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Ouch. I've had food poisoning before. NO FUN. And that's for real. Steven Jackson: when are you guys going to accept he's a criminal and cut him loose? Alright---he can shoot the basketball. There are others who can do that without the rap sheet. The Pacers would love to get rid of Jackson, despite their protests to the contrary-he has 4 years left on his contract is the problem. I think they are hoping he gets convicted on the charges he is up on, and then they can find a good way to terminate the contract without having to pay it.

BTW, have fun Bulls fans beating whatever Indiana team actually is able to stagger on the floor. Jermaine is going to miss the game with a hamstring injury, Jackson has been suspended for a violation of team rules, and Al Harrington, Jamaal Tinsley, and Marquis Daniels have food poisoning and might all not go. What's left of the Pacers starting lineup if all 5 miss the game? Here it is-Darrell Armstrong, Sarunas Jasikevicius at guard, Jeff Foster at center and Maceo Baston and Danny Granger at forward. Once again, have fun with this decimated Pacer lineup-it's been all too common to Indiana fans the last 3 years.

It's actually even worse-Pierre's worst SLG number in the last 4 years was .354.

Of all the likely scenarios, the most likely is that more than 5 guys will start for the Cubs next year. That's certainly true-but it looks like the Cubs will at least have that option covered next year, as there will be a few pitchers ready to step in if one of the first 5 get injured or falter (barring trades that really clear out some of those arms).

I don't see how anybody could justify claiming the player would be getting punished in this scenario. The fact is he is not a free agent. Any claims that he should get more based on the current free agent pitching market are absolutely without merit. He isn't a free agent. He is owed nothing. He deserves nothing. He needs to come down on his price or go back to Japan making comparitively nothing. Free agents are making lots of money. He is not a free agent. He knew the rules going in. As did Boston when they bid 51 for him. He has choices unlike an arby guy. Yes, and his choice is to make a lot of money in Boston for the next few years or make a lot less in Japan. Arbitration always have the choice of not playing, but that's not a smart choice either. Boston knew he had Boras for an agent before they bid and should have realized that he'd want a big deal. IMO they have to pony up to at least 12 or they did this to stop the Yanks. If he signs for 5/40 he loses money. He could go back and make 6 and then get 5/65 at the least as a free agent. The problem with that line of thinking is-he only made 3 in Japan last year, so I'm not sure how he's going to get a raise all the way to 6. Second-who says his contract will be any higher next year when he gets posted again? The next team may do the same thing for him, expecially if the market deflates again just a little bit. So let's say Daisuke gets Seibu to raise his salary to 5 per year, and then signs a 5/65 deal after 2008. He will make 75 in 7 years, and he'd probably make 65 in 7 years here (5/40 plus the start of a new deal after those 5 years are up). For a guy who's been desperate to go to the U.S. for years, is he really going to turn down a chance over a possible 10 million dollars in 7 years? I'm saying possible because if he doesn't pitch well 1 of the next 2 years, he might not even get 5/65 after 2008. I just cannot see how that would make sense for him.

So the Bears have tie-breakers over New Orleans? I didn't think that was the case. Isn't the first tiebreaker conference record? The Bears are 1+ on NO in that right now, but if they lost tonight, obviously they would be even there and move to the next TB. Have no idea what that is? Common opponents? Here's hoping they make it a non-issue and take care of business against a team they should pound on. If the Saints tie the Bears in record, there will be no need to go past the conference record tiebreaker. Both teams only have NFC games left (the Bears went 2-2 against the AFC, the Saints went 1-3). If the Bears lose 2 more games and the Saints win out, they will both be 12-4, but the Saints will get the 1 seed due to only having 1 conference loss while the Bears will have 2. The Bears have to win 3 out of the last 4 to make sure of their own destiny-otherwise, the Saints can win out and take HFA away.

even if the cardinals lose most of their rotation, our rotation is still really capable of being zambrano + 4 guys with an era around 5.00. The chances of all our rotation being 4 guys with ERA's around 5 is still about the same as having all 4 guys with ERA's under 4. Both could happen, but it is not likely that all of them will have that bad or that good of years at the same time. The team will likely have a couple go 4 or under, and a couple be 4.4 or above, with one likely closer to 5 or worse. It's just hard to tell which one will be which right now.

I think it was safe to say the Chargers were the best team in the AFC before the Colts embarassing performance today. Bleh, whatever. I still hate them, because they've always played one-dimensional football and people have been praising them for years for doing it. The NFL has taken severe measures to get Peyton Manning a Super Bowl ring, and now that window of opportunity is closed. (I'm still suspicious of that call in the playoffs against the Steelers. ) Enough of that noise. The Colts are done, and the world is right again. You have to be able to run the ball and stop the run to be competitive in football. No more 49 touchdown seasons. I feared for a watered down version of arena football after 2004, but thankfully that didn't happen. You do know the Colts run the ball more than they pass, don't you? They have had one of the leading rushers in the NFL most of the last 9 years, and possibly could have had one this year if they didn't go with the 2 back system. In 3-4 games this year, they've had to pass the ball a great deal because the running game has been completely ineffective, but that hasn't happened very much over the last few years. The 49 TD thing? The Colts ran the ball if I remember right about 55-60 percent of the time in the red zone that year-it's not their fault the first time they dropped back to pass it was a TD almost every time.

I'm going to say now that the IU-SIU game will end will less than 110 points combined. I have no idea who will win, but the defense played in that game may be incredible, with the best offense coming off of steals leading to transition baskets. It's more than likely going to be very similar to the SIU-Arkansas game a couple of weeks ago. We're off for 7 days, so hopefully our legs will be fresh. It's our next game as well-should be a good one. I hope IU can get one good win in non-conference-they've played the close game twice now, but they need to finish one of these games.

Sorry if this has been mentioned already. I'm just back from an X-mas party. How old is Marquis now? He's not been outstanding for at least 5 years. Give me a freaking break. I guess it's fine to be a contrian but at some point it becomes absurd. That particular post was sarcasm by jjgman to try to prove a point from a different argument. In response to your question, he is 28-and if he can put up numbers close to what he did his first 2 years in St Louis (2004-2005), his contract will be a bargain-it's just a huge gamble if he can repeat that or not. Personally, I think the contract is close to an average gamble-if it's 3/20, I think it's a good enough gamble, if it's 3 for 28, I'm skeptical of gambling that much-he still has a decent chance of living up to his contract though, and hopefully the gamble actually works.

I'm going to say now that the IU-SIU game will end will less than 110 points combined. I have no idea who will win, but the defense played in that game may be incredible, with the best offense coming off of steals leading to transition baskets.

From Hendry's comments both about Hill's value and about Prior being a "#6 starter to start the season", I don't think Hill could knock himself out of the rotation unless he tanks the first couple months of the season, and then it would be a possibility if everyone was healthy.

There are other rationales to that one to think that this signing "could" be a good one. Have they found the flaw in his mechanics? Is that the reason for his 2006 numbers? If he pitches like he did in 2004/2005 for at least 2 out of the 3 years he's here, it's a good contract. If he pitches closer to 2006 for 2 out of those 3 years, then it's a horrible one. If he pitches somewhere in between, it's a poor contract, but not terrible. do you really think you should have 3/20 or 3/28 or whatever for a guy who was TERRIBLE last year because you think you might have figured out how to fix him? and that YOU figured out how to fix him after dave duncan couldn't? if you want to throw a small one-year deal at him and be willing to cut him loose if he pitches bad, that's one thing, but there's absolutely no reason to sign him to this deal. if some other team desperately wanted him, let him go and don't think twice. go sign some other terrible guy if that's going to be the way you want to do things this offseason. It's an absoutely huge risk, I agree. It has a decent chance of paying off, but it could completely blow up in their face. My guess is that they probably think Marquis is their best chance to put up a good (around 4 or less) ERA next year. Could he be terrible? Definitely-but if you think you need a very goood performance next year from a starter, then Marquis gives you that potential best for next season out of the starters left available. This will be one of those moves that labels the GM as either a genius or an idiot, and I'm really not sure which way it's going to go with a guy like Marquis.

There are other rationales to that one to think that this signing "could" be a good one. Have they found the flaw in his mechanics? Is that the reason for his 2006 numbers? If he pitches like he did in 2004/2005 for at least 2 out of the 3 years he's here, it's a good contract. If he pitches closer to 2006 for 2 out of those 3 years, then it's a horrible one. If he pitches somewhere in between, it's a poor contract, but not terrible.

Tejada may be in trade rumors every offseason, but every time they go to make a deal it is rejected by Angelos. Tejada may be one of the most unavailable players in the major leagues, because Angelos continues to reject deals-he did it 2 or 3 times at the trading deadline alone with teams who were giving a great deal of talent back, something that the Orioles should never have rejected.

That's exactly how I feel. If you're not going to use Marshall next year, then you might as well trade him. He is the best right now to step into any teams rotation and so might get something in a trade, but Guzman and Marmol have better upsides overall.

In this division, with the Astros regressing and the Cards not improving? No, the Cubs have as good a shot as anyone. In any other division you're right. I would agree. The Cubs may have plenty of question marks, but I can't see anyone in the division that I can point to as better than this team right now either. This is exactly how the Cubs seem to think. They want to compete within the division. I don't give a flying fig what Houston or the rest of the NL Central has done. Wining the divsion only means getting to the playoffs. I'd like for my team that has a top 5 payroll to be a lock to be above .500. I cannot understand how anyone could be happy with the Marquis signing when the Cubs have at least 2 guys under their control for the next two years that can be just as sucky. I'm not saying I don't want better, I'm just disputing the notion that we don't have a chance next year. Already, we have just as much of a chance as anyone in the division, and when you get in the playoffs anything could happen-so we most definitely have a chance. I would love if we could continue to improve so we become the clear-cut favorite in the division though and competing for the best in the league, but I am certainly not throwing in the towel already if this is close to it. I hope some of our young pitching and bullpen arms can fetch a little bit in a trade now and continue to improve the offense.

In this division, with the Astros regressing and the Cards not improving? No, the Cubs have as good a shot as anyone. In any other division you're right. I would agree. The Cubs may have plenty of question marks, but I can't see anyone in the division that I can point to as better than this team right now either.

Does a guy have to be consistently under 4.20 ERA to be better than a 5th starter here? I mean, the league average is higher than that-so certainly a 5th starter would probably be projected to put up an ERA closer to 5. Z will of course be an ace, Hill will definitely be better than that, Lilly will almost certainly be a good deal better than that, one of Prior/Miller will probably be, and Marquis is about 50/50 (depending if it's one of his on years or off years). I just don't see a great deal of 5th starters, but rather Z, the potential of Hill, and a bunch of average starters (decent #3, good to great #4's)-that would seem as a much better comparison.

His ERA, minus 2 awful performances, would be 5.12 unless I did the math wrong EDIT I did the math wrong the first time, answer is right now Not directed towards you Rocket, but I've never understood this concept. If you take away his real bad performances and chalk them up to he had a bad day, what happens with a real good performance? Honestly, could someone take away his 3 outing where he allowed 2 ER thru 24IP and then try and formulate something from it? 6.76 for those scoring at home. I do agree that to be fair for just plain ERA if you are going to take his worst outings away that you should take a couple of his best outings away also. What they are trying to prove is that he is not that bad in the majority of games, and giving up 6 runs in a couple innings vs 12 in one game doesn't make a whole lot of difference. If I could have a pitcher who gave up 2, 2, and 12 in 3 games, or 4, 4, and 8-I would take the 1st pitcher every time. Therefore, his ERA might be inflated a little bit by 2 horrifically poor outings in which it reached a point where it didn't matter if he gave up more runs or not. However, that still doesn't mean he didn't have a really bad year last year-he most certainly did, it just might mean it wasn't quite as bad as his ERA would say it was overall.

Marquis's main value is durability. He's a 28 year old who has made 30+ starts and 190+ innings in each of the past three seasons, with a career ERA+ of 94. To compare: - 28 year old Gil Meche has a career ERA+ of 96, has never reached 190 innings (he did hit 186 innings twice), and receives 5/55 - 29 year old Adam Eaton has a career ERA+ of 92, has reached 190 innings once, and receives 3/25. - 30 year old Ted Lilly has a career ERA+ of 99, has reached 190 innings once in the past three years, and receives 4/40. Seems in line with the overall market for starters, inflated as it may be. It seems that Hendry had a focus of going after durable starting pitchers this offseason. This has to be a reflection that, aside from Hill, he no longer trusts the farm system to produce quality starting pitching like it did during the late-90s/early-00s. It's hard to disagree with this general track: it's worth ~$20M/year to get two average starting pitchers to contribute ~200 innings each, when the alternative could be repeat performances from Mateo, Marmol, or Ryu. Who cares if they're consistent if they're consistently bad? At least with Lilly there was hope of a good season or two. I don't see that from Marquis. Pitcher's 3 best years: Pitcher A: 129.3 IP, 3.48 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, 127 ERA+ 201.3 IP, 3.71 ERA, 1.41 WHIP, 113 ERA+ 207.0 IP, 4.13 ERA, 1.329 WHIP, 103 ERA+ Pitcher B: 100.0 IP, 3.69 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 120 ERA+ 197.3 IP, 4.06 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 120 ERA+ 181.7 IP, 4.31 ERA, 1.431 WHIP, 109 ERA+ I can't see why Marquis doesn't have just as much potential to put up a good season as Lilly-it's just that Lilly has been more consistent and his bad season came in 2005, while the bad season for Marquis was in 2006. If Marquis returns to 2004/2005 numbers, this is a very good signing in this market. If he has 2 years of that and one terrible year, it will be an average signing. If he has over a 4.50 ERA 2 out of the 3 years or more, it will be a bad signing-it depends a great deal on if Marquis really has found a flaw in his delivery that he has corrected or not.

Everybody loves the Jets, and it only grew after the Bears beat them 10-0 in their own building. The media wrote that game up like a Jets win and a Grossman disaster. That's true-the Jets love has been slowly growing throughout the season-if they win a couple more games, it could be in full swing by playoff time.

If you were to follow the Sports Guys betting ideas long enough, you'd lose a ton of money. It's fine to question Grossman, but you can't then place Dallas over them and use Romo as good support, since he has not played any better, or against any better competition, than the Grossman started out the season. Rex looked so much better in the Meadowlands than Romo looked. Yeah, I enjoy his pop culture references, and those type of things than any kind of sports analysis from him. At this point it's just piling on though. People need to back off. If the Bears are going to lose in the playoffs, then fine. Not many people even thought Lovie would be able to beat the Packers, much less win 2 divisions in a row. I know the bar has to be winning the Super Bowl, but my point is none of these media types gave us any credit before for what was happening in Chicago. They called us junk even when it was clear we were building empire on defense. Now they just ignore the accomplishments made, and rag on Rex for a living. Looking at it realistically, teams like the Colts are in the same boat, having lost in the playoffs while putting together great regular seasons. Yet I don't hear the criticism coming their way. It's all pretty darn biased. That's why I think deep down inside most media types hate Chicago and are hoping we fail. How could I think any differently? 10-2, first to clinch, best record in the NFL and nothing but negative press about the QB? Come on, something's wrong with that. The funny thing is that you are using a Bill Simmons quote to talk about how the media is slamming the Bears and not the Colts when Simmons has made his career in the last 3 years making jokes about the Colts and their ineptitude in big games. BTW, the Colts have received plenty of bad press this year-all year it was "Well, they have Peyton-but it doesn't matter because they can't run the ball, and they can't stop the run, and that's what counts"-they are still saying the same things about how the Colts inability to run the ball will be their undoing in the playoffs (a few don't, but many do). I'm not sure the Colts are the correct example here-the teams who have received the media love this year are SD, Dallas, the Giants at times (before they melted down a little bit), and the Patriots at times-that's pretty much it.

I don't know about the numbers, but I've been writing since last month that they're interested (I know there's a thread about this, so let's keep it over there. But I'll answer the question here.) I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him signed. That's the big difference for me. If we sign him for 3/27, I think Marquis "could" live up to the contract. He has the potential to do so if he has 2 to 2 1/2 good years out of those 3. However, I don't think there is much room for him to exceed the expectations of that contract-which makes that a move with little upside and tremendous possible downside, where we are simply hoping that he is worth what he is being paid. Now-if he is being paid 3/15 or 3/18, the risks and upside start to get better, and this becomes a much better chance of a good signing-and if you can convince him to go less than 3 years for that sort of money, it might even be a pretty decent signing from the beginning-but it won't be that if it's 3 for 27 or something similar.

I just love this statement-he is only ok off the bench if he doesn't cost much and puts up a .926 OPS-if he is only .900, we don't want him :D Seriously though, Ward is a pretty good guy to have off the bench. He plays both corner outfield spots and first base, and he hits for pretty good home run power off of the bench. It's unclear to me if last year was a complete career year, or if he made some kind of change that could sustain at least part of that improvement (I wouldn't expect him to maintain all of it, as I still think it's a career year even if he did change something). He's a nice bench player to get 100-200 AB's.