Northside Blues

Toronto cares more about America's past time than Miami! Sarcasm dude.

Toronto is a pretty diverse multi-cultural city. It's not Kansas City. But it's still Canada. Its more American than say San Diego,Houston, Miami or Los Angeles

Gyro http://blog.eat24hours.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Gyro-House.jpg

Matsuzaka was far more hyped than Darvish. Eh, Darvish generated a lot more interest from middle to upper-middle class teams. And google disagrees http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=Yu+Darvish&word2=Daisuke+Matsuzaka

Boston came out of nowhere to win the Matsuzaka bid. All of the rumors up to and during the process had him linked to New York with a max bid of like 25m. Matsuzaka was every bit as hyped as Darvish is, and the Red Sox bid for Matsuzaka has set the price for Darvish.

Signing a guy and then trading someone else as a linked move isnt something that occurs often. Complicated scenarios just dont work unless it is a 3 way trade. He would consider it obviously but the link between the two doesnt exist.

At least according to Rosenthal. The Yankees may look to sign Nakajima and then trade him to another team. Hesays we like Nakajima. Maybe he is a possible 2B. I dont trust japanese hitters.

With Brauns suspension money!

I agree but having a solid guy at 1B could give them an opportunity to splurge elsewhere instead. If there's a chance to grab a high impact bat at 1B, by all means make the move.

I certainly do not prefer Loney to Fielder, I said if we don't or can't sign Fielder. That being said it wouldnt surprise me if by year five or six of a possible Fielder contract that Loney would be more productive. Loney very well could be a Mark Grace type player for us. Almost identical, actually and thats with no more development. Hes not a difference maker or anything, but is pretty useful. I'm going to have to call shenanigans on this nonsense. Loney is not Mark Grace. I'm no huge Grace fan, but he was much better than Loney. well, the difference between graces career line and loneys career road line is 20 isod and nothing else. Of course you cant just throw out half a guys career and cherry pick splits. As someone else mentioned his splits seemed to have stabilized recently. Its just that there is room for growth and optimism. If you have any better ideas, lets hear them. Loney isnt ideal, but serviceable. Why Loney over Barton? Heck, I'd rather have Pena back for another year than Loney. I said Loney or Barton. Id prefer Barton. Pena is about six years older than Loney. I think Theo and the Cubs should be looking at building a consistent contender not looking at a short fix in hopes of contending. The Cubs had no chance of contending last year and the money spent on Pena could have been used in developing the farm system internationally, for instance. Loney will cost a bit of money, but there is a chance he could be a part of the future in a few years and be useful. It isnt high....maybe there is only a 5% chance of hit happening but thats better than 0%. Also Loney and Pena actually were similar in value according to fangraphs as recently as 2011.

I certainly do not prefer Loney to Fielder, I said if we don't or can't sign Fielder. That being said it wouldnt surprise me if by year five or six of a possible Fielder contract that Loney would be more productive. Loney very well could be a Mark Grace type player for us. Almost identical, actually and thats with no more development. Hes not a difference maker or anything, but is pretty useful. I'm going to have to call shenanigans on this nonsense. Loney is not Mark Grace. I'm no huge Grace fan, but he was much better than Loney. well, the difference between graces career line and loneys career road line is 20 isod and nothing else. Of course you cant just throw out half a guys career and cherry pick splits. As someone else mentioned his splits seemed to have stabilized recently. Its just that there is room for growth and optimism. If you have any better ideas, lets hear them. Loney isnt ideal, but serviceable.

I certainly do not prefer Loney to Fielder, I said if we don't or can't sign Fielder. That being said it wouldnt surprise me if by year five or six of a possible Fielder contract that Loney would be more productive. Loney very well could be a Mark Grace type player for us. Almost identical, actually and thats with no more development. Hes not a difference maker or anything, but is pretty useful. his home/away splits have been rather equal the last couple of years and not good. I do not see that much upside in Loney. Either way we are much better off signing a guy who has some upside than a decent veteran, even if the division is down. It doesnt matter if you think that guy is Loney, Barton or someone else. Im certainly not saying Loney would be dream or anything.

I certainly do not prefer Loney to Fielder, I said if we don't or can't sign Fielder. That being said it wouldnt surprise me if by year five or six of a possible Fielder contract that Loney would be more productive. Loney very well could be a Mark Grace type player for us. Almost identical, actually and thats with no more development. Hes not a difference maker or anything, but is pretty useful.

If we dont sign Prince I wouldnt mind adding Loney or Barton. Theo should be on a five year plan not an immediate two year plan. Signing one of those two as opposed to a stopgap veteran could allow one to develop and become a part of the five year plan. Ive always thought Loney would be a good fit for Wrigley with the short alleys. He also has a ridiculous away statline. It is something like .300/.360/.480. Not great but reason for optimism.

http://tracking.si.com/2011/12/07/report-marlins-will-look-to-trade-hanley-ramirez/

In sumarry: Boise St and San Diego State to be invited for football only. Houston, Central Florida, and SMU to be invited for all sports. All by 2013. After that, the plan is Navy and Air Force a year later to make 12. They shouldn't get to be a part of the BCS anymore. I would agree, but only because the Big East shouldn't have been in the last several years. This new conference is as strong (or maybe stronger) as the Big East has been since Miami, Va Tech, and BC left. It isn't that much weaker than the ACC either, but the conference has been consistently bad for long enough that it shouldn't be getting automatic bids. The ACC at least has teams with outstanding football traditions. Florida State and Miami will certainly bounceback at some point and the ACC will be able to get to the level of the Big Ten, Pac 12 and SEC, much like it was prior to 2005. The ACC has just been down for awhile but the Big East has no chance of becoming in the class of the Big Ten. Not really arguing with you or anything, just pointing that out. The Big East should be stripped of its BCS credentials and the ACC should not.

In the new and improved Big East, only Rutgers was a BCS conference team prior to 2005. Four out of the 10 teams were not even FBS/I-A teams when the BCS was created (UConn, Boise, USF, UCF). Six of the 10 teams were members of Conference USA at some point.

The baseball season lasts around 180 days. The NBA and NHL seasons last around 170 days. The NFL season lasts around 120 days.

For comparison sake, some of the best RH hitters of all time. Recents - Manny Ramirez - out of baseball now at age 39 but never declined and was a headcase. - Frank Thomas - Didn't decline until about age 39 but had problems staying healthy and was never the same player as he was before 30, but still great. Then again at age 31 Thomas had a better career than Pujols. - Jeff Bagwell - declined at 35ish. Bagwell is probably the best athletic comparison to Pujols, probably more athletic actually. Bagwell had a shoulder arthritic condition. - Mark McGwire - Done at 37. Injuries and roids. Others, keep in mind that players care a lot more about conditioning these days. - Rogers Hornsby - done at 35 - Jimmie Foxx - done at 34 - Hank Greenberg - Out of baseball at 36 but never stop hitting - Dick Allen - done at 33 - Hank Aaron - done at 40 - Joe DiMaggio - done at 36 - Willie Mays - done at 41 If he stays healthy he will hit until he's well into his late 30s.

It's the holy trinity, right? Kinda like Prior, Wood and Zambrano am i right? Of course they would be the holy trinity if they could turn this sad sack of crap to a team that can make it to within five outs of the WS next year.

Well, in theory, the Phillies (102 wins) would be expected to beat the Astros (56 wins) about 76% of the time via the log5 method at a neutral site. If we make the generous assumption that the games would all be played at one, then in a five game series the Astros would be expected to win about 9% of the time, not a lot but about 1 in 11. Of course we're comparing the extremes here. To go even further, the 2003 Tigers would beat the 2001 Mariners about 2% of the time in a five game series.

This isn't one of the top ten moves he has made, but it's probably the most interesting. I thought we traded Sosa for pennies on the dollar, but Sosa after the trade had a .727 OPS and Mike Fontenot had a .757 OPS as a Cub.

Cubbies still havent had one yet. Does anyone know the latest in a season it has taken a team (say post 1900) to have a 3 game winning streak? The 2003 Tigers had one within the first 31 games.

If I am not mistaken when the cut was shown to audiences Jonah Hill's acting was widely praised.

I'm not real excited facing 5 AL teams as often as the other 10 NL teams as long as the wild card is around. This. I guess that's the best solution if you want 15 in each. I'd rather scrap divisions and interleague and just have 14/16 with top four moving on. Simple. H ere's one based on the NFL's system. move the brewers back NL1 - New York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia NL2 - Atlanta, Florida, Washington NL3 - Cincinnati, St Louis, Chicago NL4 - Houston, Arizona, Colorado NL5 - San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles AL1 - New York, Detroit, Boston AL2 - Toronto, Tampa, Detroit AL3 - Milwaukee, Cleveland, Chicago AL4 - Texas, Minnesota, Kansas City AL5 - Seattle, Anaheim, Oakland As far as scheduling goes 18 games vs 1 interleague division (3 H, 3 A, 3 Teams) 96 games vs intraleague nondivision (4 H, 4 A, 12 teams) 48 games vs intraleague division (12 H, 12 A, 2 teams) Then have the top division winners and one wild card go to the playoffs, giving you six teams. Have the top two records get a bye, have the third best team host the wild card, fourth and fifth play each other. then do best of 3, best of 5, best of 7, best of 7. Pros - Creates and promotes rivalries (and clustered rivalries) due to directly only competing with two teams (granted the system may never pass w/o splitting up Boston and New York. - Even weak teams always have a chance because they are only competing with two other teams, usually close by. - Still a wild card - One more playoff round for $$$$ Cons - Drastically unbalanced schedule for the 1 wild card spot. - weak teams always have a chance. - One more playoff round - playoff byes - too radically different from current situation Not saying it's the best or even a good solution, it's just one modeled on the NFL's. I