CubColtPacer

BTW, I did here Peter Gammons talking on the radio today about Daisuke. He said that the comissioner's office will have to step in on two issues. First is the one that we have talked about is a team like the Blue Jays bidding 60 million and then refusing to sign him, just to make sure he does not come to the Yankees or Red Sox. The second thing is to make sure the posting fee is completely fair. The Mariners have been rumored as possibly working out other arrangements than the actual money being sent to the Japanese club in return, and that could give them an edge in just writing an absurd amount for the posting fee. Gammons did not mention us as one of the teams who is likely to bid-in fact they were all A.L. teams that he mentioned would be likely to get him-Yankees, Red Sox, Rangers, Mariners.

PECOTA projected Izturis to have an 18 point advantage in OPS next year. I'll bet you $20 that Izturis doesn't have an 80 point advantage in OPS next year. If I was in the habit of betting over the Net, I would think about it. 80 points is my high end reasonable projection though. 50 points I would be much more sure about (that isn't projecting great things for Izturis at all, as I bet Neifi stays under a .600 OPS next year)

What? Neifi and Rusch money? The difference is the guy would produce. Add his $5m to Jones's $5m, platoon them, and you are getting the produciton of a $15m+ individual player. Thank-you! Furthermore, when Alou isn't starting there's a great threat of a pinch hitter, something we haven't had in recent years. I agree with you completely Vance. In fact, I brought up this exact scenario a month ago on this board :D. The big key is as you mentioned is not only the starting production, but also the threat of the other guy off of the bench. There were several times that Jacque was up in a key situation in the 7th, 8th, or 9th this year that teams brought in a left-hander just for him. With Alou, teams might not even bring in that left-hander to face Jacque, instead choosing to pitch to Jacque with a right-hander rather than a left-hander against Alou. That just gives the Cubs so many favorable matchups that the overall production of right field would be absolutely tremendous.

I was shocked as well. That can't last long. That a radio station broadcasts games online that it shouldn't supposed to? I know of at least 4 Colts stations, probably the same number of Pacer stations, and sometimes a few Cubs affiliates that do the same thing. There's even a website that many people frequent that is exclusively devoted to and has huge listings of affiliates that might be carrying the game online for every team in many different sports-and usually at least one of each team can be found for every game that has the game online. It's certainly not very uncommon, and it's been going on for years.

LOL..I enjoyed the article a great deal, but it's not very factual. That's part of what makes a satire (and this is a satire) but there are still some common misreperesentations in here. I am going to try to do my best to question some of the common myths: Yes, Notre Dame has had several years where they were in the polls at the beginning of the year where they then dropped out. There also have been several years in which ND was unranked to start the season and have climbed into the polls with a good year. This year will seem to throw the trend off: for the first time in a while, a team that started in the polls might finish there. So the pollsters are always off with ND, sometimes overrating them, sometimes underrating them. Second paragraph-nothing really to complain about, although he is being sort of narrow with his definition of a good team-his definition excludes most schools of that "good" win. That's not a major thing though. Same thing with the third paragraph-no problem there. Fourth paragraph-here comes another quote. This paragraph is laughable to me. There is nothing to suggest that Alabama is a better team than UCLA-absolutely nothing. Alabama is a team who has played almost everybody close-the good teams and the bad teams. To call them a quality team and UCLA a simply mediocre team is a little silly-neither team has really proved anything yet, and they are probably very evenly matched. The only part that makes sense is that UT-Alabama is a big rivalry, which makes games closer. That's it. The next couple paragraphs-that's not what Weis was talking about. He didn't say that they should move them up based on a thrilling game-he said the pollsters should see that UT had a very similar game to ND, and that if ND was ahead of UT last week, they should be again this week. Talking about ND's road before USC: ND has to play many of its quality games in a tight span. Becuase of most teams conference schedules, that means ND will play most of its difficult games in September. Besides, this schedule coming up is no different than OSU's schedule has been for several weeks and Michigan's schedule will be for the next few weeks. I'm not going to sit here and say that ND has an absolutely brutal schedule-they don't. Their schedule isn't relatively easy either. BTW, I'm not a big fan of Weis's comments-at all. While he technically is right (those teams shouldn't have passed ND just based on Saturday's games-not saying those teams shouldn't be ahead of ND, but if they were behind before Saturday's games did little to help the picture). That doesn't mean Weis should have come out and said this though. It may be true, but it's still whining when a coach does it like this. It's silly to whine like this, and I'm disappointed that he said it. BTW, one more common myth. This year the BCS rules have changed, but most commentators have not realized it. I heard one analyst say that the ND win over UCLA was a 14-17 million dollar win, because that is the payout for a BCS bowl that ND would get to have all of. Instead though, ND no longer gets the full BCS bowl money. An ESPN.com story about the Weis comments quotes the number as 4.5 million, which sounds right. That's a big difference from 14-17 million.

But to be fair, Howry/Eyre performed admirably especially for their contracts. Eyre wasn't good, and he was terrible for his contract. Erye was great before his injury in August.

That's certainly a very interesting study. Obviously its rankings cannot be taken for gold (and the author basically admits that) but it does seem to show that Lou's teams have most always been at least a little better than projected. Of course, Dusty had the same thing, and his score apparently just got worse and worse with the Cubs. Still though, it's an interesting look at the different managers around the league, if with a decent amount of possibility of variability that would have to be considered.

It does sound sort of like some of Wood and Prior's injuries over the years. It should be healing, but it's not. My best goes out to Liriano-I think one thing we forget about these guys is how frustrated some of them must be to get that taste of greatness, and then to have your body absolutely fail on you like these three great young pitchers (along with many others) have happened to them so far. It does tell you to enjoy the great times when they are there, because one will never know when they will be over.

The good thing I see with payroll flexibility is that we did get rid of Neifi-which probably wouldn't have happened without the Izturis deal. Would people have taken Maddux and Neifi for Robinson and Izturis? At that point, I think it's at worst a lateral deal overall. Exchanging Neifi for Izturis was a downgrade. Neifi has similar skills to Izturis' but he makes less money and seldom gets hurt. If the Tigers offered me a straight up Neifi-for-Izturis trade I'd take it, although I'd have to hold my nose while signing the paperwork. Similar yes, but Izturis will probably put up 50-80 points better in OPS than Neifi does next year, if not more. Also, if you think he hurts the ballclub with being in there, wouldn't you want that player to be hurt more to allow other players to get that playing time? Fragility is never desirable, especially in a player who make $4.45M. Izturis may have a slightly higher OPS when he plays, which may not be very often. I'll take sturdy Neifi at $2.5M over glassbody Cesar at $4.45M. So it would have been better for the Cubs if Rusch (before his medical condition) had stayed healthy all year and pitched for the Cubs? When talking about players like that, sometimes it's better for them to not be healthy than healthy, as horrible as that sounds. Neifi staying healthy simply meant that he got in for more at bats to hurt the team.

The good thing I see with payroll flexibility is that we did get rid of Neifi-which probably wouldn't have happened without the Izturis deal. Would people have taken Maddux and Neifi for Robinson and Izturis? At that point, I think it's at worst a lateral deal overall. Exchanging Neifi for Izturis was a downgrade. Neifi has similar skills to Izturis' but he makes less money and seldom gets hurt. If the Tigers offered me a straight up Neifi-for-Izturis trade I'd take it, although I'd have to hold my nose while signing the paperwork. Similar yes, but Izturis will probably put up 50-80 points better in OPS than Neifi does next year, if not more. Also, if you think he hurts the ballclub with being in there, wouldn't you want that player to be hurt more to allow other players to get that playing time?

But none of this required Izturis to be acquired in the first place. And if a starting pitcher can be traded on July 31st of a losing season, then the starting 2B could have been traded on August 20 of a losing season. Agreed. None of it was required to, but realistically, that's what had to happen. Hendry's biggest weakness is his love for middle infielders that are of this type. He seems to believe strongly that a team needs one, and a veteran one at that. I'm just saying that in Hendry's mind I think it's either or. It's either Izturis or Neifi, or some other player like that. I just happen to think that the current setup has benefited the Cubs more than the previous one. Neither one is ideal, but I know this is a big point of Hendry's weaknesses, and so I'm thinking of how to make this weakness cause the least damage, and I think the way it turned out is better than the way that it probably would have otherwise, which in hindsight makes the deal look better for me. Now, that deal does not look better as far as Hendry goes for me (the only way it will look better is if Izturis comes out and has a good to great year for him), but it does look better for minimizing that weakness he has and allowing the Cubs to be able to win otherwise.

While it might be true that Hendry wouldn't have made the Neifi move without first getting Izturis, that is not a defense of the move. Rather, it's an indictment of his priorities. They could have not acquired Izturis and still trade away Neifi. Besides, Cesar was banged up at the time of the Neifi trade, and went on the DL shortly after. So it's not like they waited to find a stable middle infield option before dealing Neifi. Cesar was playing relatively well at the time Neifi was dealt. It was actually the day Neifi was traded that Cesar got hurt. He played the next day, and then went on the DL after he left in the 5th inning. Sure, it's not a defense of the move. What I'm saying is that it worked out. Izturis coming here most likely allowed Neifi to be traded, because he likely would not have been traded while starting at second base. Izturis then getting hurt allowed Theriot to play at second instead of having Izturis and Cedeno there the whole year. I'm just saying I'd rather have what happened with Robinson in our system, Izturis here, and a useful utility player in Theriot then have not traded Maddux, had an extra spot blocked in the rotation for the young players, with Cedeno and Neifi playing short and second for the rest of the year and both on this year's roster.

The good thing I see with payroll flexibility is that we did get rid of Neifi-which probably wouldn't have happened without the Izturis deal. Would people have taken Maddux and Neifi for Robinson and Izturis? At that point, I think it's at worst a lateral deal overall.

I imagine that the "some free agents" is in regards to FA's that are classifed as Type A, B, or C FA's, but the report from the AP is a bit vague. The Cubs better sign Aramis to a new deal now, because it appears now that they won't even get draft picks if he leaves. This is also disapointing now, because it appears they won't even get compensation for Pierre either, who also will probably be testing the FA waters. At this point, this is probably a fine thing for the Cubs for it to go away right now. It saves us from having to even run the risk of offering Pierre arbitration in a year that it sounds like the Cubs will be big free agent spenders-so they would probably lose more than they would gain.

I dunno...individual teams can only appear on prime time 5 times during the season. The Bears will already have 4 (Seattle, Arizona, New York, and St Louis). NBC might want to save that potential 5th game for the last one of the season in case the Bears have a shot at 16-0 or (and probably more importantly in their eyes) Favre retires and it's his last game. I hope they don't. I have tickets to that game, and won't be able to make it if they do. When would that be announced if it were to happen? I think they say that it has to be announced at least 12 days before the game for any week but week 17.

Yes, that was more of the point. Obviously, OSU went undefeated, and that counts for a great deal. Notre Dame might have struggled with more teams this year because they have played more decent to good teams than some of the other schools that are ranked around them. Look at the schedules. Auburn-Good teams they have beat-Florida, Unknowns: LSU (we will know more later in the season about this team-right now their biggest wins are Arizona and Kentucky, and their 2 losses are to the two quality teams they have played so far-similar to Penn State below) Decent Teams: South Carolina, Washington State Bad Teams: Miss State, Buffalo, Tulane Loss to Arkansas Tennessee-Good Teams they have beat-California Decent Teams: Alabama, Georgia, Air Force Bad Teams: Marshall, Memphis Loss to Florida Notre Dame-Good teams they have beat-? Unknowns-Georgia Tech-we'll know more after the Miami game this week, and Penn State-their 3 losses have still come to OSU, Michigan, and ND-which makes them very unknown. Decent Teams: Michigan State, Purdue, UCLA Bad Teams: Stanford The only thing missing from ND's resume so far is that signature win, although the unknowns still have to shake out (Georgia Tech/Miami, LSU/Tennnessee, California/USC in a couple weeks should help to see which wins were better). Other than that, Auburn struggled with one of their unknowns, and one of their decent teams out of two. Tennessee struggled with two of their three decent teams, if you don't count the Georgia comeback as a struggle. ND struggled with one of their unknowns, and two of their 3 decent teams. The point is that each 1 loss team has struggled when playing decent teams. The only three unknown or decent teams on these three teams schedules that the game was not in doubt in the second half was Washington State for Auburn, and Penn State and Purdue for Notre Dame. All of these teams are flawed, and nobody has steamrolled through most of their opponents, and they should be ranked similarly. I have no problem if people want to rank ND behind those other two at this point, but they are not nearly as far behind as some people would have one believe.

True, but what he's saying is that slump was required to make Murton better. Murton was not hitting for much power in the first part of the season. He went through his slump where he swung at everything. He came back, this time looking at the pitches he couldn't handle and actually swinging and driving the pitches he could, and his OBP and SLG shot up.

It's all based on Strength of Schedule. USC has Arkansas and Nebraska helping them out a great deal, plus their worst games are their bottom Pac 10 opponents, which are still usually rated higher than most teams non-conference schedules (their entire non conference schedule is Arkansas, Nebraska, and Notre Dame-of course Notre Dame doesn't factor in to their schedule so far). Ohio State though has one great opponent so far-Texas. Other than that, Penn State, Iowa, and Michigan State all have at least 3 losses, and they have Northern Illinois, Cincinnati, Bowling Green, and Indiana. Ohio State's schedule has not really been all that hard. Michigan is ahead of OSU for one basic reason-they both have played one great opponent (OSU-Texas, Michigan-Notre Dame), they both have several common games (Iowa, PSU, Michigan State), similar other non-conference games (OSU-Cincy, Bowling Green, Northern Illinois, Michigan-Vanderbilt, Central Michigan). So it basically comes down to their other conference games-and Michigan leads by having played Wisconsin. ND shouldn't be considered a great opponent. They are as much as Texas-definitely in the computer's SOS model, ND has 1 loss, Texas has 1 loss, ND has the harder schedule of the two. Plus, just because a team has a great deal of close games where they had to pull it out in the end doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad team. It's a warning sign, but not necessarily true. OSU in 2002 under that definition would be considered a bad team, but they won the national title (they had 6 games decided by 6 points or less, and at least 2 of those probably should have lost, similar to ND). Plus, every 1 loss team has had a scare or two-ND should be put at about the same level as all the other 1 loss teams who have played pretty good schedules.

It's all based on Strength of Schedule. USC has Arkansas and Nebraska helping them out a great deal, plus their worst games are their bottom Pac 10 opponents, which are still usually rated higher than most teams non-conference schedules (their entire non conference schedule is Arkansas, Nebraska, and Notre Dame-of course Notre Dame doesn't factor in to their schedule so far). Ohio State though has one great opponent so far-Texas. Other than that, Penn State, Iowa, and Michigan State all have at least 3 losses, and they have Northern Illinois, Cincinnati, Bowling Green, and Indiana. Ohio State's schedule has not really been all that hard. Michigan is ahead of OSU for one basic reason-they both have played one great opponent (OSU-Texas, Michigan-Notre Dame), they both have several common games (Iowa, PSU, Michigan State), similar other non-conference games (OSU-Cincy, Bowling Green, Northern Illinois, Michigan-Vanderbilt, Central Michigan). So it basically comes down to their other conference games-and Michigan leads by having played Wisconsin.

Three interesting quotes from the Colts-Redskins post-game: Manning on the big hit where Daniels snapped his head back: On talking about his possible injury: Here is possibly the funniest quote of the day for Bears fans, this one comes from Washington's Phillip Daniels: Sound close to something else anybody heard's recently? :D Here are the sources on that, this time actually two Washington Post articles: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102201162_2.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102201142_2.html

I am not completely BCS literate so I was looking at the BCS poll and is Mchigan and USC tied for number 1 in the computer rankings? Basically, yes-they are not necessarily #1 in any individual poll, but they are completely tied right now overall in the computers.

Yeah, Addai has looked really, really good all season long. Even before today, he has had a 4.6 yard average on 59 carries. The Colts continue to go with the tandem to try to limit his carries so hopefully he will be fresh for the playoffs-at least I hope they give him the full-time job here in a few weeks, because he's clearly better than Rhodes.

It's some sort of leg injury, but he's trying to work it out and get back into the game, so it's not that serious, I would hope.

I'm not sure how Seattle is going to win now. Hasselbeck's knee injury means that Seattle is going with Seneca Wallace and Maurice Morris as its quarterback and runningback, and that's just not a good team in the making most of the time.

Why does Washington get to free kick here? That's only after a safety-you can't free kick just because you had a penalty-they need to get the tee out here and kick it like normal.