UMFan83

seriously why waste an out in order to try to stretch your pitcher who has given up a run in every inning so far today at most an extra inning? Edit: Whoops forgot Warren is going tomorrow

http://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2016/7/5/12097344/jurgen-klinsmann-england-manager-please-god Not sure if that's new news. My question: If Jurgen agrees to interview with England, there is no way Sunil will let him stay with USMNT if he doesn't get the job right?

Lackey has now given up an ER in the last 6 innings he's pitched in

oh yeah i momentarily got excited until i realized John "sh!t stick" Lackey is still pitching

Suck it Seager, the NL Starting SS just put his team back in the game

Javy go boom

Seriously, we had a historically great strand rate in April and May, and now all the sudden it seems like every person we walk comes around to score somehow.

horsefeathers off lackey

Seriously...I expected regression but damn. 1.1 IP 8 ER for Lester, 4 IP 10 ER for Hammel, now Lackey working on 2 IP 4 ER after 4.1 IP and 7 ER the last time out

Were probably not going to continue to have a 91% win percentage against the Reds, but after the rough 15 games we just had, I really don't want to drop games to this team. Hopefully the bats come alive and Lackey gets his head out of his ass.

horsefeathers you lackey.

He started out terrible against them, but has been hitting them quite well lately. OPS against them this year is a tick under .800 which isn't terrible.

If you look at the splits, he's actually destroyed the Pirates worse than the Cubs this year. 8 games vs. Pit: .370/.414/.519/.932 8 games vs. Chc: .182/.308/.500/.808

Lackey's last 5 starts (including today so far): 6.08 ERA

horsefeathering Lackey

Not a bad idea. So Curry could get paid $50m a year as a DP, but if Durant wanted to join, the most he could get is $20m or whatever fits in the cap.

You can just go ahead and PM me first before you offer to the rest of the board :)

Dammit 2PM meeting! Really wish I could go, hope someone takes advantage, thanks for offering to the board

I agree he deserves to. I thought he might be a good final vote candidate as well but I think there are a lot of potential position player snubs in the NL so not sure if he makes it.

I know you guys will give honest brutal feedback. I just came up with this 10 minutes ago and posted on reddit, but I didn't really think it through too much so there are a ton of holes probably. Anyways my crackpot suggestion to help with parity (and yes a lot of this is similar to MLB draft allotment rules that we all hate): 1) Eliminate the salary cap. Max contracts will be eliminated but there will be a ceiling if you switch teams because of the below rules 2) Create a "Free Agent Allotment" where each team is given a slot based on last year's standings that determines how much you are able to spend on outside free agents. 3) You can only acquire up to 20% more in your annual "free agent allotment" via trades. Meaning that if you are a bad team you can use some of your allotment as an asset to get better via trade for a middling team that wants more space to sign a FA. 4) Keep the Bird clause, and resigning own free agents does not take from your allotment pool. However, you will have to be on a team for at least 2 seasons as a FA, or be acquired via trade at least 1 full season before FA to be able to use the Bird clause There will probably have to be exemptions so if a team like the 2011 Bulls loses Rose for a year with a torn ACL, they don't have to pick up a starting PG off the scrap heap and make due because they don't have a big allotment. Benefits: 1) Superstar FAs will not be able to just join a 73 win team, unless they are going to take an unbelievably significant pay cut to be there. 2) If you are a superstar and want to get paid your choice is to remain with your team, demand a trade a year before you will be a FA (so the team losing the star gets significant assets), or sign with a crappy team. The first downside I can think of is tanking will still be an issue. If you are a mediocre team, why not bottom out and get a big allotment and go for a superstar. However, that tanking team might be Milwaukee or Sacramento and might now be a destination that previously an NBA star wouldn't consider. The other downside is that the NBA probably doesn't care too much about Milwaukee or Sacramento being contenders or the fact that the parity is somewhat low. Like I said because its a superstar driven league. The best thing that the NBA has going for it is that their best players are seemingly bigger draws than any of the other big 3 sports. The NBA is the 3rd or maybe 2nd biggest league in the US, but their best players are among the biggest soccer names internationally in terms of visibility. Because of this, they NBA can craft superstar driven dramas that keep fans of other teams interested. For instance, it wasn't the Heat winning 4 EC titles, followed by the Cavs winning the next 2. It was LeBron winning 6 straight EC titles. It is what it is, and its never been better for the league, so why try to fix it.

Good NSBB-like article about CT's doppelganger and the results he's having http://wrigleyville.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/07/05/skill-not-luck-kyle-hendricks-edition/

I know people criticize the arbitrary sample size stuff but horsefeathers it Addison Russell since June 12 (22 games): .265/.393/.529/.922 Kris Bryant since May 25 (37 games) .288/.392/.697/1.089 Anthony Rizzo since June 3 (28 games) .359/.446/.709/1.155 Javier Baez since June 17 (17 games) .313/.362/.531/.894

All-Star rosters announced at 6 CT (I believe) tonight. Predictions on Cubs All-Stars? I'll resist the urge to predict that one or more of the starters gets jumped, although there has been interesting changes in starters between the last results and the announcement in the past years I believe. In order of confidence 1. Rizzo 2. Bryant 3. Fowler 4. Arrieta 5. Zobrist 6. Russell 7. Lester 1-4 are pretty much locks, 5 is pretty close to a lock (Zobrist will almost certainly make it even if Murphy leaps him as a starter). Russell and Lester are close. Russell obviously has no shot if he is jumped, but since he was leading the final balloting you have to feel slightly better about him making it because of that then Lester.

How does Bryant vs Arenado look now in terms of fWAR etc? Bryant now has a higher OBP higher SLG and more HRs despite not playing in Coors

Good to hear about Bryant but not sure why everyone was worried about a serious knee injury. If there was even a chance that there was a serious knee injury he would not have finished the inning