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No. Hendry wasn't smart enough to include a club option in the contract. They may have basically paid him to rehabilitate for a year only to see him walk away.Did it occur to you that maybe Miller didn't want it? Wow. you do know that a contract is a two way deal, right? Yes, I do. That's my point. Just because the Cubs don't hold a team option on Miller next season doesn't automatically mean that Hendry didn't think to try to get it. Contracts are a "two way deal", as you put it. What was your point, exactly? that nobody held a gun to hendry's head and forced him to sign miller w/o an option. hendry could have said no option, no contract. you make it sound as though hendry had no choice. It was a $1 mil deal. No huge loss. What's your beef? In addition, that 1 million dollar deal was signed on January 23rd. There was nobody on the market by that point. Hendry still had money to spend-so he took a gamble on Miller coming back early. There was no real downside to that deal- all that 1 million would have done otherwise would be to go in the Tribune's pockets-It was good that he at least tried, even if it didn't work out.

Jones has been a very good player for the money this year. In fact, looking through other teams, I can't find many better bargains among the RF's who have hit FA already, and plenty of people who are producing the same or much less for more money (obviously, those who haven't are a much better bargain). Is the 3 years a potential problem? Definitely-but at least for this year, Jones has been very good. Now-management, go out and sign a platoon partner for him! That will make RF a good to great position instead of the above average position it has been this year.

I feel sort of the same way. I was starting to hope that maybe we could get through September undefeated, but in the month leading up to the season I was telling everyone who asked me that the team was going to lose at least 1 game in September-I just couldn't pin down who it was going to be to. Michigan played hard, took advantage of ND's mistakes, and deserved to go home with the victory. Hopefully, this lesson will just make ND stronger as Weis continues to try to build his team.

Georgia maybe-but of course, the TN-Florida game will have one team not undefeated at that point, and that loser will fall behind ND. I assumed with you having Florida at 7 that you think Florida will beat TN tonight. Yes, ND had the worst loss of all the 1 loss teams-but they also have the best win of any of them. That needs to factor in as well.

I bet that's what it'll be, unless USC hangs 70 on Nebraska. How far should ND and LSU fall after today. I'd rank LSU over ND, but I know I'm biased. I'd probably have my top ten as this: #1 OSU #2 Auburn #3 USC #4 Louisville #5 West Virginia #6 Florida #7 Florida State #8 Michigan #9 LSU #10 Texas I think you need to have Michigan over Florida State-if FSU is very good tonight against Clemson, then you might put FSU over-but their performances against Miami and Troy aren't as good as Michigan's performances so far, I think. I would agree with you as an ND fan Vance-LSU deserves to be ahead of ND, but the pollsters probably won't do that. In your top 10, ND would be 11 then I think-I can't think of anybody else who would be above them at that point.

I think they'll drop to 9 or 10, right behind where Texas is-they would drop farther, but with so many ranked teams playing each other, there will be some other losing teams that will also drop. This is one of those games where both credit goes to Michigan and blame goes to ND. ND played one of the worst games they will ever play, and Michigan responded by playing one of the better games they will play. I thought before the season there was no way ND got all the way through September undefeated, but I didn't think it would be this ugly. Good luck to Michigan the rest of the season.

I think he meant that people were upset about him throwing 119 pitches last outing, and so said that he'd be terrible today, which of course has not been the case.

ND-Michigan is usually earlier than this (week 3 is about the latest they play any season) and the teams are about even overall, if I remember right. The team Michigan has usually ruined late in the season was Ohio State-they ruined OSU's national title hopes around 4 times in the 90's on the final game of the season..

That's just what I was thinking about as well..it's set up to be possible today.

Whew..if the Irish had any chance in the second half, they absolutely had to have that drive. Hopefully the team actually shows up after halftime.

Me too..but that's all right. I've spent the last 4 years in TN, and have rarely found a single person rooting with me in a game, so I personally am very, very used to it.

Ouch-feel bad for Auburn, first good drive ends with a missed field goal-and especially for their kicker, who is still upset by last year's kicking debacle and does it again.

Well, it is ND's broadcast..of course they are going to try to bring in as many of their own former players as possible.

0.007037844 Hmmm...I had 0.006846325, but you may be right..Blanco has been hitting pretty well :D

What odds would you have put on Blanco-Cedeno-Soto getting 3 straight hits? Let's see how many they can get out of this with Hill and Pierre coming up next.

I think that about characterizes it right for ND..an easy catch by the tight end prevents the INT, a fumble on a kickoff, 4 penalties, and one big blown coverage-they just need to settle down, and fast please!

Hey Fred-just letting you know, this isn't today's game thread-it's yesterdays.

This is actually the 2nd time in 2 weeks that Blanco has played 1st, and the bottom of the order was exactly those 3-Blanco, Cedeno, Soto-it was a Sunday game the first time. Blanco actually wasn't terrible at first base-I was a little surprised by that.

As a collective whole, I'll certainly take that news. A lineup of Pierre Murton Lee Ramirez Soriano Barrett Jones Izturis would be a pretty good lineup. Sign a platoon partner for Jones, and it could certainly be the best lineup in the division.

Dunn played the last season with a broken right hand. http://www.daytondailynews.com/sports/content/sports/reds/daily/0128reds.html Don't know about this year though. That link didn't work, but thanks for the heads up on the injury.

Dunn is very likely going to be at least a 100 point upgrade in OPS over Murton. Having Murton put up a 780-800 OPS might be more cost effective, but we'd be better off spending to get Dunn to consistently put up a 900+ OPS. I wouldn't say he would be at least a 100 plus upgrade necessarily. Dunn has put up a 900 or more 2 out of the last 4 years-one of the years he didn't do that was this year. He's 89 points better than Murton this year. Murton's numbers still have room to go up, while Dunn is more likely to consistently stay around the numbers he's put up the last 3-4 seasons or so. Dunn is 26, Murton is 24. Dunn makes 7.5 million dollars this year, Murton makes 337,000. Murton plays better defense than Dunn (although Dunn is a little better than some of the mistakes we see him make on defense). Also, trading for Dunn would require more than Murton-so we have to factor in how valuable the other players we'd have to trade them would be, or how valuable those pieces would be in another trade (some of the players mentioned could be used to get Andruw Jones or possibly Tejada for example) It still might be worth the gamble, but it's certainly not an open and shut case. Why would you expect a 24-year-old Murton to improve but not a 26-year-old Dunn? Murton is more likely to improve IMO because he's coming off his first full season. His numbers have the chance to get better as he continues to learn the major league game. Dunn has been up for 6 seasons now. Here are his stats during that time 01 (only 244 at bats)-.262/.371/.578 02-.249/.400/.454 03-.215/.354/.465 04- .266/.388/.569 05- .247/.387/.540 06- .238/.368/.512 If he were 26 and had shown signs of improving steadily during his career, I would say he is more likely to keep improving. He is certainly young enough to improve, but his stats have been falling instead the last couple years (without any injury or something like that to explain it). Do I think his stats will keep falling? Not yet-I think he'll have a series of years that parallel either his 04, 05, or 06 numbers (some of each probably mixed in). Dunn definitely still has the chance to improve, but Murton just coming off his first major league season makes him far more likely to improve on this years numbers IMO.

Dunn is very likely going to be at least a 100 point upgrade in OPS over Murton. Having Murton put up a 780-800 OPS might be more cost effective, but we'd be better off spending to get Dunn to consistently put up a 900+ OPS. I wouldn't say he would be at least a 100 plus upgrade necessarily. Dunn has put up a 900 or more 2 out of the last 4 years-one of the years he didn't do that was this year. He's 89 points better than Murton this year. Murton's numbers still have room to go up, while Dunn is more likely to consistently stay around the numbers he's put up the last 3-4 seasons or so. Dunn is 26, Murton is 24. Dunn makes 7.5 million dollars this year, Murton makes 337,000. Murton plays better defense than Dunn (although Dunn is a little better than some of the mistakes we see him make on defense). Also, trading for Dunn would require more than Murton-so we have to factor in how valuable the other players we'd have to trade them would be, or how valuable those pieces would be in another trade (some of the players mentioned could be used to get Andruw Jones or possibly Tejada for example) It still might be worth the gamble, but it's certainly not an open and shut case.

The thing that scares me now is that several of these young pitchers have not had time (plus, I've only seen a couple examples that could be really used as abuse of the starting pitching this year (besides Z)) to be abused by the current staff, and yet they all still seem to be going down with injuries. I'm not sure what it is-these injuries are a lot harder to pin down.

He played yesterday, but not Wednesday. My guess is with the long stretch of games in a row that they are being extra careful with him, and sitting him more than even his 2 out of 3 plan would say.

Yup-we're set-we'd be the Yankees.