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There's a whole lot more than that involved. Managing the workload of a pitching staff is completely different in the NL than in the AL. The way a roster is constructed is different. The decisions on how best to use a bench is harder. I can understand preferring the AL style of play to the NL (although I don't), but they are dramatically different. The NL is all about scarcity. You only have so many bullpen pitchers and so many bench players available, and you have to pick and choose where you maximize your advantage now or where you are going to take a risk in order to gain an advantage later on. The AL is all about maximizing your opportunity at every turn-putting your best players on the field and just fighting it out.

I'm not sure how much we can gather out of these games for IU. They're obviously much more athletic then the teams they're playing and are just overwhelming them. It is fun to be back in a position though where these games are not a struggle anymore. It will be interesting to see what happens when they come up against some teams that will test them. Watching them I can't help but think about next year either. Taking only 1 player out of the top 7-8 and replacing it with 5 freshman of which 3 of them will probably contribute immediately? This team could be good, but that team is very likely to be good to great. Plus that team will have to be one of the top 2-3 athletic teams in the Big 10.

Soriano's arm could have been more valuable even when converting less opportunities for assists. One would think that less people tried to take an extra base on him in 07 because of what he did in 06. Those baserunners have to be taken into account as part of the value of his arm. Another way of thinking of that is if he threw out a greater percentage of baserunners trying to take the extra base then he did in 06, his arm was even more efficient then it was before and more valuable. Of course that is incredibly hard to quantify, and taking a number which is that far to the extreme at face value is probably not the best course of action.

You would still need one more Lions loss, a Saints loss, and maybe a Giants loss to get a bye in that scenario. Of course, all of those are really likely so maybe you just had those as implied.

To be fair, Ramirez rather aggressively countered criticisms just a couple months ago (I believe it was Hollandsworth who he went after). They have every right to respond, but this isn't the first time his side has responded.

They're an onside recovery and Chris Relf extending the ball away from being 4-6. It's a joke. Alabama will take care of that next week though. In fairness, they aren't ranked by either poll and only even got votes in one poll. The computers don't take into account margin of victory which is why they are ranked so much higher in those. And the computers hate all the teams that the voters are putting at the end of the top 25. I didn't realize Georgia Southern was having such a good season. It will be interesting to see if voters realize that if Alabama struggles against them for the first quarter or two.

LSU dropping to Arkansas wouldn't by itself mess anything up. The SEC West 3-way tiebreaker - thanks to Stewart Mandel, I know this - is head to head among the top 2 teams of the 3 in the BCS rankings. In short, since Arkansas and Bama would surely leap past LSU if Arkansas beat the Tigers, Bama would go to the SEC title game based on head to head with Arkansas. If Bama then won the SEC title, and Okla St didn't lose a game, they'd play the Cowboys. If not, Bama/Oregon would be a very interesting title game matchup. I think the only way LSU drops behind Arkansas is if they get blown out. If they lose by a TD or less, I bet the voters would keep them ahead of Arkansas. I think the view of Arkansas would be the same as of Texas Tech a couple years ago with the three way tie in the Big 12. LSU has played a much tougher schedule than Arkansas and I think that keeps them in front. Bama also stays in front because they pounded Arkansas. I also agree that there's no way Oklahoma should play for the title with the loss to Texas Tech. I'd love to see an LSU-Oklahoma St. matchup for the title, though. If two teams play one excellent team and one mediocre team, and one team loses to the excellent team and beats the mediocre team, and the other team beats the excellent team and loses to the mediocre team, are you saying that makes the first team better than the second? Are you comparing Bama to LSU? Because that's not what I was doing at all. I'm saying that I don't think an LSU loss kills their chances at the SEC title game and the BCS title game. I think if LSU loses by a TD or less to Arkansas, that the voters and computers will still keep LSU ahead of Arkansas (as well they should because they still have a better resume). That means according to the tiebreaker, it would be H2H between LSU and Bama and since LSU won, they'd go to the SEC title game over Bama. If Arkansas rips LSU, then I think it goes the other way with the SEC teams being ranked Bama-Arkansas-LSU. I'm saying if Oklahoma has played a stronger schedule then somebody like Alabama or Oregon, then what does it matter who they lost to? That means they have a worse loss, but that also means they have better wins overall. And I agree with you that the computers will keep LSU ahead of Arkansas with a loss. I'm not quite sure what the polls will do. Arkansas would really benefit from a loss by Oklahoma or Oregon in that scenario because the closer they are to LSU going into that game, the more temptation there will be to drop LSU behind Arkansas (the old drop with a loss but don't drop too far theory of the pollsters).

Boise did land ahead of Houston, but I forgot that the minor conference team has to be a conference champion to qualify. So Houston will likely get into the BCS unless somebody upsets TCU.

LSU dropping to Arkansas wouldn't by itself mess anything up. The SEC West 3-way tiebreaker - thanks to Stewart Mandel, I know this - is head to head among the top 2 teams of the 3 in the BCS rankings. In short, since Arkansas and Bama would surely leap past LSU if Arkansas beat the Tigers, Bama would go to the SEC title game based on head to head with Arkansas. If Bama then won the SEC title, and Okla St didn't lose a game, they'd play the Cowboys. If not, Bama/Oregon would be a very interesting title game matchup. I think the only way LSU drops behind Arkansas is if they get blown out. If they lose by a TD or less, I bet the voters would keep them ahead of Arkansas. I think the view of Arkansas would be the same as of Texas Tech a couple years ago with the three way tie in the Big 12. LSU has played a much tougher schedule than Arkansas and I think that keeps them in front. Bama also stays in front because they pounded Arkansas. I also agree that there's no way Oklahoma should play for the title with the loss to Texas Tech. I'd love to see an LSU-Oklahoma St. matchup for the title, though. If two teams play one excellent team and one mediocre team, and one team loses to the excellent team and beats the mediocre team, and the other team beats the excellent team and loses to the mediocre team, are you saying that makes the first team better than the second?

First things first with Manning. The Colts have to decide if they are even going to keep him or release him in February. When Manning signed his big deal during training camp, he made it essentially a 1 year deal with a 4 year extension precisely because he knew he wasn't healthy when he signed it. The Colts have a 28 million dollar option to pick up on Manning for next year. If he's not healthy, they may decline that option and make him a free agent. Whether he would come back to the Colts then on a lower salary is anyone's guess. I'm hoping that Manning comes back healthy and they trade the rights for Luck for a king's ransom (I really think something like the Ricky Williams deal could happen. Luck is the most sought after prospect in years, and now that they've fixed rookie contracts the #1 pick has become more valuable then it has been in a long, long time). If they take Luck (which is what I'm guessing they'll do), I don't see how they can sit him more than a year or two. He's too valuable to sit as long as Rodgers did. What they cannot do is take any other player with that #1 pick. That would be horribly foolish. I don't think there will be any bad blood between Peyton and the Colts no matter how this ends, and as long as that is true I think the fanbase will follow.

Newton will destroy the Colts. Yeah, I don't see how the Colts win that game. They haven't had an offensive touchdown in 2 full games, and the two weeks before that they only had 1 garbage time TD each week. Their one INT each of the last two weeks are their only 2 takeaways in the last 7 1/2 games! The only thing the Colts can do decently is run the ball-who ever thought that would be the thing said about a Colts team?

I think it pretty decidedly proved that Florida deserved a chance to play for the title. No, it certainly did not. I think it says a lot that only B1G fans are still beating or would ever beat the 'rematch' drum for that game. OSU controlled that game and Michigan came back and made it look closer than it was at the end. They both then got absolutely destroyed in bowl games. Troy Smith was embarrassingly bad against the first consistent pass rush he faced all year long. The B1G was weak that year outside the top 2. I don't understand why this is even an argument. Michigan and Florida tied in the computer rankings (which suggested that their schedules were similar in strength) and Michigan only had 2 wins by 7 points or less. Florida had 5. Florida especially struggled in the second half of the season. Maybe the eye test favored Florida, but the numbers didn't.

As bad as Philly has been, the worst team that they've lost to before today was Buffalo and they still had a positive point differential on the season. Arizona had only beaten Carolina and St. Louis and had a pretty decent negative point differential. It was a pretty decent upset.

Oklahoma and Oregon got a big boost by Boise State losing. Boise was stuck in between Alabama and Oklahoma/Oregon in the polls and that will allow them to get a lot closer to Alabama then they were before. The problem is for both schools is that Oregon is ahead in the polls while Oklahoma is ahead in the computer rankings which might end up killing them both. Oregon is also hurt bigtime by having to play at least a 4 loss team and maybe a 5 loss team in the championship game (right now UCLA is actually in the lead to go to the title game, although it will probably be Arizona State or Utah at the end of the season). The other interesting question right now is if Boise actually falls enough to fall below Houston or not. I'm guessing they will, but it will be somewhat close. BTW, Sagarin's ratings love, love, love the Big 12. 7 teams in the top 17 and 9 of their 10 teams are in the top 28 of the country. And yet Oklahoma State is behind LSU and Oklahoma is behind Alabama, Oregon, and Arkansas. That really doesn't make much sense.

Wake just missed a short field goal but still leads Clemson by a TD with 8:45 left. If Wake holds on, they'll be in the drivers seat in that division and Clemson will need Wake to lose to Maryland to avoid going from undefeated to not even playing in the conference championship game. Clemson is driving now though.

I think they'll end up signing Hamels. It doesn't fit with their MO of the last few years to not sign him. How they'll fit in the rest of the roster, I have no idea.

This was Sickels Cubs top 20 list for 2009: Obviously in some ways they're not all that similar (Castro is much better at making contact, Lake probably has a little more power and speed, Lake in the past at least wasn't as coachable) but they do have a lot of similarities as well.

The problem still becomes that the wind blowing in hurts offense in every form. It suppresses power by the wind blowing some balls back into the field of play for outs. It allows the pitcher to attack the hitter a little more aggressively which cuts down on walks. And it can let a fast defense cheat in a little bit to stop the line drives knowing that it's harder for teams to hit it over their heads. It's very hard in that sort of environment to get on base enough to score runs consistently. Now how many times does that happen? I'm not sure, but I do remember from looking at a couple years game logs that the wind tends to blow in at Wrigley more often than it does out (it blows across the field a fair amount as well).

I'm guessing they're finally going to give Brown his chance in LF. I don't think they are going to have too much problem replacing the guys they lost in 2011, but it's the guys they are going to lose in 2012/2013 that are going to be an issue. They aren't going to be able to keep all of them, and they don't have many replacements for them waiting.

I've never heard that before either. Too easy otherwise for the punter to just throw one in the direction of the gunner after he starts getting blocked.

http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/11/10/elimination-of-bcs-aq-status-being-discussed/ The biggest fanbases would get a whole lot more BCS games if the automatic qualification was eliminated unless it were replaced by a simple top 10 in the BCS go (which the bowls would never go for). It might eliminate switching conferences but it would cause a much bigger problem. A simple "top 10 in the BCS go" is exactly what they're discussing in the article. The only opponents to that would be teams that are part of crappy AQ conferences right now. Nah, the bowl committees and some college presidents would be against that idea also. Bowl committees don't want to lose the opportunity to invite an Alabama or an ND that may have slipped to 11-14 in the BCS standings and also be forced this year to invite both Boise and Houston into the BCS. College presidents would be nervous because it gets things one step closer to a playoff which some of them are ardently against. The ACC and Big East would be furious about this because they've benefited the most. And the Big 10/Pac 10 wouldn't be too happy either because in a year like this one the Rose Bowl wouldn't be able to take a Big 10 team if none qualified. I think there's too many power brokers against an idea like that to make it happen.

http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/11/10/elimination-of-bcs-aq-status-being-discussed/ The biggest fanbases would get a whole lot more BCS games if the automatic qualification was eliminated unless it were replaced by a simple top 10 in the BCS go (which the bowls would never go for). It might eliminate switching conferences but it would cause a much bigger problem.

I look at it this way. I can't watch 13-15 games at once during two time slots on Sunday afternoon especially if my team is playing in one of those time slots (even if I had Sunday Ticket). If there were only games on Sunday afternoon, I'd see the Colts, Bears, and one other game every week. Night games allow me to see many other teams, see many of the best matchups, and just give me more games in a week overall. What's not to like about that? If they turn out to be duds of matchups, I can just not watch and be no worse off than if that game was on Sunday afternoon. The only loss is when your team is on a night game, and that cannot happen more than 40% of the season at the most.

I thought he was "worth" like $19-20m a year based on his WAR with the Yankees. Even if he was (which is hard to quantify since first base defense is hard to judge) when a guy is signed through his age 36 season he should be doing better than just barely not be worth his contract during his prime years. By fangraphs WAR, Texeira has been averaging about 18.5 million worth of value for the contract and is getting paid 22.5 million per year. Those would be fine numbers for a total contact, but when those were supposed to be his 3 best years out of 8? Not so good.

As I've said repeatedly, I'm willing to stick my neck out on a massive contract. Just not for either of these two guys, on anything longer than 6 years. I mentioned Teix and Gonzalez as two guys I would have been happy to sign at the years and dollars they received. Elite offensive, elite defensive, young and in shape players are out there -- just not this offseason. How's that Teix contract working out? good no? Or am I missing something? I'm sure the Yankees were wanting a lot more out of his early years than a guy with a .846 and an .835 OPS the last two years at first base. They are the Yankees so they can afford it, but that's not a lot of offensive production for a guy making 22.5 million.