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They booed Santa Clause, that's all you need to know It wasn't that great of a movie, to be fair. What movie? That actually happened. It was a joke because the e was added on to the end of Santa Claus, which made it the movie with Tim Allen in it rather than the person.

Well, I guess the bye week still didn't help the Colts injury situation that much. Wednesday injury report came out with 21 players questionable. Notable names include several starters on defense (Freeney, Reagor, Gardner, Sanders) our 3rd and 4th corners (Jackson, Hayden) pretty much all of our backup defensive linemen (Reid, Klecko, LaCasse, Thomas), our starting center and 2nd tight end for our 2 tight end formation (Saturday, Utecht) our 3rd, 4th, and 5th receivers (Stokely, Moorehead, Wilkins) and our kicker and punter, along with a couple of others. I hope half of those players can play, or else you might see people at positions you have never seen before.

I don't know how many different threads this argument needs to span before it gets read, but this is a poor observation. Please go and study Sorianos career splits and then reconsider your opinion. His best numbers are continually demonstrated at leadoff, with mediocre to poor numbers in the 3 and 5 hole (respective to what you want out of those slots). The big-time flashy numbers that make Soriano attractive occur at leadoff, and it is easily his best lineup split for his career. Sometimes a spade is a spade - Washington figured that out. Where did he bad in 2002 and 2003? Granted his best numbers occured this season but was that due to him batting leadoff, or just improving as a ballplayer?(or sadly a contract season) I simply can't agree with putting that kind of RBI potential at leadoff. In 2002 and 2003 Soriano was a leadoff hitter. In 2004, he batted 3rd. In 2005, it was mostly 5th, and in 2006 he was back to leadoff. Soriano certainly seems like somebody who a team would want to put in another spot in the lineup, but it appears like he is more comfortable at leadoff.

This is the first week that my market has 3 very good games on it. I am unfortunately in the Titans zone, but this is their bye week. I get to see Pittsburgh-Atlanta, Carolina-Cincinnati, and my Colts play the Redskins. This looks like the start of 3 weeks in a row that I get to see the Colts on TV, which makes me very happy.

It is ridiculous, but it certainly won't be unprecented whatsover. For example 2000-Washington beats Miami, Miami beats Florida State, they all finish 10-1, rankings go FSU-2, Miami-3, Washington-4. Or 1993 when ND beat FSU and then lost to BC in a very close game, and FSU got the nod and won the national title. The system always seems to be in college football that head to head is close to meaningless, and it's all about SOS and when a team lost. Michigan being behind ND if they lose to OSU or OSU being behind Texas if they lose to Michigan will just be a continuation of the college football tradition.

I am also a big fan of Murton, but he provided absolutely no evidence that he can hold down center field...even in Wrigley. Bad breaks on balls...even misjudged a few. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here...Matt's barely adequate in left. I can't see him playing every day in center, at least not for long. Ditto for Jones. A Lee/Jones Murton outfield would be among the worst defensively in the league, and Jones and Murton at this point are league average offensive players. A shoddy defensive outfield like that would have to be way way way above average offensively to compensate, like a hypothetical Sheffield/Garciaparra/Lee or something like that. Which Murton did you watch? Of the three he seemed to have the greatest learning curve for Wrigley. His fielding pecentage is better than Jim Edmonds and better than Jones, with the upside of youth, speed and learning the field he could be a great one. I also think Murton is better for Wrigley, but only because his strengths play better into Wrigley than a person like Jones. Jones is much better going back towards the wall and struggles sometimes coming in, while Murton has a great deal of trouble near the wall but can make the plays in his range everywhere else. Of course, Murton's arm is better because it's more accurate (I think Jacque's arm is actually stronger, but who can tell when his throws go into the ground or 10 feet over the catcher's head).

There were a couple of threads. Here was one of them. It wasn't the most explicit one he made, but this will give you the idea-it's about 3/4 of the way down the first page. viewtopic.php?t=35835&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

The Colts have traded a 2nd round pick for Booger McFarland of TB. Does anybody know if he has gas left in the tank?

Will someone please explain to me why people still think of Soriano as a leadoff hitter? It's where he's most comfortable and his OBP of .368 at the number 1 slot last year ain't all that bad. Its not bad at all, but his SLG is much more beneficially a bit farther down in the order. That's true, but when courting a free agent one has to be amenable to some things they may want, and letting Soriano bat leadoff would be a fine concession to make to him.

I doubt his a Cub on Opening day. He's good option for a lot of clubs espically with his low pay. That's certainly a distinct possibility as well-thankfully, when we didn't sell him high near the end of July(when most everyone was convinced his numbers were going to continue to plummet in the second half with his tough July)-now with his August and September, we have a chance to sell him at an even higher value-if we choose to do that.

I don't know if he'll start out with a platoon or not. However, Lou is the type of the guy that can't stand failure so much, I bet there will be a platoon by the start of May if not sooner, as long as there is a decent option to replace him in right available.

maybe you should get a receiver that can catch. LOL..I do, Reggie Wayne is on his bye week, and another receiver got hurt. He's all I had left.

Congratulations everyone. Color me very upset-not only did the Bears remain the other undefeated team, but I needed Muhammad to get 12 yards to tie in my fantasy league tonight, and 18 to win! Come on! That's automatic! No, he gets 2-and I go down in flames.

I definitely do. I turned to my wife just now and said that I couldn't believe that the Cardinals dominated for 3 quarters, and now the Bears are going to win. Well, I guess I deserve it for sitting here and thinking about how the Colts were going to be the last undefeated team again.

They still play Michigan, USC, and at least a few decent to good teams other then that every year-not quite the WV model.

They are also doing it for alumni. Their schedule is going to be super easy for the next few years. White decided that in order to compete they had to have a schedule filled with a bunch of weak teams. And I'm not sure I like that. Hell, just last year they were 6 points away from an undefeated season, and they at least tried to put together a strong schedule. The upcoming games with SDSU and Nevada are just going to rally the haters to say "Look at this, they whine every year about our soft opening games, look at who they are playing to open up". Isn't one of those two games not entirely ND's choice? I seem to remember that one of those two schools required us to schedule them 1 time in order for ND to rearrange the schedule. It was the year where ND was scheduled to open with Michigan. At the last minute, ND decided to try to move the BYU game in front of Michigan to give them a warmup game, but one of Nevada or SDSU was in the way-and in order for ND to make the scheduling change, they had to schedule that school for a game. Of course, they lost that BYU game. Does anybody remember which school that was?

No, you have it right. Bruce confirmed that Dusty did not listen to Rothschild, and Larry was one of the only coaches who worked hard (I believe he said 1 of 2, but he didn't mention who the other one was). Everybody just has a different opinion on how much of a factor that was. I'm willing to see how he is this next year, but I can understand if some people are unwilling to give him another chance.

Some of his decisions in Tampa Bay may be clouding my judgement, but it's hard to act like they didn't happen. Also, his pitcher usage has me worried. I'd say that is probably my biggest concern when seeking to hire a manager. What proof is out there about his pitcher abuse? I know he used the pen quite a bit in Cincy but I don't know his habits pitching wise in Seattle. I know Wikipedia is a less than reliable source, but I thought this sentence was interesting about Piniella (the use of had in the sentence was becuase right now he is not a manager). Looking through the pitcher abuse points lists, Moyer and Fassero appeared one year for the older pitchers. Hamala appeared as one of the least abused pitchers of that year. When the full lists came out in 2001, the highest Mariners were Abbott at #28, and Garcia at #36. The next starter for the Mariners was a long way down from that. In 2002, Valdes and Garcia are #21 and #24, with a little ways down until you get to Sele. In 2003 for TB, Jeremi Gonzalez was #15 and Victor Zambrano was #20, with no other TB starter in the top 50. I could not find the 2004 numbers other then I think Victor Zambrano was #4 that year. In 2005, Casey Fossum was #11, and Kazmir was #31. I simply don't see that much evidence that Lou abuses pitchers. He certainly does not abuse them to the point that Baker did at all, as referenced by only having one instance of his pitchers being in the top 10 of PAP.

I will go on record and agree with this right now. Way to cover your butt. The comments of some on this great board are starting to diminish the quality it once had. Too many people jumping on the opinions of the outspoken. I think if the Cubs win in '07, it will be 95% due to the players and 5% to the manager, no matter who they hire!! I totally agree. I stated in one post that I doubt that there would be a swing of more than 3 games no matter whether they hired Piniella, Bochy, Girardi, or Brenley. Whether we want to admit it or not, these guys are all competent enough to win with the right players. I agree. The amount of crying on this board has reached a epic-like proportion. Any of the 4 above mentioned managers I'd would be fine with. Piniella is just as proven as Bochy and Brenley so what's the problem here? Having said that, I think the reason you are seeing people react so negatively to the Piniella hiring is that, to many, it symbolizes more of the same. Hendry is making the "safe" pick. He's going to say, "Lou is a proven winner", he's "been there before". Lou is (seemingly) a manager with a strategy style very similar to Baker's. The thing I don't understand is the theory that Lou has a strategy style similar to Baker's. First is the lineup issue. I've been going back to some of Piniella's Seattle teams in the mid 90's (I've been selecting random years). First, Piniella liked to bat Joey Cora leadoff. Cora had decent speed (one year I'm looking at he had 13 SB) but what he was was the teams highest OBP guy without slugging. In fact, their top 5 OBP guys batted in the first 5 spots in the order, and 3 of those were their top slugging players as well. (this is 1998) Looking through some other years, it seems to be much of the same thing. Lou seems like he will most of the time fill out a proper lineup. Also, look at the BA/OBP numbers of most of his players (everyone with over 300 AB's): for example, here's the 2000 team: .285/.392 .245/.353 .247/.316 .316/.420 .238/.362 .267/.365 .253/.361 .324/.423 .275/.351 So, that's only 2 players out of 9 who don't have at least a 98 point higher OBP than BA (and those 2 have a 69 and 76, which is still much, much better than our squad) and 8 of the 9 have an OBP of .350 or higher. To get that kind of results, that team had to be instructed to be very patient.

Do you think a team loses 90 games on accident? It's a series of moves. Hendry re-upped Alfonseca with a big raise when it was unwarrented and unnecessary. He brought in guys like Macias, Perez, Rusch and Estes who all sucked and received way to much playing time. He's overpaid for mediocrity repeatedly, and avoided the opportunity to acquire difference makers, unless those players came with an asterisk (like the banged up Nomar, or the getting dumped by a payroll slasher Ramirez and Lee). He focused on the bullpen last year when the lineup and rotation were huge question marks, then he filled in the lineup and rotation with mediocre players like Jacque Jones and an injured Wade Miller. The Cubs have lost a ton of games with Hendry. That doesn't happen if all but 2 of your moves are good. I think with Hendry (and what Goony is alluding to) it is more of what he hasn't done than what he has. Most of his really bad moves that have been talked about are really just bench moves or things like that which have little bearing on a ballclub. In the past two years though, for whatever reason, Hendry has not brought a single impact player to the ballclub. The closest are Jones, Erye, and Howry, who are all decent to nice pieces of a ballclub, but none of them are an impact player. This team needs more impact players to be highly successful, and Hendry has to go out and get them this offseason. If he does that, the little moves will be seen as much less important. Right now, they have to be seen as important, because that's all we've seen for 2 1/2 years now.

Does a manager's salary come out of the budget? I think the player budget will likely be the same regardless of the manager's salary. It shouldn't be that way (since all money really comes out of the same budget-a cutback in one spot should mean in an increase in another spot), but I think that major league teams like to separate those two areas completely and try not to let them affect one another.

BTW, since I know most of you don't read the Indy Star, here is a pretty decent article on Rex Grosssman from this morning's edition: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061016/SPORTS0303/610160396/1004/SPORTS

One quick fantasy request for tonight's game-and this isn't a stringent one. Please throw it to Muhammad a little more than last week-I need 18 yards and no fumbles out of him, or any length TD would do also. That's all I need-18 little yards!

Yeah, and then you get like I had this weekend with a double bye week. ND was off yesterday, the Colts were off today-a whole weekend where my football teams don't even appear once. It has been a strange weekend.

I think the two leagues do have an arrangment-I can't remember a Sunday night game during the World Series for a few years at least.