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This isn't Kansas City. Big boys don't get to take 2 years off and only build for the distant future. Which is why I don't like where the Cubs are. And the point of my original comment was that the Phillies are going to have to take off multiple years soon enough and they really didn't have to. They could have had a great team now and been prepared for the future but they've utterly ruined that.

Seriously? You are nit-picking that maybe they should have only scored the 4th most runs in the NL last year? This is a ridiculous line of reasoning you are attempting to use. The Phillies are a fantastic team and organization that has been winning for years. They have blown away the Hendry era Cubs with a lesser payroll, have demonstrated a commitment to spending what is necessary to win, and acquire who is necessary to help them win. They have the stars in place, they have the stable successful franchise model in place and any hole plugging they will need going forward is going to be replacement level players that are easy and affordable to find. It is by far the better situation than the Cubs who have to actually go out and acquire stars to get better. Yeah. I'd way rather have Philadelphia's current "dilemma/plight" than the Cubs. And it isn't really even close. So would I. The Cubs are past the glory years with lesser players than the Phillies have and a lesser payroll. If I had to build a team for 2013 and beyond though I'd much rather take the Cubs than the Phillies (assuming the Cubs can spend only 20-30 million less than the Phillies and not 50 million less).

Seriously? You are nit-picking that maybe they should have only scored the 4th most runs in the NL last year? This is a ridiculous line of reasoning you are attempting to use. The Phillies are a fantastic team and organization that has been winning for years. They have blown away the Hendry era Cubs with a lesser payroll, have demonstrated a commitment to spending what is necessary to win, and acquire who is necessary to help them win. They have the stars in place, they have the stable successful franchise model in place and any hole plugging they will need going forward is going to be replacement level players that are easy and affordable to find. It is by far the better situation than the Cubs who have to actually go out and acquire stars to get better. Yes, that is significant. When the team is 60-70 runs above average and they scored 25-30 more than they should have, that's a significant chunk. And they need a lot to go right just to do that well next year and not slip even further. The Phillies had a successful franchise model for both present and future. They don't anymore. They have a bunch of stars in their 30's. Some of them are still at their peak and some of them are declining. That's great for now but they have nothing coming up to replace them. So they'll ride out the rest of the glory years and then they'll be stuck. Can you name a single offensive player of theirs that when he comes up for free agency that you would resign? They're all starting to decline and they all will be overpaid in their next deal. So the Phillies in the next 3 years will have to replace their entire offensive team besides Howard and he'll be way, way overpaid by that point. They've traded away a large part of their minor league talent. They haven't brought any young player into their team in years (they might try for the first time this year with Brown who's the only player on the horizon). They keep signing large contracts to old players. They better win the World Series this year because it's obvious that's their entire focus. A Yankees style budget is the only thing that will save them long-term.

They have outstanding pitching and at worst, good hitting. They scored the second most runs in the NL last year. What the hell are you talking about? It doesn't take much to plub holes when all you need to do is plug holes. They have the production and stars taking care of. Teams like the Cubs struggle to plug holes because they still have to go out and find the production in the first place. They were second in runs scored but they were only 5th in OBP, 5th in SLG, and 4th in OPS. If they put up that same batting line next year they should not expect to be 2nd in scoring again. Werth was the only player better than an .860 OPS last year and he's not there anymore. Every single player in their lineup last year is 30 or older now (Ben Francisco is the youngest at 29 and he had less than 200 AB's). Their offense could fall off the precipice very, very quickly. And they won't have the money to fix it. Philadelphia will likely be an amazing team next year. But without a commitment to that huge payroll or hitting on multiple stud prospects in the couple years after that they're going to have to do more than plug holes. That team is going to start falling apart. Their great pitching will keep them in it but will also lose a big piece when Oswalt leaves next year and will have to completely rebuild that bullpen. If they keep the 170 million payroll, they'll probably be able to buy new players. If they drop back down, they're going to be in trouble within 2-3 years.

Trying to draw a charge is attacking him? I was concerned both times Rose went down that the replay would show that one of the Pacers had inadvertently hit him or something. Even if it had been an accident and not a hard foul, I still would have felt like they caused it. But thankfully the replays showed none of that. I was surprised the Pacers stayed in as long as they did last night when none of their scorers could get it anywhere close to the basket. The Pacers defense mostly showed up again (I never thought I'd be typing that) but it just wasn't enough. The Bulls were pretty impressive and the sky's the limit if they can find another perimeter scorer.

This deal is contingent about where the Phillies plan to take their payroll. If they're planning on expanding it into the 170-175 million dollar range than this is a fantastic deal. If they're planning on dropping back down to 140-150 after this year and/or the deal is heavily backloaded then it could cause major problems. Their offense was good not great last year although they did score many more runs than their batting line would indicate they should have. They lost Werth who was easily their best hitter last year. They need bounceback years from several players to make up for that (which is possible as many players had their worst year last year). After next year though it gets even tighter for them. They'll have at least 125 million committed even after losing Oswalt, Rollins, Ibanez, and two strong relievers last year (Lidge and Madson). If their payroll is only 145-150 that will be a lot of holes to fill. They're definitely going for the win now strategy as they are going to have to make a lot of tough decisions on aging players.

Dempster is very happy in Chicago and I doubt he would agree to go anywhere else.

It depends on which Pacers show up tonight. They have lots of good scoring options left (Hibbert in the post, Dunleavy and Rush on the wings, and they might ask both of their point guards to drive more tonight which is what they like to anyway). Granger is their most consistent scorer which makes him important but they don't run their offense through him on most possessions like some other teams do with their top scorers. But if some of those other scoring options don't show up then they could get killed.

Randy Wells, Carlos Silva, Ted Lilly and Ryan Dempster are an amazing array of talent? Because all of them pitched better after getting under Rothschild's tutelage than before. Ted Lilly was the same pitcher before and after. Dempster was a huge talent before he became a Cub. Carlos Silva pitched well in the past, and this season did so for a brief period of time. Randy Wells has nothing to comp up against. It should be said that those same sorts of arguments could be made for most or maybe all of the successful pitchers under Duncan.

The current Sunday night game, Cincy/San Diego is a complete dog that has to be switched out. The NFL announces 12 days in advance and will take it's time on this one since it's nearing the end of the season (they can announce week 17 6 days in advance). Chicago/NY is huge. Two big city teams with major followings both in need of wins for playoff hopes. They might want to hold back the Bears for a weeky 17 sunday night game. NYG/GB is currently slated as a 4:15 game, but that could be a night game. I think Fox has the doubleheader. But I think it's still a possibility. Minnesota-Philly has been flexed to the 8:20 game that week. Apparently the Colts-Raiders game was strongly considered but they ultimately went away from it after the Raiders lost yesterday.

Yeah I mentioned that WC is becoming a long shot. But they can go 2-1, vs MIN and NYJ and still lose the division if Green Bay wins out. That would be unlikely but New England has lost to both the Jets and Cleveland, a team that is no better than the Bears and a very mediocre at best team. In that scenario the Bears would win due to having a better division record. 11 wins gives the Bears the division no matter how it's done.

I don't see Tampa winning 2 more, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them lose all 3. I honestly don't see them beating Detroit, and I doubt they do anything in New Orleans. I see them beating Detroit and Seattle at home and losing in New Orleans, unless the Saints have nothing to play for (which is something Chicago can't count on in their final game). Tampa's been pretty bad to nearly average at home this season, which is why losing all 3 wouldn't surprise me much. But the Lions still haven't won a road game since 2007, Seattle has been very poor on the road, and Tampa has managed to beat every single bad to mediocre team they've played. They'll likely be close games (especially the Lions game) but TB probably has to be decent favorites in both of them.

The Chargers made the playoffs after being 4-8 a couple years ago but they probably weren't a realistic chance until they were 6-8. 7-9 looks more and more likely to win that division. With two head to head games left between the 3 it seems like it would be inevitable that one of those teams would get to 8 but I just don't see which team it would be.

It'll be interesting to see if that employee in the Jets game faces any discipline after being focused on so long during the broadcast for sticking that knee out.

i think you would have seen creek really flash his skills if indiana would have been losing by 20+ for most of the game, it really would have been his time to shine! Creek has lost 5 games in his Indiana career by 10 points or more and I'm pretty sure that in each of those games he played at least as well if not better when the game was close. Just thought I would discount that before somebody actually believed you and repeated it! he also plays really well against teams named north carolina central but not always. 18, 19, 31, 15, 5 in the games lost by 10 or more points. and the last one wasn't really indicative of the score, it was a close game. in thos other games, it was obviously CREEK-TIME! Creek scored 14 of his 18 against Mississippi in the first 21 minutes. The last bucket cut Mississippi's lead to 7. Creek had 12 of his 19 against Maryland in the first 30 minutes in a game that was close (Indiana had the lead several times in the second half all the way until 8-9 minutes to go). Creek had 20 of his 31 against Kentucky in the first 21 minutes. In fact, he was singlehandedly keeping Indiana in the game as that game was tied at that point. Against BC, Creek had 11 of his 15 in the first 31 minutes (the game was tight and got as close as 2 points a couple of minutes later). And as you mentioned today Creek had 5 points in another game that was blown out late. It's ridiculous to say that Creek only shows up after games are decided. He was a big factor in the fact that IU managed to hang around against teams like Kentucky and Maryland for so long and keep the Ole Miss game as close as it was.

i think you would have seen creek really flash his skills if indiana would have been losing by 20+ for most of the game, it really would have been his time to shine! Creek has lost 5 games in his Indiana career by 10 points or more and I'm pretty sure that in each of those games he played at least as well if not better when the game was close. Just thought I would discount that before somebody actually believed you and repeated it!

Indiana really needs Maurice Creek to be himself again. It's obvious they're running the offense (even the transition offense) to get him open looks and he's just not making them this year. It will continue to kill them in games where they need to make shots to make up for the lack of size.

Pick 3: Roddy White Calvin Johnson Andre Johnson Matt Forte

his performance has nothing to do with what spot in the lineup he bats. His career splits don't agree with you. So when do we use stats and when don't we? Ok, over a 162 game schedule we can expect certain things from Marlon based on his career averages. None of his numbers would suggest he is the type of hitter most people would bat 3rd. While I would agree he is far from the type of guy you would ideally put in the three spot (kind of like most Cubs) his splits in different spots in the order are just meaningless. I don't see how you can assert that. Can you prove those splits are meaningless? Because it seems to me that a hitter's mental approach would be a big factor in his effectiveness; are you saying that you know for a fact that hitters never change their approach based on where they're hitting in the lineup? I'm genuinely curious here. The splits might not be meaningless but many hitters have splits that extreme after a couple hundred at bats only to have those splits normalize as time goes on. Byrd hit very well in the 3 spot in 76 at-bats in 2009. The fact that he went through a major slump in the 3 spot in just over 200 at-bats this past year is almost certainly due to other factors than what spot in the lineup he was. Is it possible that he struggles in the 3 spot? Maybe. But there's no reason to change where he's batting until we have gotten much, much much more than a half season of evidence because history tells us that it's almost 100% chance to just be statistical noise.

Michael Young likely isn't going to be a better hitter than Alfonso Soriano in 2011. No, but hypothetically the combination of Young/Colvin is probably better than Soriano/DeWitt.

Up in the air. Originally the idea was for an outdoor only stadium but then you lose any chance of hosting the Super Bowl, Final Four and any kind of events/conventions/concerts when the weather isn't great. So then having a retractable roof became the main target but that's more expensive to build and get the funding for, which is the main issue. removable top. Thats what HKS had designed. What would be the point of a retractable roof? That's a lot of extra money for the roof being open for 4-5 home games a year.

Hendry's MO is that he never gives up any prospects he values in a trade (whether that's a good quality of his or a bad one is open to interpretation). He's one of the least likely GM's in the league to give up multiple top prospects in a deal.

From Bruce's blog:

I like the deal. There could be something mechanically wrong with his swing that caused the problems last year. His ground ball percentage went way up and his line drives went down even further. The BABIP was low but he's definitely going to need to be more of a flyball hitter like he was in 2007-2009 if he's going to be successful. But there isn't much risk in this deal and he at least has the potential to have a great year next year which is what the Cubs would likely need to have a decent chance of contending. Besides, he's another Carlos to add to the bunch.

Agreed. I think people put way too much emphasis on defense at first base. IMO, in some ways yes and in some ways no. Since athletic ability is not nearly as important and skills are more important (scooping the ball, footwork, reflexes) there are bigger gaps. There are certain first basemen who are naturally skilled at those things and that can be a big help. There are certain players who can't learn those skills whatsoever and they'll be a liability there. But 96-98 percent of players are around the same ability level at first base. It's not nearly the continuum that other positions are and first base defense is largely overrated. But at the extremes the differences get larger quite quickly. If they're just looking for a plug in for 1 year LaRoche isn't bad but he's absolutely not a guy you lose any flexibility over.