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Did anybody see this one coming? I dont remember ever reading the Pats being interested. From PFI... While not completed the number will be basically be $7.5 million per year and $17 million guaranteed. Yeah, I knew the Pats were interested all along-they have the space, and their linebackers are getting very old-I was just hoping that SF would land him instead, but they decided to go with Clements I guess.

http://news.bostonherald.com/blogs/patriots/ Uh-oh-according to this, Adalius Thomas is about to head to the Patriots.

I'd hold up on the predicitons for a while. Most of the players these guys are playing against aren't going to be around once the season begins and many times ST numbers don't carry over into the regular season. I put much more faith in PECOTA than I do ST. I didn't really say much about predictions-the players I'm watching are for the most part to see if they are healthy or if they have changed their mechanics. I'm just seeing if anybody has any other people they're watching. For example, I'm not watching Soriano or Ramirez that closely because their ST results will tell me almost nothing about their season, while those whose production only suffered because they were hurt can prove they are healthy during ST.

Murton has actually all 4 RBI's-with 2 outs, Izturis, Lee, and Ramirez loaded the bases, and then Murton drove 2 home, and Murton later had an RBI single after an Izturis double.

Who is Perez? Tomas Perez-a player that's kind of like Neifi, but he's not likely to make the squad anyway.

Who are you watching in ST? What players do you think need to do well, or you're closely watching to see how they bounce back? Here is some of my list Major league hitters: Lee, Murton, Izturis, Floyd Floyd's hurt, so not so good there. Lee, Murton, and Izturis all have come out of the gate doing very well the first two days though. I am watching those 3 to see if Murton can gain more PT, and because Lee and Izturis are coming back from injuries and there is a wide range of projections for them. Major League Pitchers: Prior, Marquis, Hill, Wood Marquis is the only one who has pitched so far-he was ok yesterday-neither good or bad. The other 3 haven't taken the mound yet. Minor leaguers: Pie, Colvin-Pie to see if he's close to ready, and Colvin just because I haven't seen him much before and see how he handles the majors a little bit during ST.

Well, the connection to Hairston wouldn't really help-Hairston didn't come to the Rangers until DeRosa was already having a career year.

Very good rally from nobody on and 2 outs. Izturis got it started, Lee and Ramirez kept it going, and Murton brought some of them home! Very nice to see.

Ok good batting by the Cubs that innng, and especially to Murton for taking one out! I'm guessing Z will be gone now-there's some interesting pitchers that are going to pitch today and tomorrow. I'm looking forward to see how they are doing.

I'd be a little surprised by that. I'm looking at their schedule online right now, and they have nothing about the Angels game-they say they have regular ESPN programming on there right now. Nope, it's there but they have blackout restrictions. Hmm-it's usually different when a station is blacked out, believe me, I've had it happen to me something like 5000 times :D -but I'll take your word for it, because you're obviously listening to it so it must be true no matter how strange it is :D .

I'd be a little surprised by that. I'm looking at their schedule online right now, and they have nothing about the Angels game-they say they have regular ESPN programming on there right now.

BTW, for those who are listening to the game, did they say what station it was?

Who was the one guy that was signed as a franchise player? The thing I never understood is why players get so pissed off at being franchised. The only people it hurts are those who are clearly the best in the league at their position. For a guy like, say, Asante Samuel, he'll be guaranteed almost $8M this year. Generally it's a good thing to be paid the average of the top 5 salaries at any given position. Carolina signed Sean Gilbert as a franchise player from the Redskins about 10 years back-it was called "the worst move in franchise history."

yeah, i mean marshall faulk and edgerrin james were dealt for second round picks, and they're pretty good. Bears would at best get a first round pick from a team with a low first rounder. First and third I definitely don't see happening. Most teams aren't as dumb as the Raiders were (in the Randy Moss trade). Technically, James was never traded-but the trade market for him was at best a low second or early 3rd (that was reported), and yup, Faulk got traded for a 2nd and a 5th after putting up a year where he had 1319 yards rushing and 86 catches for 908 yards receiving-so your point remains solid that it just wasn't possible to trade these great players for good draft picks.

I don't think the Bears would take less than a first for Briggs. I could be wrong though. I can't see the Bears taking less than a 1st + another pick for Briggs. That's why they franchised him. The franchise player rules state that if the Bears don't match another team's offer, they'll get two 1st round picks as compensation. True-but what is being discussed here is a straight trade and what the Bears would accept for him. Nobody is going to sign Briggs as a franchise player and give up 2 1st rounders. That's only happened 1 time in the history of the league, and it worked out terribly for the team that did it-I don't see it being repeated anytime soon.

I'll agree that Briggs isn't elite, but he's by far the closest thing to it that could be available this offseason. He's young unlike London Fletcher and Joey Porter and is a multi-year probowler coming off a Superbowl appearance. A team w/ money and without a ton of holes will likely be willing to give up that for Briggs. True, and the Colts are going through the same thing with Cato June right now (who had 1 pr bowl appearance, young, and is coming off a Super Bowl appearance)-I'd put Cato at a notch below Briggs (even more so because Cato is too small to play in some systems) but the Colts fans are realizing now that some team is going to make him a crazy offer that the Colts will not match. I think a 1st is very possible for Briggs, and looking at some of the other trades for people already in the league, that's usually about as high as it goes-there has been really no player in the league already who's been traded for more than that in years that I can think of.

I don't think the Bears would take less than a first for Briggs. I could be wrong though. I doubt they will either unless Briggs wants to play hardball with them-the only other way that I could see it is if the Bears think they have to let him go after the season (franchising him again is possible, but with the 20% increase every year it gets too costly very quickly).

To throw my 2 cents in (not sure my thoughts are worth that much-so make me an offer, and I'll negotiate :D) I can't see the Bears getting more than a 1st for Briggs (or something equivalent, like a 2nd and 3rd or 2nd and 4th). Teams value draft picks so highly because they are cheap talent-giving up a 1st for a guy like Briggs, a very good to great linebacker but not elite and then giving him a huge contract would be about as far as a team would go, IMO. If you look at trades for established players, they just never get as high of a draft pick as you might think they would in return.

He's not upset about money-he's still upset about Payton holding him out of the NFC Championship game. I think it's still the coaches call on allowing injured players to play, but Horn has done so much for them that if he says he's ready to go I'm not sure that they shouldn't have just trusted him and at least go out there and try for a quarter.

Did anyone else grimace at the last quote in that article, where he says they got the bases loaded, and they had the right guy (Ward) at the plate? Well, that is what he is supposed to do-come in during the late innings and be the main pinch-hitter in a key situation.

It seems about the right pick for Plummer-but Tampa Bay? I don't think that's a great fit for him.

Interesting. If Lou is dead set on a lefty in the 2 slot here I'd rather see what Pagan could do there than Izturis. Pagan's not an option for the two spot on a regular basis though-it's Murton, Jones, DeRosa, or Izturis-Piniella said he is looking for patience there and the ability to hit fastballs and hit the ball to all fields. I don't mind Izturis there for now-if he shows those abilities, then that's great. If he doesn't, let's find it out in ST and not during the regular season. I agree but I would rather see him get some AB's to show what he has or doesn't have. Ahh-yeah, I'd definitely put him in front of Blanco-it's not like Blanco's AB's are really going to be important in spring. I do think Lou cares more about finding the proper lineup order though then evaluating the different possible 25th man candidates-it's an interesting question of which is more important right now. Well let's hope that Lou's son tells him how bad of a hitter Izturis really is! Well, as I think you know, while there's a decent chance Izturis will be really bad I also think there's a decent chance from a close analysis of his numbers that he'd be all right-I'm hoping this spring indicates that he's returned to be the latter than the former. Care to give me the details of your close analysis? I see at best a guy who could possibly hit .300 given an incredible amount of luck, and due to a lack of plate discipline and power would still be pretty worthless offensively. Defensively of course he should be pretty good, so I can live with him if he is the 8th hitter and everyone else in the lineup hits well. Well first, if he does hit .300 he'll be a very good #2 hitter-his plate discipline is getting better every year- viewtopic.php?t=38595&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45 That thread my second post on page 4 has my look at year by year (I didn't dig into the peripherals into that post though). Basically, he was a defensive SS who was rushed through the minors every year and was never allowed for his bat to develop. As you can see from the numbers though, his overall bat improved every single year, even if his numbers sometimes didn't (the two times his numbers dropped was when he got promoted from single A to Triple A too quickly, and then again from Triple A to the majors too quickly). He then has improved every year he has been in the majors-he was a little below average for a SS but not terrible in 2004, and then was having his breakout season in 05 before the injuries. He hasn't been consistent in how terrible he is-his bat improved every single year from age 17 until he got hurt at age 25, and it was coming into the levels in which it was quite acceptable or maybe even an asset if he had kept improving.

I don't see how. Unless you define alright much differently than I do. I define all right as around league average at the shortstop position.

He turns 32 this season, so age is definitely a concern. However, I think he would be fine at SS for another 2-3 years, and fairly productive with the bat for 5-6. His best years, with a 167 OPS+ probably won't return, but I could see him being a solid 135-140 OPS+ for quite a while. ARod's game is based on patience and power, two things that tend to last for quite a while. Where do we move him after he's not ok at SS anymore? 1B? (I think he's only got 2 years at most right now at SS-I don't think he'd be good at it even if he played it now, and he will continue to slip as he gets older).

No, but most of the times that a true Japanese star has come over, he's been very successful, and in three of those cases, won the RoY. I'd say the six biggest stars to come over were Ichiro, Sasaki, Nomo, Kaz Matsui, Hideki Matsui, and Hideki Irabu. The first three won, Kaz Matsui and Hideki Irabu were busts, and Hideki Matsu narrowly missed out on the award but has since become one of the better-hitting LF in the game. All but two (Kaz & Irabu) has made an All-Star team, and half (Ichiro, Sasaki, H. Matsui) made at least two all-star games. So I'd say the "hit rate" of Japanese star players is quite high. True, but that happens a great deal with the minor league players as well. If you only took the best prospect of every 2-3 years (not random ones, but the ones that were seen as truly special coming out of the minors) and see if they won the ROY, I'm sure they would have a decently high rate of winning it as well.