tkenm356

Everybody is a guest on everybody's record now. It's like those bloated 1970's disaster and car-chase movies with the huge "all-star" cast. The idea was to cram as many familiar names into the credits as possible to prolong the life of a played-out formula. there are like 2 songs on "Late Registration" that don't have guest rappers: Adam Levine Lupe Fiasco Jamie Foxx Paul Wall & GLC Common Game Brandy Jay-Z Nas Really Doe Consequence Cam'ron Guest rapping sucks. Hip hop listeners can't maintain their interest for a whole album anymore without the added bling of the guests. I knew hip hop was headed for a decline in popularity when getting a big list of stars in a record's credits became more important than the music. It's pretty bad when even the people who make the records have accepted that the music alone is not enough to make the audience give a crap anymore. I agree. If anyone can find one rap/hip-hop album released any time in the past decade that doesn't have at least one guest appearance by another rapper/artist then I'll give you a cyber-cookie

I know the general consesus around here was that we all expected Rich Hill to be a good pitcher this year, I know I did. The question I'm asking though is did anyone on here expect him to be THIS dominant? I personally thought he'd win the first 3 games, but I was expecting an ERA somewhere between 2.00-3.00, no more than 3.50. Rich Hill has been absolutely remarkable, unfrotunately he doesn't have the hype of Felix or Daisuke to be getting any major attention. It's sad. But seriously, did anyone expect his ability to be this great so early? Like I said I expected him to be good, but this blows my very favorable prediction out of the water

This is rad. Lou rules, thank God Dusty isn't here anymore. And yes, I used the word "rad" to describe Lou because hey, he deserves it

I like http://www.baseball-almanac.com/

After some... *ahem*... extensive research, I found Badgers avatar using Google.... Here It's not really NSFW... but I wouldn't want my boss catching me looking at it, fwiw

Can you add "I don't care" to your list? Cause I really don't care, I wouldn't watch it regardless if I knew it was on there or not.

I'm rooting for him. I have had a few friends who are former drug abusers who have overcome their addictions to lead good lives and I saw how difficult the transformation was. Do they know they were stupid and wasted parts of their lives doing drugs? Yeah, they do. They don't blame anyone but themselves for their behavior. The fact that they accept that and acknowledge their faults was enough for me to support them. Therefore, I will contnue to root for Josh Hamilton to have a great career (at least, whenever he doesn't play the Cubs), because he has done the same it would seem. If he pulls a Gooden/Strawberry and starts abusing again then it sucks, but oh well, life goes on. Also, not sure if this was posted anywhere, but I saw this on the KFFL news feed from Yahoo! I think that's awesome of Freel, personally.

That's a great write-up, and a good read. Thanks.

36 is the new 24!!!

We should've hocked off Jones and a prospect off to Pittsburgh when they needed a left handed hitting right fielder when we had the chance

I don't doubt there's someone who is interested in Jones...... but Ohman? I guess the Neifi example paints a good portrait. Maybe we can pawn him off on Detroit so Leyland can rant about how bad he is

Where exactly did you hear this rumor? It's interesting More importantly, what team in the world, let alone the Major Leagues, would be dumb enough to want to acquire Jones and Ohman?

Happy Birthday, Bruce. Have a great one!

Wade Miller is a [expletive] 30 gallon hefty bag filled 60 gallons of dip spit, dog crap, old nachos, stale beer, and Hugh Jackman He sucks

I decided not to make another thread about the people making dumb transactions in my fantasy league, but this is just weird, and it came form someone who knows about baseball. I suppose he was just upset about his performance thus far, but the dude dropped Mark Teixeira. I immediately picked him up in exchange for Adrian Gonzalez. Yeah, Gonzalez is performing better than he is now, but it's MARK TEIXEIRA. Did he get injured and I not know about it? My lineup/rotation as it stands now in a 10-team league. I say this so you realize how ignorant some people can be by dropping good players. My team is ridonkulous... C Russell Martin 1B Prince fielder 2B Ian Kinsler 3B Aramis Ramirez SS Michael Young OF Vladimir Guerrero OF Delmon Young OF Ryan Church UTIL Mark Teixeira BENCH C/1B Victor Martinez 2B/3B BJ Upton 2B/3B/OF Ryan Freel OF Pat Burrell ROTATION SP Johan Santana SP Felix Hernandez RP Mariano Rivera RP Huston Street P Ian Snell P Rich Hill P Al Reyes BENCH SP Chris Young SP Rich Harden It almost doesn't seem fair, but it's very uncharacteristic because a lot of the guys in the league are smart enough to know good players from bad ones.

I'm a firm believer in thinking that if someone catches a game for an extra two innings, or if anyone at any position plays an extra two innings or so when they don't have to, it won't affect their game 6 months down the road. Call me crazy, but yeah.

DON'T TRADE FOR GLAUS... of course I'm assuming you haven't yet. Glaus is on the DL

But he also hit leadoff in those years he struggled in Texas, and wasn't good. I think it's much more likely the struggles were related to the fact that everybody knew how easy of an out he was if you didn't give him stuff to hit. He's a terribly undisciplined hitter who will get himself out most of the time, no matter where he is in the lineup. He appeared to make some adjustments last year (plus he was facing an entirely new league of pitchers) so he got away with it. Soriano crapped the bed in the 2003 playoffs. About as bad of a stretch as you can have. He was villified in NY and they got rid of him. He went out and pretty much repeated his career numbers out of the 3 spot. Then in 2005 he did a little better out of the 5 spot (but was worse at leadoff). True, although he had less than 200PA at lead-off in the 2 years in Texas, so the sample size was not as big. Regardless, I think we both can agree that he will arguably hit similar production numbers in any position in the lineup regardless of who hits around him. I just personally prefer he remain in the lead-off spot most of the time

If you change things up and the team starts playing well, would you still put it back the other way just because of weather conditions? The only reason to bat Soriano leadoff is if he truly has a mental hangup hitting anywhere else. If he hits better somewhere else, there's no longer a reason to bat him leadoff. Then let's assume Soriano starts hitting the ball well and whoever is batting in the lead-off spot stops hitting well and it gets into a swing of things that we are in now, and we have no viable lead-off hitter? I'd move Soriano back for a few games and see if he continues to hit well. I will continue to use the example of Soriano not being able to hit well in the #3 and #5 spots while he was in TEX, in a hitters park, in the beginning of his prime years, batting in the middle of a lineup of Michael Young, Hank Blalock, and Mark Teixiera when ALL of those players were putting up incredible numbers Soriano stopped hitting in the 1st spot though, and hit better out of the leadoff spot than in it in 2004. The notion that he can't hit anywhere else just doesn't hold up to logic. He's not really a viable leadoff hitter himself. Compared to the prototypical lead-off hitters, I tend to agree. But he's had plenty of AB's in the 3 and 5 hole to make it a nice sample size (656AB at 3, 618AB at 5), and his averages of .260 and .271 pale in comparison to his .290 at the lead-off spot. I honestly think he'd do fine in the 3 or 5 hole, but he was brought into the majors and primed to be a lead-off hitter, and when Texas took him out of that situation he floundered, and Washington put him back in that position and he had the best year of his career. Like I said, switching it up now and then can't hurt, but I still would like to see Soriano get the majority of his AB at thew lead-off spot, since Theriot is really the only other viable option we can put at lead-off to fit that typical lead-off hitter stereotype, and he hasn't exactly won the starting spot anywhere yet, though it seems inevitable he will. But Theriot is hitting like crazy out of the 2-hole, so would we want to move him out of that spot?

Unfortunately, if Theriot continues to play well, I have a feeling Len and Bob will refer to Theriot as the proverbial "Gamer" or "Ball Player" of the Chicago Cubs. I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, hope they don't. Just call him The Riot and leave it at that

If you change things up and the team starts playing well, would you still put it back the other way just because of weather conditions? The only reason to bat Soriano leadoff is if he truly has a mental hangup hitting anywhere else. If he hits better somewhere else, there's no longer a reason to bat him leadoff. Then let's assume Soriano starts hitting the ball well and whoever is batting in the lead-off spot stops hitting well and it gets into a swing of things that we are in now, and we have no viable lead-off hitter? I'd move Soriano back for a few games and see if he continues to hit well. I will continue to use the example of Soriano not being able to hit well in the #3 and #5 spots while he was in TEX, in a hitters park, in the beginning of his prime years, batting in the middle of a lineup of Michael Young, Hank Blalock, and Mark Teixiera when ALL of those players were putting up incredible numbers

I was, and still am, an advocate of Soriano in the 1-spot. However, I wouldn't be opposed to a change of the lineup, especially with the way Theriot is hitting. Shaking things up a bit can't hurt, and certaintly it's not working right now the way it is. I do agree that once the weather warms up it should go back the way it was, but mixing it up seems like it wouldn't hurt any more than it would leaving things the way they are.

I don't think Cuddyer can duplicate what he did last year. BP has him hitting 21HR and 89RBI. I think you won on this trade. Berkman will bounce back and smack pitchers around for 30+HR 100+RBI .300+AVG. Cuddyer is not a lock for the same numbers, he's a risk.

I think your first trade will get shot down. Dunn is playing really well right now and Peralta seems to be bouncing back to good form nicely. Freel is only good for steals, and even then the rest of his numbers are unspectacular thus far, and Teahen is performing worse than I would and I suck at sports. If I had Manny, I'd go ahead and trade for Tejada and Hawpe/Ordonez, since Manny's value is low right now since he's struggling, but of course he's Manny Ramirez and is likely capable for .300-30-110 at least once he picks up steam. I wouldn't do that trade for Glaus. I wouldn't even trade Tejada for Glaus straight up, let alone throw in another player for Glaus. Glaus will give you lots for home runs, but if you look at his career numbers, for a guy who can hit between 35-45HR, he puts up weak RBI numbers (111 career best), and has a consistent ~.250AVG to boot. If you can get Manny for Tajada straight up, I'd probably do it, but Tejada, while his HR numbers appear to be declining, can still put up high AVG and RBI totals, which could be a good selling point... that and Ramirez is trash right now and is likely pissing his owner off since he probably drafted him in the first or second round, while Tejada is performing well enough to warrant keeping him instead of Manny if there was a gun to your head and you had to choose. In conclusion: 1) I don't think your first trade will go through, you're essentially trying to trade players who are performing poorly for players who are performing great 2) The 2nd trade needs some tweaking. I wouldn't go for Glaus if you're giving up Tejada, since he has more value, but I'd try and get Ramirez.

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