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Atlanta: http://www.sportsclubstats.com/MLB/National/NLEastern/Atlanta_ChanceWillMakePlayoffs.html 99.64% on August 25th Boston: http://www.sportsclubstats.com/MLB/American/ALEastern/Boston_ChanceWillMakePlayoffs.html Strangely enough, Boston's chances also peaked on the same day, when they hit 99.90% on August 25th. nate silver did an article about the biggest collapses in baseball history when he was still with BP... the 1995 angels had the biggest choke, because on august 20th they led their division by 9.5 games and led the next-closest wild card contender by 12 games. they were 99.988% likely to make the playoffs, or 8,332-to-1 to miss it. the 2007 mets ended up blowing the division, and were 99.8% likely to make it. i don't think there were teams with odds that high in 2008, 2009 or 2010 that blew it, so the red sox would be the second-worst choke in MLB history. the braves would be #4 or #5, depending on whether the red sox miss out (the braves would also trail the infamous 1951 dodgers). Silver did an article on the depth of the Red Sox collapse a couple of days ago: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/september-collapse-of-red-sox-could-be-worst-ever/

So far between rushing and receiving he's only averaging 3 less touches a game than last year. And the fact that Ringer has done absolutely nothing in his limited carries either makes me wonder if the Titans offensive line could be the issue.

I wouldn't put it past Quade to do such a thing...got to get that last win to save his job! And why not give the Cubs a worse draft position for next year's draft, right? Will Quade play mostly veterans in the last game? Or will he mix in some rookies not named LaHair? In the words of Dusty Baker, "I can't turn my back on Holly." I think Monday was the play the kids for the last time night. It will probably be mostly the veterans tonight.

That's an interesting question to ask after attending a game where LaHair took 2 pitches just a little bit off the plate to walk with a chance to knock the tying run in from 3rd with one out. A more aggressive hitter would have been swinging at anything close with two strikes in that situation to try to drive the run home. He took 7 balls total on the night and also took 2 called strikes.

Sandberg isn't going to be satisfied with a job like that. He feels like he deserves to be a manager somewhere. He might agree to be a bench coach in the right situation if he felt like it would lead to him getting a managerial job, but I doubt he would take any lesser job than that.

Well, this may be true. However, Ricketts is a business man and a Cubs fan to boot. He loves Sandberg and he knows the fans love him. He has an angry fan base and he knows a move like this will appease 80% of them. Add Prince to this and he sells out every game. Signing a manager, even Sandberg, isn't going to be enough to bring people to the game. Managers can't make a team win. Good players and winning games are what bring the most people out. You want a good GM to bring in and develop good players. Telling your GM who they have to hire as manager isn't a smart way to bring in a good GM. I agree. However, go to a Cubs convention, mention Sandberg's name and see the reaction. He is absolutely loved here. Ricketts knows this and Ryno has won in the minors over and over again. 71-68 60-78 71-69 That was Sandberg's record his first 3 years in the minors. He's had very good teams the last couple years, but his teams have not won over and over again. He's had 2 very good teams, 1 very bad team, and two mediocre teams.

the problem i have with it is that you can have a 98 win team, maybe the second-best team in their league, lose a division by a game and have to play a one game playoff to advance to the wild card round. say they're pushing hard to win the division so they don't have to play in that playoff, and they burn their ace in the last couple of days of the regular season - now they have to pitch their #2 or #3 against the other wild card, who might have made the playoffs without much trouble and have their ace ready to go. then the winner of the wild card game probably goes on to play the 5-game series only using their ace once. do not like the one game playoff idea. I do see that as a significant disadvantage for the first wild card. But I think the many pros outweigh the cons. In that scenario under the current model, the teams don't fight too hard for the division down the stretch but just pack it in for the playoffs. They would now fight hard for that division title. It would keep more teams and fanbases in it for a longer period of time. As others have mentioned, the 1 game playoffs would be very exciting to watch It rewards division winners. It rewards the #1 seed. Right now, there is little incentive to go after that #1 seed because the wildcard is frequently not the worst team in the playoffs. The cons: It hurts the 1st wildcard It probably makes the trading deadline even less interesting as there will be less sellers (although if that causes teams to pay higher prices for talent, maybe that's a good thing for parity sake? But that's just a guess so this is still a con) It might make the #1 vs the wildcard team a less interesting series (you can decide if this is fair for the #1 team or bad because it's bad for entertainment) Division imbalance becomes even more important.

Doesn't seem wise? Because he's pretty good at a decent price? Those are the exact reasons why I would trade him - he has pretty good value and the return would be significant. If not I keep him. I honestly feel like this team is more than one or two pitchers away from being respectable. Dempster has a player option. He isn't going to exercise that option just for him to turn around and give permission for the Cubs to trade him especially from what we know how much Dempster wants to be in Chicago. And even if he did, Dempster's another guy whose peripherals were a lot better than his results this season and so it isn't exactly the greatest time to sell high anyway.

Nolasco and Morrison are the best two players in that deal. I can't imagine the Marlins come even close to agreeing to that unless the Cubs are sending 4-5 significant prospects.

Oh really? I know. And I still wouldn't bet on ND beating any other team by 2 TD, even Purdue or Wake. Would you? It depends on what the bet is. If the bet is ND beating any team by two TD's, I would happily take that bet. I'd consider it even if the bet was they have to beat two more teams by two TD's. If the bet was they beat a specific team by two TD's, I wouldn't take that bet because ND's habits are so schizophrenic. But I do think that some teams coming up are substantially worse than any team they've played so far and ND could very well win by 2 TD's even if they do commit some turnovers.

No, what specifically about being moved around the lineup between 5 and 7 do you think causes a problem? His pregame routine is the same, right? The pitches he sees are basically the same, right? His approach in any given AB is basically the same, right? (And if not, that would change much more as a function of game situation (score, inning, # outs, runners, etc) than lineup spot, and that effect would be there even if he hit in the same lineup spot all year long.) So what specifically would make it so challenging to hit 5th one day, 7th the next, then 6th, etc? What's changing? You're challenging me on points I'm not making, so please stop trying to goad me into fights I'm not starting. I've stated numerous times now that this is likely primarily a "head" issue and indicative of the mess that Quade has made out of the lineups. Moving Soriano between 5th, 6th, and 7th is not an example of Quade messing up the lineup. As I stated last page, no MLB player this season has started even 80 games in the 6th spot or the 7th spot. Every player in those spots has to get used to hitting 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, or 9th in the AL. It's unreasonable for Soriano to believe he should get to stay in one spot when nobody in MLB in that part of the batting order has gotten to stick in one spot. I'm not saying he definitely should have only hit in one spot. Personally, I think players who typically hit 6 and below shouldn't be hitting in the 1-5 spots except when necessary. And how does the lineup construction of this season somehow become a hard and fast rule? OK, so no player started more than 80 games from those spots. Last season Soriano started 105 games hitting 6th. So which is "right?" Neither is right per se. That's the point. Occasionally you'll find a team stable enough to start a player in the 6 or 7 spot most of the time, but not often. Last year there were 4 players (Soriano started the most games of any player in the league in either of those two spots). Players shouldn't expect to be able to stay in one spot. The fact that Soriano didn't get that privilege this year isn't a sign of Cubs bad management but just the reality of that part of the batting order.

No, what specifically about being moved around the lineup between 5 and 7 do you think causes a problem? His pregame routine is the same, right? The pitches he sees are basically the same, right? His approach in any given AB is basically the same, right? (And if not, that would change much more as a function of game situation (score, inning, # outs, runners, etc) than lineup spot, and that effect would be there even if he hit in the same lineup spot all year long.) So what specifically would make it so challenging to hit 5th one day, 7th the next, then 6th, etc? What's changing? You're challenging me on points I'm not making, so please stop trying to goad me into fights I'm not starting. I've stated numerous times now that this is likely primarily a "head" issue and indicative of the mess that Quade has made out of the lineups. Moving Soriano between 5th, 6th, and 7th is not an example of Quade messing up the lineup. As I stated last page, no MLB player this season has started even 80 games in the 6th spot or the 7th spot. Every player in those spots has to get used to hitting 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, or 9th in the AL. It's unreasonable for Soriano to believe he should get to stay in one spot when nobody in MLB in that part of the batting order has gotten to stick in one spot.

I think you're reaching a bit here. Back when Lou was considering moving him from leadoff, he was pretty clear about he would hit anywhere in the lineup, but he didn't want to be juggled around. And the language barrier was still a factor. It was quite different than this: He's obviously more upset with the fact that he's batting lower in the order than the fact that he's moving around from 6th to 7th. As someone mentioned above, this looks like an athlete on the decline who hasn't accepted it. Doesn't make Soriano a bad person, and I'm sure he works just as hard no matter where he hits, but he's going to have to accept he's on the downside of his career at some point. And comparing this to Castro is a bit of a stretch too. Castro is a young player who clearly presses when he's hitting third, considering how damn good he is hitting #1 and #2. Soriano is equally bad no matter where he hits (which is basically #6 or #7 anyways, and is probably based mostly on matchups). I don't doubt he doesn't want to hit lower in the lineup, but it's my opinion that the lineup juggling is the bigger issue. When he was dropped to 6 he didn't complain, and I'd bet that if he had been dropped to 7 and left there for the most part we wouldn't have heard this, either. And no, he hasn't been "equally bad" across the 5-7 spots. And no, I don't think it's a stretch to think that almost any player, regardless of ability or skillset, is going to struggle in at least one spot if they're being bounced across at least 3 spots in the lineups for significant PA thanks to their managers crappy ability to construct a lineup. Do you know that no team in MLB has started any person in either the 6 or the 7 spot for at least 80 games? That's only half the season! The thought that anybody who is in one of those two spots can expect to stay there for most of the season is a myth. Soriano's 58 games in the 7 spot is actually pretty stable compared to most of MLB.

Pomeroy just tweeted something saying you have less than 50 percent chance of winning if you elect to tie a football game with 2 minutes left, so you may not be. Your chances are even lower if you are down by 1 and the other team has the ball though. Exactly. The Colts are in a bad situation either way, but this way at least if the Steelers had a penalty or one bad play they might go conservative and play for OT. Going for 2 and hoping you get it (and obviously the Colts offense is not working on all cylinders) and then letting Roethlisberger have plenty of motivation and 4 downs to work with is a recipe for disaster. The Colts are only 40% at best to make the 2 point conversion, and they're going to lose 50-70% of the time they make the 2 point conversion. Those are really bad odds.

Nah, giving Roethlisberger four downs to work with only needing a field goal in this situation would have been very bad. And that's if the Colts make the two. I'd much rather play for a last second drive or OT if they somehow stop the Steelers here.

Of course Painter does what he does best. I don't know anymore if the rest of the Colts team is just this bad or if they are just getting some of the worst QB play in the league.

Yup. It's especially good because that Super Bowl has to be one of the least remembered, and of course everybody associates the Raiders with futility. The Colts offense longest drive has been 49 yards and they have a chance to win this game somehow.

Ravens?? Nope.

Watching this game, it feels like the Patriots will need to be the ones to do it if the 8 year run of the Patriots, Steelers, or Colts making the Super Bowl is to continue. It's a great trivia question to ask people who has last represented the AFC besides one of those three teams. And considering the Colts need a score, might as well go with Painter. He very well might turn it over, but Collins hasn't moved the ball whatsoever during the last 3 games. It's unacceptable with the Colts receiving talent to throw 29 passes for less than 100 yards (and he was basically the same last week before garbage time).

agreed...took away the biggest advantage the bears had on most of the league. It's also helped the Bears coverage unit which has been one of the worst in the league the last few years. In fact, the differential between what the Bears average on kickoff returns and what they give up is the best this year so far that it has been in years.

Such is the life of a 6/7 hitter though. A team cannot afford to keep a guy like that in one spot all year long. If Soriano is a 7th hitter normally, he needs to move up to 5th or 6th when injuries/days off (especially for somebody like Soto) happen. And to have one of the middle of the order hitters out happens a lot during the season. It would be nice if he could stay in one spot all year long, but it isn't very realistic. The main way you can keep everybody in their preferred lineup order is to drop in the replacement in the same spot in the batting order as the regular, and that isn't a great tactic either.

I remember the Mulholland error, but it wasn't game 162. Actually, I can't find it being anywhere down the stretch, which is strange. August 15th was that game.

The Mulholland play was not on the final day of the season. That game was in August of that year. Mulholland did start the final game of the year and gave up the 2 runs to tie the game but it wasn't on an error. Beck gave up the winning run in the 11th in his 3rd inning of work.

Aramis has to be a pretty good bet to miss at least 30-40 games. He's done it 4 out of the last 7 years. And how are they going to fit all those upgrades within the payroll? After Aramis and Fielder, the payroll is pretty much gone. I'd be open to signing him to a very team friendly deal but that necessitates declining his option first. To me, I don't see how the Cubs can compete with accepting Aramis's option. They just have too little payroll to work with after that to get the upgrades they need. I'd decline his option, float a 2/20 deal his way (8 the first year (which includes the buyout), 12 the second) and live with it when he inevitably declines it. And if the Cubs are very unlikely to compete with Aramis, then why keep him around when they could be using that money on players who will help them for longer and who are very likely to be just as valuable as Aramis is?

You don't have to fight to keep a guy under contract that is hard to trade. You tell your owner you gave it the old college try but did not feel comfortable with any offers and would feel more comfortable to try and make it work with him than dump him. The Cubs already suck and will have a tough time to be good next year. Letting Ramirez walk and paying Zambrano to go away is just going to make it harder to conted next season. I'm just saying it's not worth it for a GM to get blasted in the press about a new GM and the same lack of accountability on the Cubs (which is a running theme with a decent part of the fanbase already) to protect a guy who's likely to put up between a 4.2 and 4.8 ERA for the Cubs next year. Yes, the Cubs would likely be better with Z there than with trading him. But the difference is pretty marginal and it's hard to imagine that a GM would want to risk a small part of his job security to gain that small difference.