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So he effectively got a free timeout? Yup. I don't think most coaches would have thought about that since the result of the play was so similar (completed pass vs penalty to the same spot).

That was a really smart challenge in the Michigan State game.

I was worried Irsay had too much respect for Bill Polian to get rid of him. I didn't think it was likely, but I'm not that surprised. Yup. I figured Irsay liked continuity too much to fire Polian yet, but I'm not shocked by it either. In addition to his performance issues over the last few years, Bill Polian has had a beyond toxic relationship with the local media and has blatantly lied multiple times on his radio show this year to try to make himself look better. The interesting thing is that we knew Polian was taking Luck and had no interest in the trading the pick (with no idea if he was planning on bringing back Manning or not). Will the new GM? Was this part of the reason the Polians were fired? Tons of speculation right now.

Well, first I don't think we know that it will be the same people in the developmental spots. There could be significant turnover or at least significant additions to the staff in that area that wouldn't necessarily be publicized at this point in the offseason. Second is that as people have said those coaches/staff could change their philosophy. For most of them, it's not like they've been with the Cubs for 30 years. Many of them have been with multiple organizations, and they aren't necessarily all huge believers in the philosophy that was laid out by the previous regime. And if they don't follow the Cubs extensive manual on player development that Theo has said is going to be written that explains in detail how they want players to play, then they'll quickly be shown the door. And third, I don't think even the previous regime did a lot to mess up top prospects. They didn't do a good job of correcting flaws in raw players, but if highly regarded A or AA players come in it's not like they're going to get ruined by a year of being under these coaches. They're simply not that incompetent.

Not really. PSU cannot afford the public perception problems that they're once again putting football ahead of ethics if they hired somebody like Saban. He's just not the right fit for them at this time with their public image so fragile. That doesn't mean they're too good for him, or that they wouldn't love to hire someone like him at another time. BTW that effectively says that PSU is too good for Saban. Not bc he's a bad coach but bc of his reputation. But that's a meaningless distinction. That's the thing. It's not only because of Saban's reputation. It's Saban's reputation+PSU's issues. If either part of the equation wasn't true, they would want to hire him. So while saying PSU is too good for Saban if they refused to hire him might technically be a true statement, it's horribly misleading. That statement would be interpreted in 2 primary ways. The first is PSU thinks they could find a better football coach than Saban, and the second is that they think they are morally superior to Saban. Neither is true in this case, which makes that statement a very bad summation. I do agree with that I don't know how tarnished Saban's reputation is among college football fans right now. The real question though is what the media would write about it because they could change a lot of minds

Putting several words in bold isn't an explanation. Come on, man. You know what he's trying to say. PSU is going through a major scandal and hiring a coach like Nick Saban, who's looked at like the devil by everyone except Alabama fans, is probably not a good idea for PSU right now. Right. PSU is too good for Saban. Not really. PSU cannot afford the public perception problems that they're once again putting football ahead of ethics if they hired somebody like Saban. He's just not the right fit for them at this time with their public image so fragile. That doesn't mean they're too good for him, or that they wouldn't love to hire someone like him at another time.

DeWitt's not gone. I'll go on record and say at least half of those guys will be on the team to start the year, and probably more than that. The front office is certainly listening on most of them, but I just don't see that many deals getting done.

i don't love this. i also feel like we need more of an adjustment for who the baserunners are than i am seeing. all that said,the suggestion that the hit and run isn't a disaster now that we've cut it down to only to most ideal situations isn't a shocking one. i still don't want to see my team using it. Yeah, that's pretty silly. I don't think he's trying to cut it down to ideal situations. He's trying to define what is a called hit and run and what isn't from the data. He acknowledges he will miss a few hit and run situations from limiting the data like he has, but he's removing a lot more noise from the data than he is part of his sample. And what exactly is this study replacing? Conjecture. The "Well, when the hit and run works, it gets a free base hit and moves a runner up so it must be good" or "The team runs into outs when it uses the hit and run so it must be bad". If there's been a better, more detailed study on the hit and run I'd love to see it. As for now, I would say this study is like defensive metrics. It isn't perfect, it may not even be good, but it's the closest we have to objective statistical analysis on the subject. And since analyzing the effects of the hit and run with your eyes is much harder than analyzing a player's defense, the statistical analysis has to be given a little more weight.

Mike Fast from Baseball Prospectus takes a look at how effective hit and runs really are. He looks at data from 2003-2011 As you see from his research, there is a lot of noise in the data so it is hard to pin down exactly. But after taking a hard look at the data, here is his conclusion: Here is the long article explaining the reasoning and the math behind that: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15713 Also interesting to note that the Cubs had the 7th fewest hit and runs in baseball over that time period (which comprises the whole tenures of Baker,Piniella, and Quade). The hit and run was completely neutral for them over that time period-no runs gained or lost. Thoughts? I've always thought the hit and run got a little bit of a bad rap, but I'm surprised to see that it actually is a positive play overall the way it's been used.

Probably (and I'm not suggesting that Boston is bad), but I doubt Boston's going to be so much better than Indiana that it's laughable that West would choose to sign there instead. That doesn't even go into that Boston was trying to force NO into taking O'Neal for West in order to make the deal work. Even if Boston was supposed to be a lot better than Indiana, it's pretty classless to talk about another player (who wasn't even on your team to begin with) like that. The fact that Boston is probably not going to be much better if better at all than Indiana makes it classless and hilarious.

Boston's start makes Ray Allen publicly questioning David West's desire to win even funnier.

To be fair, their other non con opponent is a Big East team... Oh I'm not commenting on the schedule. But McNeese St is the SEC football whore. Huh? Mcneese State has played 1 SEC school in the last 10 years. They usually play Big XII teams (and obviously when they scheduled Texas A&M they thought they were playing another one). Or do you just mean Division 1-AA schools in general?

Bell did fumble twice. It didn't happen to hurt the Bears either time, but those fumbles equal how many times Forte fumbled in the first 12 games behind. Allen had over 2,000 yards rushing in his ND career, but I didn't expect him to be carrying the ball in the NFL very much. I'd have a hard time if I was the Bears handing the backup job back to what will end up being next year a 33 year old journeyman.

Andy, I was saying this same thing verbatim yesterday. I'll be the first in line to admit they were dead wrong about Newton. While not my "favorite team" I pull for the panthers because they are more interesting when relevant and like to see local teams flourish. I thought he had potential but to do what he's done since day one is mind-blowing. Side note: as someone with absolutly no vesting interest in Green Bay or Rodgers, it has been fun murdering people on Facebook calling for Brees MVP. Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk What arguments are being made and what is your retort? Just a lot of friends saying "I don't see how Brees can't win the MVP now" type of arguments. I'm not quite sure when so many of my friends became Saints/Brees fans, but anyway. Rodgers has more Touchdowns (45 vs 41), less than half as many interceptions (6 vs 13), a higher QB rating (122.5 vs 108.4) and better overall team record. Sure, Brees has more yardage, but the difference is fairly negligible. This is especially true since Brees threw the ball 120 more times than Rodgers (Brees = 8.17 yrd/pass attempt, Rodgers = 9.24 yrd/pass attempt). Both had extremely good seasons, and the season Brees had would probably win the MVP 9 times out of 10, but I don't see any way possible you could give him the nod over Rodgers. Oh, and I think co-MVPs are stupid. Pick one already. Yeah, there's no real way to pick Brees over Rodgers at this point. Brees is having an MVP worthy season, but Rodgers is having one of the best 5 seasons in QB history (and quite possibly the best ever). They are so far ahead of the field that it can be easy to lump them together, but Rodgers has definitely been better. Co-MVP's are just a fluke anyway when the voting happens to be tied. It's not like a group gets together and decides to have co-MVPs.

The Colts owner came out a few days ago and said that if Peyton is healthy, that he'll be back with the Colts (although they are still very likely to also draft a QB).

I'd be interested because it would be two dynamic offenses going against each other. It's always a fun game for me when you know both teams are likely to get into the 30's in points.

I couldn't believe the line was only 6 for this game. The Colts have been pretty decent against the run overall, but they simply have no idea how to stop the Houston running game. Arian Foster is probably going to win many people their fantasy leagues. Well, maybe that was why the line was where it was. The Colts are trying their best to lose out on the number 1 pick (although if they lose to the Jaguars next week they should still have it). Somehow the Texans went 1-10 on 3rd downs which was the difference in the game.

I couldn't believe the line was only 6 for this game. The Colts have been pretty decent against the run overall, but they simply have no idea how to stop the Houston running game. Arian Foster is probably going to win many people their fantasy leagues.

Sounds like there is no way of that happening if they keep Polian. And unfortunately, I don't think Irsay will fire Polian just yet.

Joe Saunders: 4.78 FIP 2011, 4.65 career Travis Wood: 4.01 FIP in 2011, 3.75 career I was looking at standard ERA, the same way an arbiter would. Yes, and the Diamondbacks probably non-tendered him because they knew he was much worse than his ERA showed. If Wood put up a Saunders ERA with better peripherals, the Cubs wouldn't be non-tendering him in that situation.

As much as I'd like to say Angelo and Smith are completely worthless I got to give them a pass on the way the season ended. There's isn't a team in the league that could have overcome losing their QB, main offensive threat and best RB, two OL, who were improving, and in the Seahawks game their top WR. The Houston reference is not applicable, last time I checked Arian Foster is still palying, Andre Johnson is playing and one could argue Yates is an improvement over Delhomme and/or Garcia. By the end of the year, The Texans will have not had Schaub, Foster, Johnson, and Mario Williams for a combined 28 games. Those weren't only their top offensive stars, those are their 4 best players. The only player of that group who is playing this week is Foster (Johnson is hurt again and has been for a couple weeks now). Then throw in their backup Leinhart also getting hurt for the season and they have had some pretty severe injuries themselves. Yates was drafted 8 spots ahead of Enderle this year.

Yeah, I think I do too. Odds are, the prospects aren't going to be just filler. Getting 3 players for a short reliever with 1 year left on his contract is probably going to be a good deal regardless of the players. Getting a back of the rotation starter for 4 years is not a horrible return by itself. I'll throw in my guess that Wood is the centerpiece and that the other two prospects are a decent position player and a minor league reliever with potential. The position player will come in between 10 and 30 on the Cubs system and the reliever won't be in the top 30.

So Casey McGehee is a 3-ish WAR player then, right? Because, based on over 1,000 at-bats, he is. Sometimes players have unexplainable starts, or years, in their career. McGehee put up numbers that were better in the major leagues than any year in the minors, including his 2 years in the hitting crazy PCL. Wells had a very good K/BB ratio the entire way through the minors and had 2 excellent seasons in the minors. They are not really comparable. You're missing the point of the comparison. The point of the comparison is that it's not illogical to believe Wells' first two years don't presage his entire career. They may not be identical, and Casey McGehee might be Wells' reductio ad absurdum, but players do have randomly good seasons for little apparent reason. If you want to discuss Wells' numbers, then sure. I'm guessing the two excellent seasons in the minors for Wells were his age 22 and 23 seasons, in which he pitched 106 and 131 innings (I'll incorporate my previous post about concerns of sudden workload increases). In the majors, Wells has pitched worse each year by basically every statistic: WAR (3.2-3.0-1.1), FIP (3.88-3.93-4.99), ERA+ (146-99-78), ERA (3.05-4.26-4.99), BB/9 (2.5-2.9-3.1), K/9 (2.26-2.29-1.74) (not exact there, admittedly), ground ball percentage (47.9%-46.9%-42.4%), etc. You couple that with the eye-test, which says he does not have outstanding stuff by any means, and one must start to wonder. Perhaps last year was a blip; I cannot see the future. But I see a player without very good stuff, with a big increase in workload, with a decrease in performance, an increase in injury, and I have little hope for the future. The peripherals for 2009 and 2010 are very similar and in line with his minor league career: 2009: 5.66 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, 2.26 K/BB, 0.76 HR/9, 3.88 FIP, 4.18 xFIP 2010: 6.67 K/9, 2.92 BB/9, 2.29 K/BB, 0.88 HR/9, 3.93 FIP, 3.94 xFIP Obviously the ERA was a lot lower in 2009, but people knew that his 09 ERA was lucky because he had outpitched his peripherals by so much. But 2010 was essentially the same year. It looks like he threw outside the zone a little bit more which increased his strikeouts and walks by a little bit, and his home run rate was very similar. Can Wells come back and be the pitcher he was in 2009/2010? It's hard to say. It depends on the extent of the injury. But those years weren't randomly good. They're very similar to his minor league career. And if he's healthy, there's no real reason that he can't come back and have seasons similar to that once again.

So Casey McGehee is a 3-ish WAR player then, right? Because, based on over 1,000 at-bats, he is. Sometimes players have unexplainable starts, or years, in their career. McGehee put up numbers that were better in the major leagues than any year in the minors, including his 2 years in the hitting crazy PCL. Wells had a very good K/BB ratio the entire way through the minors and had 2 excellent seasons in the minors. They are not really comparable.

They're almost certainly using it one way or the other. The question is if they are using it on major league payroll or not. I doubt that Theo is just going to leave 30 million of his budget unspent. If they're not using it that's coming from Ricketts, not Theo. Well, that depends on whether you believe Ricketts when he repeatedly has said he's going to spend every dollar in revenue back on the team and that the overall baseball budget he's given to Theo is about the same as last year. It's unlikely IMO that he is just lying about both.