one for 6-7 more years than that would start to shoot him up the list. Brady was always an overrated guy that somehow developed into an unbelievable QB over the years. He shouldn't get the lions share of the credit for the SB's (barely any for the first run, and some for the next two). But he's been dominant for years now, and really his only flaw is that he makes bad decisions when his team is up in the 4th quarter. Another SB would put him very, very high IMO.

I would agree the schedule hasn't been great so far. But they are beating these mostly bad teams on the road (10 road games vs 5 home), and they've played decently against the good teams so far (beat LA at LA, blew out shorthanded Atlanta at home, got blown out at Miami, lost shorthanded at Philly). So I think the expectation level is that they won't get trounced by the good teams when they start coming around more.

Expectation level: 4th/5th seed. Optimistically hoping for the 3rd. As for championship, who knows. Probably either somehow convincing someone like Howard/Williams to come to Indy, or having George or Stephenson develop into a star. Both of those are possible but neither very likely. Signing/trading for Eric Gordon to add to the team has been talked about on Indiana boards ad nauseum as he might be the one decent star who would want to come to Indiana. Or they could try to luck out and win one like the Pistons did with no stars. The scenarios aren't great, but that's about the only ways they could go rather than try to get the #1 pick on the right year. They've done everything right so far-they have a young, deep team with lots of cap space. But their market is going to hold them back from so many options, so they have to tread carefully. I do think the current core as constructed has better potential than the Hawks ever did (more like the 90's Pacers level of potential) but even that team didn't win a title even after getting to the ECF 5 out of 7 years.

Who? Edmonds definitely overachieved, given his age...and Dempster definitely did have his best year (although he has continued to be pretty good since). DeRosa probably had his best year. Can you really say that anybody else significantly overachieved? Lee underachieved pretty significantly. I expected more out of Kosuke. Soriano's year wasn't anywhere near a career year (although it was probably his best year as a Cub and probably the most you could reasonably expect out of him). Their bench really overachieved that year. Hoffpauir with 73 AB's and a .934 OPS. Fontenot with 243 and a .909. Johnson with 333 and a .778. Blanco and Cedeno were also better than most of their careers. Only Ward was worse. Zambrano also had his best year hitting of his career. Each of them separately weren't that important (except maybe Fontenot being 150 points better than expected) but together they really overachieved. Then as you said Edmonds did much better than could be possibly expected, Dempster's ERA was a lot better than even his peripherals would have said it should have been, DeRosa had a career year, Theriot had his best year, Soto and Soriano had their second best years. Harden's ERA was ridiculous, Samardzija somehow kept getting out of jams, and everyone else on the pitching staff was about as expected. Howry, Lee, Fukudome, and a couple of minor pitchers were the only ones who were worse than expected. It was no shock that the next year a large percentage of the same team came out and won 83 games. They were probably a 90 win team that overachieved greatly, lost a little in the offseason, and then underacheived a little the next year.

Yeah certainly, and Roy Hibbert, wow. Thoroughly outplaying Bynum with a broken nose was beyond impressive. He should make the All-Star team. Also, love when Granger plays D, and he's returning to that this year after an extensive layoff. Yeah, it's been a really fun year so far. Pacers are quite enjoyable to watch, lots of good players, but no super star. Also thrilled for Roy Hibbert; I've been probably the biggest proponent of Hibbert since he was drafted. Nice to see him doing well -- and, selfishly, proving me right, ha. My worry about Hibbert was always how he was going to fit in that run and gun offense. Now that O'Brien is gone, he is really blossoming. And his biggest improvement is on the defensive end. You could see the skills from his rookie year, but he was a foul machine back then. The Pacers not finding a backup scoring wing has hurt a little bit, and with Foster out backup C is a little bit of a concern. But this team doesn't have very many holes, and they should keep getting better as the season goes along (as players like George/Collison/Hansbrough get more experience and West's knee continues to get stronger). The next few weeks could be pretty bumpy though before a soft March/April schedule.

Maybe you didn't follow the Cubs as closely in the early part of the decade. 2003 was the year that the was supposed to be the beginning of dominance for a decade. The 2008 team was the end of any relevance. but in terms of which team was better, it's not even close. the 2008 team was completely stacked. That 2008 team was not stacked by any stretch of the imagination. They didn't have any holes, but they were basically just good everywhere instead of having any real greatness. 2003 had a HOF RF and what should have been 2 HOF starting pitchers at the beginning of their careers. 2003 had the feeling of a team on the verge of continued dominance and 2008 had the feel of a complete one-off opportunity. I agree 2003 had that feeling, but it really shouldn't have. By the end of the year, here were the offensive players on the roster under age 33: Alex Gonzalez, Ramirez, Patterson (with a torn ACL), Choi, Ramon Martinez, and Simon. That's it. The starting pitching was really exciting, but the offense needed to be completely rebuilt and the bullpen didn't have any young stars either. It was a good start to a great team, but it still had a lot of holes. 2008 was dominant only because a bunch of players had career years. It was a very good team that overachieved all season long.

Dungy was criticized by many for not being a good game coach. They derided his philosophy of "do what we do" and refusal to make adjustments especially in playoff games when other teams were throwing in new wrinkles. I'm not sure I completely buy it, but it's out there. I don't remember Dungy being criticized for timeout/challenge issues like Lovie is though.

No it doesn't. Who do they have to squeeze into that roster? The bottom 3-4 guys are probably all going to be garbage. What's the point in getting jumpy now? If nobody was going to offer much of anything and the Cubs were going to pay all of it, then the best bet always was to try and see if he can get hot in time for the trading deadline and then cause somebody else to do something stupid. The upside of Sappelt getting that playing time >>> the upside of fantasizing that Soriano's trade value at 36 is going to improve. There's also the thought that acceptance of advanced statistics for pitchers are well behind what they are for hitters. So if they put a better defense behind the cost controlled pitching the Cubs have, the more the can artificially inflate their trade value. Those arguments are both significant, but I'm not sure if it makes up for the fact that it's only 2.7 million savings either. The Cubs can probably get more at some point, but the question becomes is the extra amount worth the opportunity you're losing by keeping him.

Obviously not the most recent but I'd like to get a Herschel Walker return for Forte :) Edit: I'd settle for a Ricky Williams like trade too Ricky was a decade ago. Marshawn Lynch was recently dealt for very little. Reggie Bush netted next to nothing. The Chargers tried to trade Turner but he left via free agency. I can't think of any meaningful RB trade in recent memory. The Colts traded Marshall Faulk in this type of situation and only got a 2nd and a 5th (although apparently the Dolphins offered a 1st and was turned down because the team wanted him traded to the NFC). That was also over a decade ago. It's very unusual for a star runningback to be traded because of money though so as you said there aren't many data points to consider.

Because he couldn't hit but still played, and received praise. Therefore he must be good at defense. Plus the Cubs won a lot when he played his first couple seasons, and then right as his reputation was growing he had the season where he threw out a bunch of runners. Add in how inconsistent Soto has been (which increases the hype for the backup), and it's pretty easy to see how Hill's reputation has just grown a life of its own.

You could also say the Western Conference is really good at defending their homecourt: Eastern Conference: 51-38 at home, 44-69 on the road Western Conference: 78-34 at home, 28-60 on the road So the Western conference has a 12 game lead on the East so far, but has played 23 more home games!

Allen's contract isn't bad. I think he could fetch a decent amount of talent without having to take on a bad contract in return (the only issue is how receptive teams are to a rental). They'd have a really hard time finding a Garnett deal that would work. I'm not saying give up right now. But I think that should be a significant option by March. Limping into the playoffs as the 7 or 8 seed and hoping the very old roster can somehow turn it on in the playoffs and immediately beat one of the two favorites doesn't seem to me to be a great risk. Not being able to sign West in free agency and then immediately losing Green really hurt.