UMFan83

What record? Team record for most home runs in a game. They hit 6 tonight and Colvin missed one by inches when his double hit off the top of the wall. The record is 7 which they last did in 1977.

So close to tieing a record

Damn, I just watched a replay of Colvin's home run. He was maybe 5 feet away from hitting it into the river on the fly. Instead it bounced on the little sidewalk that borders the river and in. He would have been the 2nd person to hit one in the river on the fly. Can anyone name the only person to do that?

Is this the end of the "Pirates are contending" talk? If they drop this they will have lost 7 of their last 8 and 10 of their last 13

Leave it to our Cubs to wrap their first two winning streaks of the year with a 5 game losing streak.

Speaking of TE's, Zach Miller signed with the Seahawks today for $34 mil.

I think you might be a little overly negative, but not too far off. -Punter is an upgrade. I don't even know how accurate Podesh is but it's an upgrade. Maynard was horrible last year, and with the Bears inconsistent offense, we require distance punts more than coffin corner punts. -Don't know if Center is a clear downgrade. Kreutz is getting older every year and has really declined. If you want to argue his leadership contributes to the decline, then maybe I'd consider your argument. -I agree with your 2 marginal starting LBs is better than 1, but go further than that even. According to Bears.com, there are 10 LBs on the training camp roster. 4 are undrafted rookies, 1 is a 6th round pick rookie, 2 have 1 year of practice squad experience, and the other 3 are the starters, Urlacher, Briggs and Roach. I'm almost certain they will get another LB before now and week 1 though. -TE is a downgrade. I would argue that it could be an upgrade when relating to the Bears scheme that doesnt use the TE much, but the TEs we got are horrible blockers too. Who knows. -It's arguable Safety is a downgrade. Manning held his own but he's never going to be an all pro. We've used a 3rd round pick on safety in back to back years, so I'd say there is a decent change Wright or Conte gives them a similar or better performance.

If that guy could ever stay healthy...

It turned out fine, but do we believe that they really knew what they had in Idonije or did the blind squirrel find a nut? I'd like to think they knew what they had, but I'm not that convinced. Peppers really took to Idonije, which is not something the coaching staff could possibly know would happen. They obviously didn't know what they had since Mark Anderson sucked it up for half the season taking the majority of the snaps at the other DE. It turned out fine for them in the end, but it still doesnt mean it wasnt a dumb decision to cut a productive Alex Brown in an uncapped year. There is no other likely reason why they cut him other than cost cutting. i'm showing that anderson started game 1 and then didn't start again. Yeah well you suck. Regardless, I have no problem admitting that the move turned out ok, but my point was that they made the move to offset the cost of the Peppers move. I don't think they were expecting Izzy to necessarily have a career year. They were hoping Mark Anderson could have a monster year with the opponent focusing on stopping Peppers. They certainly could have afforded to keep Brown, they just didn't, and I've yet to hear a reason why except "they didn't want to spend the money on Peppers and Brown." It's not my money but if they can't even spend up to the projected salary cap in an uncapped year, it leaves me wondering why.

If he's contending for the MVP for the first five years of an eight year deal, then I was wrong and I would be down with that. Make it happen! Sarcasm is noticed. Maybe 5 years is a bit of a stretch, and I understand that people don't stay in peak form until age 38 anymore, but Pujols is such a fantastic hitter with an approach that can keep him highly productive despite a decline in bat speed. Hank Aaron: .928 career OPS, .906 OPS ages 35-42 Babe Ruth: 1.164 career OPS, 1.116 OPS ages 35-40 Stan Musial: .976 career OPS, .893 OPS ages 35-42 Ted Williams: 1.116 career OPS, 1.102 OPS ages 35-41 Now I realize these are different eras we are talking about and its much harder to get away with declining bat speed in this era (its obviously hard to measure the players from the late 80's/90's era) but the point stands that some of the best hitters this game has ever seen have been able to keep it going well into their late 30's. PS I havent read maybe the last 30 pages of this thread, so if this "declining skills" discussion has been had ad nauseum, I am sorry for likely bringing up stuff already discussed. I apologize if that came off as sarcastic. I was just saying that if you are right about that, then I will be way wrong and would love for that to happen. No disrespect intended. I didn't take it as disrespect. I just thought you were implying that you highly doubt he'll be competing for an MVP for the next 5 years.

That's a blockbuster. Interesting trade. i'm pretty thrilled about it. kolb wasn't going to play, so we basically got a second round pick and a CB who made the pro bowl in 2009 for nothing. I think it was an obviously great trade for Philly, but Vick isn't invincible... didnt he miss a good amount of time last year with a broken shoulder? Any other injuries? Now your backup is Vince Young, arguably much worse than Kolb. I guess what I'm saying is, saying that you got those things "for nothing" is not quite the truth. And now I sit back and hope that Vick goes down before playoffs and Young blows it in the NFC title game vs. the Cards. :wink: There's definitely an opportunity cost here, but anytime someone is willing to send you a pro bowl caliber CB for your backup QB, that's pretty much a no brainer, unless you don't believe in your starting QB. Vince Young is not a superstar, but he's no Todd Collins either. Plus I think he would be running a similar offense since they both have scrambling ability and strong arms. I gotta think that having the ability to bring in your backup and not have to change your gameplan mid-game has to be a big positive for the Eagles, since chances are Vick will miss at least a little bit of action this year.

If he's contending for the MVP for the first five years of an eight year deal, then I was wrong and I would be down with that. Make it happen! Sarcasm is noticed. Maybe 5 years is a bit of a stretch, and I understand that people don't stay in peak form until age 38 anymore, but Pujols is such a fantastic hitter with an approach that can keep him highly productive despite a decline in bat speed. Hank Aaron: .928 career OPS, .906 OPS ages 35-42 Babe Ruth: 1.164 career OPS, 1.116 OPS ages 35-40 Stan Musial: .976 career OPS, .893 OPS ages 35-42 Ted Williams: 1.116 career OPS, 1.102 OPS ages 35-41 Now I realize these are different eras we are talking about and its much harder to get away with declining bat speed in this era (its obviously hard to measure the players from the late 80's/90's era) but the point stands that some of the best hitters this game has ever seen have been able to keep it going well into their late 30's. PS I havent read maybe the last 30 pages of this thread, so if this "declining skills" discussion has been had ad nauseum, I am sorry for likely bringing up stuff already discussed.

It turned out fine, but do we believe that they really knew what they had in Idonije or did the blind squirrel find a nut? I'd like to think they knew what they had, but I'm not that convinced. Peppers really took to Idonije, which is not something the coaching staff could possibly know would happen. They obviously didn't know what they had since Mark Anderson sucked it up for half the season taking the majority of the snaps at the other DE. It turned out fine for them in the end, but it still doesnt mean it wasnt a dumb decision to cut a productive Alex Brown in an uncapped year. There is no other likely reason why they cut him other than cost cutting.

I know people are scared with a Soriano like situation happening with along contract with Pujols. I get that. But the fact is Pujols is light years better than Soriano at the peaks of their careers. Pujols has patience and discipline that Soriano could only dream of. I wouldn't be surprised if Pujols' OPS+ would be better at 38 than Soriano in his best season. Looking at similar batters to Pujols. First of all, Albert Belle of all people is #1, but since he didn't play into his mid 30's: #2. Hank Greenberg. Played until he was 36. In his age 36 season, he had a 131 OPS+ and a 3.1 WAR. The season before he had a 162 OPS+ and a 6.6 WAR. #3 Johnny Mize. Played until he was 40. In his age 39 and 40 seasons, he had OPS+'s of 110 and 100. Sure a far cry from his career 158, but still a slightly above league average hitter at age 40. Unfortunately, #4,5,6,7,9,10 were all steroid era hitters, and #8 was Chuck Klien, but regardless, although its not the smartest thing ever to pay a 40 year old guy 30 million, I don't expect him to combine for a 1.2 WAR over 3 seasons when he's 38-40 like Soriano has so far from 33-35. And in the meantime he will be contending for the MVP for probably (hopefully) the first maybe 5 years of the deal.

This pisses me off because it's so true. The McCaskey's sure seem lax this year. You would think an owner would be so hellbent on fielding the best team they could... Even last year when we made that FA splash and signed Peppers. What did we do right after? Cut Alex Brown...in an uncapped year. For what? Not saying Brown is a Pro Bowler, but he's a solid consistent performer. No surprise that we struggled at DE all year, and traded his replacement, Mark Anderson, midseason. There was no reason to cut brown. We took 2 steps forward and 1 step back. But of course the news didn't go into that angle and praised the McKaskeys for not being cheap in an uncapped year. The funny thing is, I don't think they even reached what the cap would have been if there was one last year. That said, they aren't super cheap, I know they are usually somewhere around 1st-2nd in the division in payroll.

I dont understand why people want or think they will sign another WR. The WR group is fine, assuming that we're stuck taking a risk on Roy Williams. I mean if we had to spend money just to spend it and WR was the most efficient use of our money, then I'm fine with it because I like Floyd way more than Roy Williams. But it's not going to happen.

Bears are sure targeting winners this offseason. Awesome about Izzy. I've always thought he was really underrated. If I would have any confidence of him being around more than another couple of years, I'd consider buying an Izzy jersey. But it would probably end up at the back of my closet next to my Nathan Vasher and Brendan Ayenbadejo jerseys. Edit: Briggs is 4th worst at tackling for LBs, and Daniel Manning is 2nd best for DBs. Yay. Peanut is 7th though.

So are the Bears really prepared to head into the season well under the cap (which they'll be even with a Forte extension)

Rose Richardson Deng Mirotic Noah 6 in 8 baby (Rose takes 2 years off to play Major League Lacrosse) Man I miss the NBA, and its only still a typical offseason.

Wait, I am moderately high on Webb, but not as the LT. The most important position on the line will be filled by a raw 2nd year 7th round pick.

Gotta love any stat that lists Jay Cutler as "Below Average" and groups him with such studs as Shaun Hill, Jason Campbell, Matt Hasselbeck, Chad Henne, Donovan McNabb, Sam Bradford and Alex Smith.

lol Lee hit a home run off Z

LH SP Part of evaluating him these last two months should be to see if he can hit LHP. Tell me what we gain from having Reed starting? As of about a week ago, Quade was still talking about winning the division this year. It will take a hell of a lot more than 20 games under .500 for him to play anything but his best out there.

What next, a weighted OPS stat that factors in clutch hitting?

[expletive] him, he killed our championship dreams. What next, Derrick Lee and Juan Pierre joining the Cubs?