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If somebody hopes that both Big East teams will lose before the end of the season, then I think you should root for Louisville. Not that West Virginia is by far the better team-but with the speed of WV, a team with inferior team speed will have a hard time beating them. Louisville I think has a better chance of getting upset by Rutgers or Pittsburgh later in the season, although I don't know if they will or not.

I thought that I heard that McBride had been suspended for 4 games. It was about 2 weeks ago, so I'm not sure about that..can any Illini fans confirm?

this is certainly not bad news And no Mariners. So who does this leave? Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Rangers, Cubs, Red Sox, Tigers, and Padres (Not really sure about Rangers and Tigers.) Any other possible suitors? I don't think Padres will have the money. Red Sox, like the Cubs, have yet to make a splash in the Asian market. Yanks surely have to be the favorite, with Mets maybe not far behind. Here's hoping Hendry feels enough heat to make a splash. I'd be surprised if anybody but the Yankees, Cubs, Mets, Red Sox, or Rangers won the bid. Texas and the Yankees have to be the leaders for me, because those are the two teams who will literally throw large amounts of money around like crazy sometimes (the Red Sox and Mets do, but it is usually much more calculated, and I think one of the first two will have a bid way above market value, and the Cubs won't go that high either).

I'm not sure if this is a serious question, since the answer is so obvious. In the late innings, when you've already scored enough runs to win, it makes sense to put in the guy that will do the best job of preventing runs from scoring. In the early innings, obviously the light-hitting, all defense guy is a bigger liability than the guy that can hit but plays inferior defense. Of course it is a serious question. It makes no logical sense whatsoever. What does it matter that the poor defensive player lets in runs at the beginning or end of the game? But more to the point, how often does his replacement prevent a run from scoring in the 8th or 9th inning? Are you honestly saying you don't understand the logic behind why a manager might substitute a Doug Mientkiewitz for a Craig Wilson in the 9th inning with a 1-run lead? The premise is elementary: when you need your defense to hold the lead and secure the win, then you put your best defensive players in the game. It's a basic principle that applies to many sports. You can agree or disagree with the wisdom of such a strategy as it applies to baseball, but to fail to grasp the logic is pretty puzzling. It's pretty basic stuff. Ok the logic is faulty. Here's the deal, Why pay a guy and take up space on the 25 man roster when whatever minimal benefit he might provide is going to matter maybe once or twice a season, if that? Substituting Freddy Bynum for Matt Murton or Neifi Perez for Todd Walker is just foolish. Those two are 2/13 of the position players on the Cubs team (the kept 12 pitchers). If you take out Blanco they represent 1/6 of the entire team. I don't know if the figures could be generated but I would think that having Bynum and Perez on the bench cost the Cubs more games than if the Cubs had guys on the bench who could actually hit. The value of the bench lies in it's ability to create runs. If you have to rely on your bench for jacks-of-all trades-masters-of-none defensive replacements you are putting your team at a decided disatvantage. That's a different argument then. Sure, people on the bench who can hit are more valuable, and players should not be kept on the roster who are seen as only defensive replacements. If they are on a roster though and a team is up late, there is value in a defensive replacement-just not nearly as much usually as an offensive player on the bench. People thought you were arguing originally that a defensive replacemnt in-game is never a good move instead of the value between an offensively minded bench guy and a defensively minded bench guy.

Discussed? Yes. Excused? Absolutely. When teams start to lose though, minor issues inevitably get blown way out of proportion-on the Cubs right now, this one is it.

Link This is interesting. Of course, I'm not sure Arod gets as much money if he opts out...but there is the chance he could get more. I don't think that there's any conceivable chance for him to get more. His agent is Scott Boras. And his salary is ~$25mil and he will be ~33. Is Texas still paying out part of the contract? If he opts out, does that release them from their obligations also?

I don't think that is going to be great bulletin board material. He set himself up for bulletin board material if he had proceeded to another sentence, but right there he seems to just want to focus on his team and his play, and not what the other team is doing-he's not necessarily saying that his team will play better.

Wow-that's all I have to say to that. I guess everybody has their scapegoat, and I guess it is Ramirez for him. I could at least accept that as his opinion if he then didn't want to go out and re-sign Pierre even if I don't agree with him. The fact that he can't even be consistent drains the remaining credibility that the rest of the article works so hard to destroy. It's not just him!! People are piling on this whole "Ramirez is lazy" story because one person ran with it and they are either too stupid or too lazy to come up with their own stories (see: Eckstein or Arod). That's true. I guess if this writer is that lazy, maybe he shouldn't be asking for a raise anytime soon, or else his boss might throw this article, especially the first couple sentences, back at him-wouldn't that be poetic justice? :D

Wow-that's all I have to say to that. I guess everybody has their scapegoat, and I guess it is Ramirez for him. I could at least accept that as his opinion if he then didn't want to go out and re-sign Pierre even if I don't agree with him. The fact that he can't even be consistent drains the remaining credibility that the rest of the article works so hard to destroy.

Wouldn't losing Pierre or Ramirez raise that though? Not sure: "If there are 14 or less type A and B players available, no team may sign more than 1 type A or B player. If there are 15-38 available A and B players, no team may sign more than 2. From 39-62 this becomes 3. The club quota increases accordingly for higher totals of available free agents. There is no maximum allowed for type C free agents. Lastly, a team can sign up to as many type A and B free agents as they've lost, regardless of the above quota." I read that last clause as meaning if you've lost more type A/Bs than the quota you get to replace all your A/Bs, not that you get the quota plus the A/Bs you lose. There are already more than 62 filed, so it should be at least 4. Of course, I think Ramirez would count towards that number, so it would be back to three after that.

I just wanted to say good luck to the Bulls this year. I think the Bulls and the Pacers have two of the deepest teams in the NBA this year (the Pacers actually had to cut a very promising rookie, James White out of UC because they were so deep) and I know it will be a great battle in the Central. The Central will probably get at least 4 teams out of the 8 that make the playoffs (Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Indiana)-that's pretty impressive. Again, good luck, and I can't wait until the two teams get to face off this year.

Holy Schnikeees! (And no wonder Ramirez opted for FA. He'll get more than Alphonso!) Are my timetables off, or is Soriano still in the exclusive negotiation window with his former team? If so, what would be the penalty with "player tampering" of this nature. Would it be forfeiture of the contract, should he sign 1 with them? Hmm, now that you point that out, that is strange. I don't have an answer to you if it is tampering, and what that would mean if it was though. Anybody know a little more than me? :D

Don, if Ramirez walks, you then have to sign or aquire 2 impact bats to improve. Thjat's going to be next to impossible this winter. As far as being the next Ron Santo in terms of fan support, I'd rather people be indifferent to him and he continue to outproduce every other 3B in team history than be popular. I am in the camp that believes that Ramirez NEEDS to be re-signed, but Hendry could sign Soriano and Carlos Lee and put Soriano at 2B, or sign Soriano and trade for Sheffield. If the Cubs sign Soriano (which I believe they will), there are a number of OF possibilities: Lee, Sheffield, Wells, Burrell, etc. Personally, I would re-sign Ramirez, sign Soriano and try and trade for Vernon Wells or sign Lee. On a semi-related note, I find myself wondering why people are assuming Soriano will be an OF next season. Sure he is a butcher at 2B, but with the lack of impact bats on the market this winter, he's going to play where he wants to. I agree. There are options if Ramirez walks. The hard part is-how would Hendry lure free agents to Chicago to a team now without Ramirez? If he could, here's about what he would have to do: Trade for A-rod Sign Soriano (CF) Sign Durham Sign Platoon Partner Leaving a lineup of Soriano Murton Lee A-Rod Jones/Platoon Partner Barrett Durham Izturis That lineup would be productive enough, and would still leave us some money for pitching (the loss of A-Ram coupled with the payroll increase and the salaries already gone would give us a ton of money to spend). I think the whole process is a great deal easier with re-signing Ramirez, and I certainly hope they do-but I still think there's a possibility, even if it be small, of fielding a good team without him next year.

http://www.newsday.com/sports/printedition/ny-spyanks314954810oct31,0,5248755.story?coll=ny-sports-print Not sure what I would give up for Sheffield but if we found a way to not give up much and find a way to peddle Jones for something of vaule it would be nice to take a gamble that Sheff can return to 30-35 homer glory. Does Sheffield still throw the ball well? I know he's not worse than Jones. Well, if it's the Cubs, good for them for staying firm in the Sheffield talks. I don't particularly want him, but if the team is going to get him, at least they are not caving it to the Yankees demands yet (and that's why the Yankees are waiting, hoping the market improves for him).

Agreed. But "love of Chicago" or not, Aramis was gonna opt out of this contract. The time to be upset was the beginning of 2005, not today. I've never understood the hatred of the opt out clause. Sure, everyone knew he was going to opt out after two years. If Ramirez and his agent came to the table though at the beginning of 2005 and said "You give us this or we go to free agency after the year" do you expect the ownership to just let him go to free agency? It at least delayed things for one year-now the team has to lock him up.

I agree, I just think it's entirely too early to be thinking undefeated, so I doubt they'll bother trying. I don't think they would do it anyway until there is only one team left undefeated.

I don't think ND deserves to be that high, although there are some teams above them in the polls that are getting a free pass. Texas is a great example of that-they also got blown out against one of the top 2 teams at home, and have struggled mightily against a couple of the only decent teams they played. I'm not saying that Texas should necessarily be below ND, but I think they have had very similar seasons-and it is kind of interesting how there is a big gap between them in the polls.

I would put USC ahead of ND right now. I wouldn't. USC lost to Oregon State for crying out loud. Not to mention that they were extremely close to losing to Washington State and Washington. USC was extremely overrated. And Notre Dame isn't? Cubweiser is right. They both are overrated, but USC has looked extremely unimpressive all year long. ND's loss came against a team that is ranked #2 in the nation while USC's loss came against a team that isn't worthy of being top 50 in the nation. That fact alone is why I believe ND should be ranked ahead of USC. And USC killed Arkansas on the road. That wasn't the same Arkansas team though. Different QB, and their star RB was hobbled. Even after the USC game, Arkansas struggled for a few games before gelling (2 point win over Vanderbilt in which Vandy had a field goal to win, and than a 1 point OT win against Alabama). Edit: BTW, I don't care that USC is in front of ND. As others have said, the polls don't matter until the very end of the year, and it will be settled on the field before then.

73 points.

but now they're tied. It's a clear cut case of pre-season polling affecting mid-season polling. If there were no pre-season polls, no one would have USC as #2 or #3 in the country right now. I don't think that's true. There's no way they would be ahead of Michigan, but they still would be #3, simply by being undefeated with their strength of schedule. For now, they deserve to be there-if they get their first loss, then they can be dropped behind most of the one loss teams where they belong.

I wouldn't call it a model. He swung at a ball, then looked at a strike, than swung at a strike. He shouldn't have swung at the first pitch-but he shouldn't have looked at the second pitch either.

who be sinatro and strode? I don't know much about either of them, but I just looked it up. Matt Sinatro was a little used catcher for 11 years in the major leagues. He was a bullpen coach for Piniella in Seattle, and might have been in Tampa Bay as well. Lester Strode has been the Cubs minor league pitching coordinator for 11 years now.

I just looked around some recently updated mock drafts for 2007, and Samardizja is going between 20 and 30 in the 3-4 I've looked in. No higher than 20, and he's always been in the first round. Of course, that could still change a great deal-and his baseball chances could impact his football stock substantially. He hasn't raised his draft status this year, but he hasn't hurt it significantly either.

6 years, at least 90 million dollars from what the article is saying. That is getting steep. I still want to sign him, but for that kind of money and that kind of years it's beginning to get very dicey.

I distinctly remember Terry Mulholland blowing a game at the Astrodome like that. I think it was a big game too, I just can't remember the context I remember that too. Was that in '98? Extra innings involved? I don't remember what season it was in. It was either in the 10th or 11th (believe the 10th) and it was with the bases loaded and 2 out. I remember it was a big situation, a big cheer with the comebacker, and then just the utter shock as it went into right field.