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Yeah, unless they upgrade that offensive line I can't see any QB succeeding there-I doubt they will able to be trade down (the #1 pick is usually seen as too expensive unless there is a sure-fire person at the top) but they do need to build the line through either later picks or free agency.

That's pretty silly to say, though your definition of "that good" needsclarification. regardless... A. the Big XII is only ten years old. B. In that short time, it's posted 5 final four teams. (KU twice, OU, OK State, Texas) C. This year it has two legit FF contenders and one darkhorse. D. Texas and KU look to be consistent FF threats with aTm and KSU on the rise. OU and OSU are always threats to be good teams. That's true-I think the Big XII is at its best point that it has been in quite a while (thinking about the Big XII teams even before they joined the conference). Now, the number of titles that the Big XII teams have won in the last 50 years-that's an amazing statistic for a power conference. Does anybody know how many it is? 1? Yup-Kansas, 1988 (although I'm sure you knew that part at least :D) that statistic is still absoutely amazing to me even when I do realize that most of the schools in the Big XII have not been basketball powers for long. I'm sure that statistic will add at least 1 or 2 more in the next 10 years though.

If I'm an NFL GM and he's not working out after his recent slide, it makes me think he's got something to hide. This could cost him lots of money, but I guess if he slides he'll end up going to a better overall team most likely. I don't think so-this happens with top prospects all the time. Jamarcus Russell is not working out at the combine either. Russell's stock has been rising though. He had an excellent performance at the absolute right time, and also has the strongest arm in the draft. The hype machine is doing all of the work for him, his value is probably maxed out right now with him being a probably #1 pick. Quinn's stock on the other hand has had the bottom fall out of it. At one time he as thought of as the top player in the class, and while he is in no danger of losing the #2 QB ranking, he is in danger of losing a large sum of money. The difference in salary for the top 2 QB's from last year is almost $1million per season over the next 6 years. And that was only a difference of 7 picks plus both still went in the top ten. If Russell goes #1, the Browns take AD, and the Dolphins feel comfortable with Culpepper then Quinn could easily fall to Carolina at 14 barring a trade-up. True, but for QB's, individual workouts mean a lot more than the workouts at the combine. I know for example that VY skipped the combine last year (with the danger of VY slipping pretty far if he got past the Titans) and it worked out for him. If Quinn falls, which I think it is likely that he, I don't see how the combine is likely to make a difference in convincing teams of anything that his college career and individual workouts do not tell them.

That's pretty silly to say, though your definition of "that good" needsclarification. regardless... A. the Big XII is only ten years old. B. In that short time, it's posted 5 final four teams. (KU twice, OU, OK State, Texas) C. This year it has two legit FF contenders and one darkhorse. D. Texas and KU look to be consistent FF threats with aTm and KSU on the rise. OU and OSU are always threats to be good teams. That's true-I think the Big XII is at its best point that it has been in quite a while (thinking about the Big XII teams even before they joined the conference). Now, the number of titles that the Big XII teams have won in the last 50 years-that's an amazing statistic for a power conference. Does anybody know how many it is?

If I'm an NFL GM and he's not working out after his recent slide, it makes me think he's got something to hide. This could cost him lots of money, but I guess if he slides he'll end up going to a better overall team most likely. I don't think so-this happens with top prospects all the time. Jamarcus Russell is not working out at the combine either.

Uh, what? I know it's not your fault Vance (you just copied it), but that author who wrote that must have made a typo somewhere. If TB called heads, and it came heads, how did they not win the third pick? One of those facts must be wrong.

Just because someone is offering you crap in return for a dependable arm, doesn't mean you have to accept the offer. An overpaid, arthritic, part time, utility infielder is a crap player and nowhere near the value of a pitching arm for a team attempting to make the playoffs. Neifi Perez at 2.5m and Glendon Rusch at 2.5m or Nomar at 5m. I'll take Nomar every time. It would have prevented Glendon from ever stepping on the mound, and it would have prevented Neifi from getting more at bats at the top of the order. And honestly, can we really complain about Nomar's sidearm throwing angle after watching Juan Pierre's girly arm and Jacque Jones' pathetic release point in two of the three outfield spots last year? Probably wouldn't have mattered whether we had Nomar last year or not. The team was still going to be lousy with or without him, and I have zero faith Hendry could have gotten anymore out of Nomar at the trade deadline than Maicer Izturis, Cesar's brother. I agree with the rest of your argument, but Nomar wouldn't have replaced Glendon and Neifi-he would have replaced Jacque Jones instead. I don't know who I would rather have had-Nomar was the better player when he was in there (although if Jacque had been used at least somewhat correctly it would have been close), but Nomar also missed a decent part of the season again even playing first. Knowing what we do now about last year, I'd still probably take Jacque over Nomar because of the health issue (Nomar might have been hurt worse in RF, and even if he got hurt the same amount, he would have missed more games trying to get back into playing RF with those leg injuries than he did where he was able to play first).

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/cs-070222bears,1,6045629.story?coll=cs-home-headlines With his playoff performance, maybe we can get a 2nd rounder for Jones. I'd be amazed if Thomas Jones fetched a 2nd rounder-the Colts couldn't even get a 2nd rounder for Edgerrin a couple years back, and neither could the Seahawks for Alexander. Maybe the market for runningbacks has changed dramatically since then, but I don't think so-it seems like there's even more teams with set runningbacks now then ever before. I doubt they'd get a second but stranger things have happened. The Jets gave a second for Doug fricken Jolly. Well, when you bring that example up, I don't think I can argue with that one at all-you're definitely right, stranger things have happened :D

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/cs-070222bears,1,6045629.story?coll=cs-home-headlines With his playoff performance, maybe we can get a 2nd rounder for Jones. I'd be amazed if Thomas Jones fetched a 2nd rounder-the Colts couldn't even get a 2nd rounder for Edgerrin a couple years back, and neither could the Seahawks for Alexander. Maybe the market for runningbacks has changed dramatically since then, but I don't think so-it seems like there's even more teams with set runningbacks now then ever before.

Chase Utley makes a heck of a lot more than the minimum. Anyways, that just goes to show you how easy it's been for teams to find cheap 2B talent. No need to pay big for such modest production. Which makes the time Neifi spent at second base even more incomprehensible. Well, I guess the only thing I can say is that they didn't expect Neifi to be playing 2B very much-they thought they had their starter there, and they didn't anticipate their starter at second moving to first in the middle of the season when second base help is not nearly as easy to find. From a production standpoint, Neifi has no buisiness on a ML club. He's hung around becuase he has a good glove and can play more than one position. He's also really likable. He talks to everyone fans, scouts, players from other teams, his own teammates. He always has a smile on his face and he hustles. I don't mean that in a bad way either. He's good guy. He talked to me for about 20 minutes in Pittsburgh after I approached him and scout during batting practice. In Chicago, I've seen him play with young children before the game on several occasions. He's very likeable. In baseball once you're in you're in unless you have a reputation as difficult to get along with. Which brings me to Todd Walker. Walker has bounced around a lot and is the mirror image of Neifi. He's moderately productive but doesn't seem to get along well with others. I haven't personally met Walker so I am basing this on what I've read. I would agree with all of that-I was just saying that the abundance of 2B talent and signing Neifi had little to with each other, since Neifi was primarily signed to cover short if they needed him again like they did in 05. Earlier in his career, Neifi belonged on a major league roster-now, he might have the talent to be on the very end of some roster, but certainly not at the money he's making.

Chase Utley makes a heck of a lot more than the minimum. Anyways, that just goes to show you how easy it's been for teams to find cheap 2B talent. No need to pay big for such modest production. Which makes the time Neifi spent at second base even more incomprehensible. Well, I guess the only thing I can say is that they didn't expect Neifi to be playing 2B very much-they thought they had their starter there, and they didn't anticipate their starter at second moving to first in the middle of the season when second base help is not nearly as easy to find.

Depends on why he had the bad spring (injury, couldn't locate his offspeed because it's AZ or what). I think he deserves quite some leeway after his second half last season. It would take an absolutely shocking meltdown this spring for me to even consider taking Hill out of the rotation. I mean like Rick Ankiel territory. Agreed-he's got a longer leash than spring training can break. A bad spring training would shorten that leash for the season, but I can't see him not making it out of spring for me at least.

Uh-like Detroit last year, who was also 44-9 and did not win the title? Link. Ok-that is true because he qualified it with All-Star Break. Detroit was only 42-9 at the time-their high water mark was at 47-9.

I've found it from the front page-click on articles, and blogs is listed as an option under that.

You're also assuming Clement is worth a crap by then, which is doubtful. His contract is done after 2007 though. Can we add him to the list of 2003 Dusty Baker casualties? I was surprised he lasted as long as he did. If it was, it's not reflected in the Pitcher Abuse Points. The highest Clement finished in his two years with the Cubs was 2004, and he was 35th (he finishe d 50th in 2003). That's not very high to really blame the manager on this one for abuse-I think Clement just broke down.

Murton should be the starting LF'er. End of story. Um, Murton getting at-bats in right doesn't hurt his chance of being the starting LF. It does however allow Murton and Floyd to play together sometimes instead of having only 2 possible combinations-Murton and Jones, or Floyd and Jones. Would you rather have Floyd only getting his at-bats at the expense of Murton and not Jones a little bit as well? Because one thing we do know, and that is that Floyd is not going to be in RF a whole lot-he almost certainly wouldn't be able to play it. So if you don't want at-bats for Murton in RF, you're essentially taking at-bats away from him.

I was going to put this as an edit to my previous post, but I just decided to tack it on as an extra post. Let me try to state this a litle more clear, athough I'll leave the ramblings up there at the top. What I'm saying is that those career numbers for Izturis, both minor and major leagues are somewhat misleading. Izturis has not been consistently near those numbers (meaning that he didn't remain static, which would have showed that he wasn't developing, and neither did he go up then down then up then down. At each league, he continued developing until he could hit against that league, and every league the team promoted him way too fast right when he was starting to look decent at that league and not letting him look good in any league. Look at his numbers from age 17: 17-low A-.190/.241/.216-with this performance, they promoted him 18-A ball-.262/.297/.305-with this again, they shouldn't have but they pushed him up to high A 19-high A ball-.308/.337/.422-for a defensive shortstop, these numbers would be worthy of a move up to double A-did they do that? No-straight up to Triple A instead 20-Triple A-.218/.253/.278-ugh, that's what happens when you move a still developing hitter up two levels-at least they had him repeat this level 21-Triple A-.292/.310/.374-better, but he could really have used one more year in Triple A instead of going straight to the majors. He also perfromed ok in the majors in limited at-bats. 22-Majors-.232/.253/.303-again, another league that he wasn't ready for-he should have been in Triple A this year 23-Majors-.251/.282/.315-this should have been his first year in the majors, and it's terrible, but that's not too surprising for a defensive shortstop who's bat is developing slower than his glove. It is 30 points better than the previous year though. 24-Majors-.288/.330/.381-Now he's getting it. It's the first time in his career that he's been able to stay at one level long enough to finally catch up after all those promotions, and he improved by over a 100 points. 25-Majors-.342/.387/.424-these are his April and May numbers before his injuries. The Dodgers tried to keep him in the lineup, which led to his putrid numbers until they shut him down, and then he's had 1 1/2 years of injury-filled bad numbers since with limited at-bats (since he missed a large part of 2006 and the last 2 months of 2005). The key question is the injuries-will it keep him from developing like he had been? Before that though, Izturis was showing every sign of coming into his own and becoming at least an average shortstop offensively. It just remains to be seen if he can re-capture that with all the injuries and time away from baseball.

You've exceeded your Geocities bandwidth, is there any way you could upload it to ImageShack or PhotoBucket so that the rest of us could see it? That's strange-I saw it earlier when he put it up, but you're right, it's not there now. It was pretty good when it was there. I can still see it. :? I can see it again now

Minor league career: .262/.297/.332/.629 Major league career: .259/.295/.336/.631 Eek...that's worse than I thought! He has sub written all over him, if that, thanks TT. One thing that has to be remembered is that Izturis got pushed through each level. He really shouldn't have been promoted nearly as fast as he did, but his defense pushed him through every level. Because of that, he was always hitting at a level or two above his hitting development level. When he got to the majors, it was the same way. He came in at 22, and wasn't offesnively ready whatsoever and put up a .556. The next year he got a little better and put up a .597. Finally, he started to catch up with the speed he should have been developed at in the first place and had a decent 2004 (.711) and a great start before injuries to 2005 (.810 or so before the injuries at the start of June). Since then he's had injuries that have hindered his development. If he continues his developmental curve where he left off, it will be great-if the injuries hurt his game permanently, then he certainly has the potential to be awful. I'm just not sure how much value his minor league and first year or two in the majors have anymore when he was playing in leagues that he had no business playing in at the time. Every year he repeated levels though in the minor or major leagues until the injuries though, he improved his numbers significantly.

You've exceeded your Geocities bandwidth, is there any way you could upload it to ImageShack or PhotoBucket so that the rest of us could see it? That's strange-I saw it earlier when he put it up, but you're right, it's not there now. It was pretty good when it was there.

Is Todd Walker better enough though to warrant giving up a draft pick though? When you consider that the Cubs would have to give up (I think a 3rd round pick) as well as other teams would have to give up their first or 2nd to get Walker, it makes more sense why they would want to go with other similarly productive options at 2B now and keep the pick. I know I'd rather have DeRosa and keep that high pick to try to rebuild the farm system. OK I don't get it. If the Cubs would have given up a pick to get Walker, why didn't they have to give up a pick to get DeRosa. They were both FA's right? Did the Rangers not offer him arbritration? I thought the pick only changed hands if the player declined arbritration. If you're asking me "should the Cubs have signed Walker if he declined San Diego's arbritration offer", then no, the difference between Walker and DeRosa isn't worth a draft pick. In any event, the Cubs didn't have to trade Walker to begin with. Not trading him wouldn't have involved any picks going anywhere. Well, true, but by trading him they got a very intriguing prospect. Walker was classified as a type A free agent as a 2B, so if somebody signed him like the Cubs they would have been forced to give the Padres a draft pick. DeRosa qualified as a type B free agent because he was listed as an OF, and OF's numbers are much higher across the board than at 2B. With that, the Rangers get a supplemental pick for the Cubs signing him, but the Cubs didn't actually have to give up a pick for him. Ah, I see. It's difficult to keep baseball's arcane player signing rules straight. Who did we get for Todd Walker? Were they regarded as a very good prospect? Jose Ceda-a 19 year old pitcher out of the Dominican. He's raw, but he can really bring it-up to 99 miles an hour. He was rated as the 14th best rookie league prospect overall for the major leagues-I'm not sure where he falls on the Cubs rankings, but he definitely is worth the difference between Walker and DeRosa this year IMO.

Im not the only bears fan to question the ownership's frugal-ness. Those players have large contracts but the Bears are still 21 million under the cap. I have no problem with how much they do or dont pay players. I mean I wouldnt want the team to be in the cap hell that the titans, 49ners were or the redskins or colts are now. I just think it sucks that with how bad this team has been over the last 15 years, they finally get a solid head coach who takes them to the super bowl, and there offer is a 2 million dollars less a year than Bobby Petrino, a rookie NFL Head Coach or a couple hundred thousand dollars more than the Dolphins Defensive Coordinator. Its not like they are the Jaguars who are a small market team, and are not pulling in a lot of profit. They are near the top of the league in profits in the third largest market. Uh, the Colts are 7-8 million dollars under the cap even after franchising Freeney, and they still have some easy work that's going to get them even further under. They don't really have cap problems. I got that from John Clayton who said that the Colts are 5.9 million over. http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2349505 That page says it was last updated on March 10th, 2006.

I don't see how any of that means he's more predisposed to success and moving up the ladder. Dallas just hired a purported QB guru. Wilson isn't going to get any credit if Romo does well. If Grossman gets better, people are going to credit the current coaches. Parcells will get all the Romo credit, along with some for Garrett. Very good points-I guess I'm wrong on this one :D

Im not the only bears fan to question the ownership's frugal-ness. Those players have large contracts but the Bears are still 21 million under the cap. I have no problem with how much they do or dont pay players. I mean I wouldnt want the team to be in the cap hell that the titans, 49ners were or the redskins or colts are now. I just think it sucks that with how bad this team has been over the last 15 years, they finally get a solid head coach who takes them to the super bowl, and there offer is a 2 million dollars less a year than Bobby Petrino, a rookie NFL Head Coach or a couple hundred thousand dollars more than the Dolphins Defensive Coordinator. Its not like they are the Jaguars who are a small market team, and are not pulling in a lot of profit. They are near the top of the league in profits in the third largest market. Uh, the Colts are 7-8 million dollars under the cap even after franchising Freeney, and they still have some easy work that's going to get them even further under. They don't really have cap problems.

I don't think it's that rare. Lots of lower tier coaches find better jobs elsewhere after team success. Is going from being the QB coach on a Super Bowl team to being the QB coach on the Cowboys a better job? It might be when your QB is getting soundly criticized (deserved or no) and eventually some of the blame might fall on you, and instead you go to a job where you're more predisposed to be a success and to continue to move up the coaching ranks. Why is gowing from Grossman to Romo more redisposed to success? Dallas arguably has a bigger national following, at least from the media, than Chicago, so the scrutiny isn't going to be any less. They have more weapons, and plus at this point people are looking for anything to pick Grossman apart with-if it be deserved or not, Romo's going to get a little more of a free pass to have some bad games next year IMO. Plus, many people see the Chicago QB position as the difference between them and a title, so that brings even more scrutiny and pressure to live up to expectations.