SouthSideRyan

Why is it "optimistic" to get 1 more 6 win season from a guy who's averaged 6.3 fWAR and 7.4 bWAR over the last 4 seasons?

That guy's twitter sure is something. Gone now. http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/198hl8jjkncyppng/ku-medium.png

Indulging in the fantasy briefly: Samardzija/Tanaka/Jackson/Wood/Arrieta Strop/Wright/whomever That's a really not-upsetting pitching staff If Tanaka is as good as Garza (hopefully better) and Arrieta can manage what Feldman did, it's as good as last year's pre-firesale rotation. The bullpen with all the interesting power arms should be much better. I'm OK with this. Arrieta isn't matching what Feldman did, but you would hope Edwin Jackson won't suck again.

I'd say third behind Alabama and Mizzou. How does one fall behind the last place team?

What sort of insane hours are you keeping that post on here at 4am? Polyphasic

They get to keep their best player? It keeps being hard to remember that other teams want to have good baseball players on their team. Stockholm Syndrome

Wisconsin ended the '11-'12 season ranked 10 in the BCS ranked 8th. But obviously, this is totally meaningless because teams aren't judged on 5 year intervals unless it's to prove that the SEC is #1 superpower

And I'd take OSU to beat Auburn or Mizzou, and lose to FSU

It's like they're playing the AA of football or something And all that while having to compete withe Mississippi State all year!

It's like they're playing the AA of football or something

Wesley Wright was an Astro forever. Did you guys stop watching in 2009?

Sounds about right; I always think back to how he said he was "blown away" by Ricketts' pitch to get him to come here, and I have to think that a huge part of that was emphasizing how they'd be able to modernize and upgrade the ballpark like Boston did and how much money that would bring in. While it makes sense that Theo would be relatively broadsided by the way things have played out, it's very disconcerting how stymied the Ricketts are, and it just again makes me worried that Theo and co. could be out of here sooner rather than later if the logjam doesn't clear up soon and the team doesn't turn around pretty damn fast. how big of a concern would it really be if theo and the rest left? i like the people we have, but it's not like they have a bunch of secrets that no one else does and are using them to exploit all the other teams' idiocy. what is their value over replacement right now? i love that we have smart people rather than hendrys, but i'm not seeing a ton of amazing moves that couldn't be replicated by another group of people who have been given instructions to try to get good prospects and don't worry about whether you finish in last place over and over again. if everyone left, i assume ricketts would just go hire more smart people who want to build slowly and they would do basically the same thing as we've seen to this point. My concern would be about who would want to come here after some of the more respected smart guys in baseball bailed from an owner for being a stupid motherfucking cheap bastard. Sure you could strike it rich with the the next whiz kid, but it'd be a lot less of a sure thing to have somebody who isn't a [expletive] moron running the team.

Nah, it was us. Well...yeah it was MSU too. But still.

6, including the actual head coach in the picture. Does that include Gorilla Monsoon? /dead [expletive] Vader

6, including the actual head coach in the picture. Does that include Gorilla Monsoon?

Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but...

I think I can name one player in that picture, though there's almost certainly a more famous player I'm missing since #50 is who I've got. ETA That little runt white guy hasn't aged a day

Who cares who was closest to the Yankees? The market for a player is whatever the top team is bidding. This just sounds like more 2nd place medals to hang on our mantle. To repeat what somebody else said upthread, if you have issues with his injury history, and you admitted they were fluky injuries, not a sign of some sort of body breakdown why on Earth would you want him for 5 years?

Well at least we know the front office's pr campaign is working. Yeah, no. How else do you explain not being welling to pay "even close" to $21m to a player of that ability? Furthermore, if their campaign is working, then why did I say I'm all for them going nuts for Tanaka? Look, I was all for them going nuts on Tanaka, but this posting fee was ridiculous. I can't fault them for not going that high. It's craaaaaaaaazy

7 years at 22 per is near the upper bound of what I would've been willing to give Ellsbury, but I don't think it's an unreasonable deal at all. I can respect the opinion, but I'm shocked people would think it's a reasonable deal. He's a fine but injury prone baseball player. That's pretty much it. If they are going to give out a 22 million per season long-term contract, I want somebody much better. Like somebody would command way more than 22M

He'll be 36 in the last year of this contract.

You didn't like when he looked off our best player, turned it over, and then ran away from his man within two feet from the hoop to give up the lead? I wouldnt be shocked if we found out later that someone saw him playing volleyball somewhere when he was 17 and told him to try a new sport. Didnt that happen with Tim Duncan? Hopefully Abrams' play was bad enough that coach's eyes were opened and playing time will be given away. Egwu seriously did start playing basketball at age 15.

Inadvertant apparently means nonexistent now.

turns out we need to keep defending several seconds after the shot clock expires, just to be safe And throw it off that big doof's head when he's out of bounds just so the ref is sure of it.

Sure would be nice to watch this Michigan-Duke game, but Dick Vitale is calling it.