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I don't think panic about losing your best pitcher in over a decade is over-reaction, especially seeing as this demand is coming after some really questionable spending has been made. Had this demand come in November, he'd be locked up by now. But with the stupid contracts given to Lilly, Marquis, DeRosa, etc with almost no thought about locking up Z long term I think this is a perfect time to panic. you really think that no thought was given to locking up Z? Really? honestly? Not as much as there should have been. Can anyone here justify giving 4/40 to Lilly or 3/21 to Marquis when you have a freaking future Cy Young winner on the staff entering the last year of his contract? Which was more important? Flushing money down the toilet by severely overpaying for mediocre talent or locking up one of the best pitchers in the league? Obviously, Hendry chose the former. It wasn't just Hendry. The whole market was nuts. That doesn't mean there isn't more money for Z. I agree. Hendry's M.O. has always been free agents, then contract extensions. He's come through multiple times before on extensions, so I don't know why the free agent spending suddenly means he wasn't thinking about re-signing Z or that he is out of money. It simply means that Hendry feels that he has till spring training to work with Z, while he doesn't with the free agents, so signing the free agents has to come first. That may not be how everyone would do it, but it is how Hendry has done t, and he always has saved the money for the extension and successfully completed it.

That's not a flaw. In fact the situations are perfectly analogous. The only reason the Cubs would deal Zambrano is if they can't (or won't) pay Z what he is going to demand as a FA. At that point, their choice is between taking the players he could be traded for, or taking the draft picks when he leaves. Same exact choice the Royals had with Beltran. No, the Cubs also might deal Z if they feel the prospects would be a better option than trading Z, but that they would sign Z as a fallback option-the Royals did not have that luxury of having that fallback option.

Well, I wouldn't say pennies-I mean, Z is going to make somewhere between 11 and 15.5 million this year (depending on if he actually goes to arbitration or settles for something in the middle). There are so many variables that it's hard for me to recommend what Hendry should do with Z-the two big variables are 1)what he's demanding, and 2)what other teams would give up for him. The first one is more known, but the second one could be anything-trades are funny things, sometimes a star gets great talent in return, and sometimes for some reason they just don't. Hendry has to add those two together with 3) Carlos's chance of injury and basically make the best guess he can, the option that is the most likely to work, and then simply hope that it does.

Thats my point, 7 may be more than fair market price, but he is not in an open market. Do you think he'd accept 7 million on the open market? No! 7 million is way below market value for his production. It's not like he's asking for 15.5 million like Z is. If this goes to arbitration, Cabrera has a very good chance of winning. I may be wrong on this, but I believe that for this year, Cabrera can't even argue that 7 million is below market value-he can only compare his salary to other arbitration players, and not free agent players-next year he'll be able to compare his production and salary against all players like Z gets to do this year being only 1 year from free agency.

Dude is set for a breakdown in the next couple of years thanks to Dusty. greg maddux pitched under dusty too. How often was he on the DL? I'm not saying Dusty didn't abuse pitchers, but to trade arguably your team MVP based on a maybe seems like a terrible, terrible idea Maddux didn't have chronic back problems stemming from weight that he couldn't keep off as the season went on so early in his career, either. Greg also wasn't put through the endurance test like Z has under Dusty. Dusty viewed younger pitchers as a blank slate that he could do with as he pleased. Zambrano very easily might see the problems of that very soon. True, but technically, Madux was abused as a youngster as well, including a 160+ pitch outing in the major leagues. However, he was not a power pitcher, so the comparison between him and Z is not a great comparison IMO. I don't see that Z is a huge risk to break down, but each pitcher about his age has a decent chance of breaking down, and he does have some warning signs attached to him.

Agreed-I think the key is that B. Hill might fit on our bench if the team didn't have anyone like him. Since the team already has Theriot though, and Hill can play only one position, he just doesn't become very valuable to this team whatsoever. He can actually play two positions: 3B and 2B. Thanks for the info-that would certainly be a big point in his favor making the team-I'm still not sure I'd keep him over a backup CF, but that would certainly make the debate a whole lot closer.

Why? Pierre played well for us and if he had a lineup last year he is numbers probably would have been much better. I don't think it works to take Pierre's overall numbers and conclude he played well. It matters more to me what a player does when the team is still in contention, as opposed to garbage time. Pierre was terrible in April and May, which is when this team still had a shot. In particular, he was horrid when Lee was still playing. Plus his arm is the worst I've ever seen on a center fielder, bar none. It's truly amazing how atrocious he is throwing the baseball. I'm not necessarily arguing for Pierre here, just asking a question. Would you say then that Ramirez had a bad year last year?

Agreed-I think the key is that B. Hill might fit on our bench if the team didn't have anyone like him. Since the team already has Theriot though, and Hill can play only one position, he just doesn't become very valuable to this team whatsoever.

Sounds like those 72 Dolphins to me :D Really though, I'm just glad that out of the 10 Chicago losses all year, the Pacers were responsible for 2 of them out of the 4 games they played.

I wish Troy O' Leary was just our AAA roster filler rather than our 4th OF. And does that seem crazy to anyone else, that in a bench guy teams wouldn't want OBP as one of their primary skills? Yes and no-I think most teams would like a bench with one OBP guy, one or two SLG guys, a backup catcher, and a defensive/versatile/utility player. Many teams seem to want pure fastball hitters to contrast the usually good fastballs of the closers around the league. It's a good strategy, but it shouldn't be used with all of your pinch hitters as most of the teams do. So I do think they don't do enough and that is a little crazy, but I'm not sure that you'd rather have OBP than SLG on the bench. When you get a bench player, you are counting on him being able to come through in pinch hitting situations. And since pitchers will typically challenge a pinch hitter early in the count, being too patient may be a detriment. Thanks for summing up my thoughts in a more succint way :D. Another way of saying it is that relievers many times have a dominant out pitch. You absolutely do not want to get behind in the count with many closers, and so the best pitch to attack is usually the first or second pitch fastball-that's why many pinch hitters are either heavy sluggers who hit fastballs well, or players that are there for defensive versatility alone.

I wish Troy O' Leary was just our AAA roster filler rather than our 4th OF. And does that seem crazy to anyone else, that in a bench guy teams wouldn't want OBP as one of their primary skills? Yes and no-I think most teams would like a bench with one OBP guy, one or two SLG guys, a backup catcher, and a defensive/versatile/utility player. Many teams seem to want pure fastball hitters to contrast the usually good fastballs of the closers around the league. It's a good strategy, but it shouldn't be used with all of your pinch hitters as most of the teams do. So I do think they don't do enough and that is a little crazy, but I'm not sure that you'd rather have OBP than SLG on the bench.

Hmm-Pacers lose the free throw battle 24-9 today even though they went inside all day, but it doesn't matter as the Pacers beat the Clippers 94-80 anyway. This is going to be a potentially interesting case building up here.

The Twins have agreed to a 4 year deal with Joe Mauer-33.5 million. I believe this only covers one year of free agency if I've counted correctly. He also gets some additional bonuses: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2762203

Ok, I've found better proof that Barrett calls the game-from a Chicago Sun Times article, April 2006: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20060416/ai_n16165873

Nope. Worse, actually. If you say so. I will give you the fact he was bad with the bat, but his defensive abilities and the way he called a game is one of the reason the cubs made the playoffs that year. I dont consider him to be that bad of a player. Rothschild calls the game. This isn't little league or even high school. Major League catcher call 90% of the game. The pitching coach may take over in a few situations, but for the most part it is the responsibility of the Catcher. Unless something has changed since 2005 that is. Because I know for a fact Rothschild was not calling games in 2005, or any season before then since he has been there. From Barrett's inference, this would seem to be correct. This is a question and answer taken from a chat after the 2006 season: If Rothschild were calling the pitches, it would be easy for Barrett to just say that is why catchers weren't getting the credit-he seems to infer even with his first joke that he calls the game. http://transcripts.usatoday.com/Chats/transcript.aspx?c=878

The Bus finally got a ring, that's the last Super Bowl I remember. All of that has been blocked from my memory. I don't see why you'd have to block anything from memory, that makes it all the sweeter. I agree to an extent, but that one really really hurt. I did my best to forget that game as soon as "he missed it". Yeah, that 2005 Colts team was the best Colts team I have ever seen-great offense, good defense, good special teams. They just had the tragedy and then too much rest for the key people, and they took 3 quarters off and it was 1 quarter too much. That was a tough one to swallow for sure-in the playoffs, the 2006 team finally started looking somewhat like the 2005 version again. It's interesting. This year's Colts: maybe not quite as high-octane as the 2005 group. But tougher, a little more experienced, maybe a little more battle tested. And that got 'em through. I still don't think that Steelers team was all that great. Should have lost against the Colts----didn't impress me in the Super Bowl, got a ton of calls from the refs, made a couple gadget plays and won it. :-\ Not so sure about that Soul. That Steelers team completely and utterly outplayed that Colts team, as many Colts fans will admit to. In fact, that Colts team was the benefit of perhaps the worst call I've seen in professional sports, and still was short. That call sickened me, and in a way the Steelers almost deserve the reverse karma in the Superbowl. But not really. BTW, the Colts got hit with that exact same call from the same referee in the first Jacksonville game this year-so you can rest easy that karma has been served:D Yeah, the Steelers outplayed the Colts, but I think what he meant is that the Steelers were the benefit of a Colts team that was completely shell shocked from the tragedy plus the rest. The Colts didn't come ready to play until the 4th quarter-the Steelers too advantage of that, but it was really the collapse of the Colts team that day, not the Steelers who just imposed their will (with the exception of the Colts offensive line to the Steelers defensive line-there, the Steelers definitely imposed their will). It was the most disappointing thing I've ever seen to see a team that good just look like they were somewhere else for 3 quarters and make mental mistakes they hadn't made all season.

Yeah, I think Illinois gets in too. They're not in right now (they weren't even one of the last 4 out on Wednesday and then the loss today didn't help) but their schedule down the stretch should give them enough wins to get them in.

Since Illinois won the first game, I'd call it a push. not by a long shot, the ej thing would overshadow 8 consecutive sweeps. oh well, i should be used to my teams getting beaten without retribution by now. Will it make you feel better when Sampson has IU on probation in a couple years? Why do you have to be such a sore loser? It was an ugly game on all sides, and IU pulled out a win. UI won one, IU won one, hopefully they will meet again in the BTT. Just because IU won you have to pull out this "well you'll be on probation" garbage with no evidence of any violations at IU. Man up. I've been saying the probation thing since before the season started, sorry. And because he was dirty at his last job, and the was being looked into. I doubt he has changed, and I really have no idea why Indiana hired him. It has nothing to do with the game today. True-but the NCAA decided it was minor violations, and they only decided to make an example of Sampson because he was the head of the ethics committee. It isn't anything like Huggins or Calipari or Harrick or the other dozen coaches you could name that had major violations. Those violations weren't enough to put anybody on probation, so it's not likely he's going to commit even worse violations now that he's gone through all the public humiliation and everything else.

Well, if Sampson is a bad coach, then Davis must have been worse than Dusty-because IU played much worse than this with a more talented squad last year. That may well be. It doesn't make Sampson any better, though. I guess I don't see the huge talent on this IU squad-D.J. is a great player, Wilmont is great at times, Calloway and Bassett are good but erratic, and everybody else are really role players. The talent level certainly doesn't suggest a 17-6 record to me.

Since Illinois won the first game, I'd call it a push. not by a long shot, the ej thing would overshadow 8 consecutive sweeps. oh well, i should be used to my teams getting beaten without retribution by now. Will it make you feel better when Sampson has IU on probation in a couple years? Teams like Memphis have a much better chance of going on probation than IU does-there are plenty of coaches who have committed worse violations than Sampson's violations (not excusing it at all-he did commit a violation, and he has to own up to that mistake, but that doesn't automatically mean that he'll make that mistake again).

Well, if Sampson is a bad coach, then Davis must have been worse than Dusty-because IU played much worse than this with a more talented squad last year.

Another good game to both teams-maybe the two teams can meet again in the Big 10 tourney-if they do, I'm sure it will be another fantastic matchup.

Well, even if Indiana wins this game it will just be a home and home split with Illinois, so IU didn't "own" UI this year.

He scares the crap out of me, but that was a bad shot. He's still the guy to watch here. why would he scare you? he's not good. He might not be, but he was hot in the 1st half-even while very streaky, he's still scary.

Should have been a no call. No harm though he missed the freebie. Lets get a good look here. Yeah, now that I think about it, a no-call would be a slightly better call-as you said though, it didn't matter with the miss of the free throw.