UMFan83

Crawford for backup goalie in the playoffs please. 5 goals on 20 shots I believe.

What an embarrassingly awful season for Huet. Please retire after the season so we can get rid of your contract. I was really enjoying the optimism we were starting to get after the 1 game winning streak we had.

Got one back. Huet should just retire.

My logic exactly. Wood very nearly had a no-hitter and many people feel that he should have. The other thing is that no-hitters are much more likely to happen as a result of a little luck than a 20k game. Like in Z's no-hitter for example... he didn't even have his best stuff that day, and didn't even dominate as much as you would expect in a no-hit performance. He just got a few calls, got people to chase a few pitches, and hitters hit the ball to the right places. A 20k game will not occur as a result of anything other than complete nastiness on the part of the pitcher. Causing 20 major league hitters to strike out and only allowing 8 balls into play is [expletive] intense. I don't know I thought Z had pretty good stuff on his no-no day. He was working at a good pace, and really had all his pitches working effectively that day. He only walked 1 and hit another, which is a huge sign that his stuff is working that day.

1M per year isn't that big of a budget unless they're talking strictly base. Sure, but it's far more then I thought Depaul would be willing to pay. If they ever want to compete again, they pretty much have to. That's gotta be one of the 5 worst jobs in the Big 6 conferences. It probably is, but I think it has a lot more upside then probably a lot of Big 6 conference schools. It has a lot going for it (history and location are the 2 biggest), but it also has a lot of shortfalls, almost all of which could be corrected (lack of arena, apathetic athletic department, recent tradition, budget). My biggest worry, is that all those throwing out big dollar figures and talks about a new arena is all just talk to appease the DePaul fans. If DePaul decided on another somewhat reputable mid major coach going through a few hard seasons that immediately looks overmatched for the Big East, DePaul basketball could still get much much lower than it is right now. Fans would riot. But by throwing all this crap around about how they are going to spend big bucks on a coach, and how they are looking into building an arena near campus, probably the 2 biggest hot button issues depaul fans have, they will at least appease the fans enough so that when they hire someone that is not a big named coach, the fans won't be as angry. But who knows for certain. I don't buy this arena talk one bit thought. A little too convenient timing IMO.

A depressing look at the Bears' draft picks from Brad Biggs. I don't know if I really buy the whole draft pick value thing. Too many 1st round busts. It's only valuable until you screw it up -- and there's a lot of screwing it up going on. Yeah but the point is, that draft points indicate the trade value of draft picks. If the Bears traded their entire draft for something, it would essentially be like trading the 55th pick of the draft for something.

I like it. I don't know if you have enough SBs though. Is it Roto or H2H?

Possibly a few fans, but I think the majority of people who could have seen both would be the media, probably newspaper/radio beat reporters who switched beats from Cubs to Sox or whatnot

In which case we don't have to worry at all. I dont know about that, I could see us going into next season Fonty 3B, Castro SS, Theriot 2B, 1B Baker if the other 2 walk. That way Hendry can have middle infielders at every position, that would be his wet dream. I know you're mostly kidding, but I'm pretty sure if we lost $25 million in salary we'd find a way to replace it in the offseason. We could sign Dunn or Carlos Pena for 1B, but the 3B FA options are fairly poor. Either way we'd have the money to spend if we needed to pick up salary in a trade.

Hmm... I doubt it. Houston went 102-60 that year and led the NL in runs scored by a decent margin. It's probably about even. Houston scored 5.4 runs per game with a line of .280/.356/.436/.792. Tampa Bay averaged 4.96 runs per game with a line of .263/.343/.439/.782. Houston scored almost half a run more per game but the batting lines were very similar. I was going to argue that Houston has the edge because they were an NL team with pitchers ABs brining down that line (and I believe Shane Reynolds was a notably bad hitter at that point in his career). But then I realized that the 98 Houston team was in the heart of the steroid era, making their statline slightly less impressive.

Hmm... I doubt it. Houston went 102-60 that year and led the NL in runs scored by a decent margin.

You took a lot of high injury prone pitchers on your staff that would worry me if I had your team. If it helps, I'm looking into making a trade when I send Haren, Harden and Nunez and get back Greinke and Thornton (it's a holds league and I have none). There is surprisingly a few decent guys that are FA in the league right now. I typically like to have 1-2 dominant starters and make the rest patch work. I am a big fan of having spotstarters all the time if you know how to use them correctly.

I always enjoy looking at other people's teams and seeing how they've built their teams so I figured I would start this. I'll start with my team. It's a 10 team H2H league with R, HR, RBI, SB, OBP, SLG for hitting and W, K, SV, HLD, ERA, WHIP for pitchers. I tried a new and (for me) daring strategy to offensively lean towards speed/runs guys with healthy but not dominating power. I did ok sticking to it but definitely went against it at times. For pitching, I tried to stockpile closers to use as trade bait to improve my team. The basis for Speed (and or Runs) and Closers was because I felt these are 2 stat categories that are typically undervalued a bit in the draft, but immediately after the draft they become more valuable. C - Soto 1B - Fielder 2B - Roberts 3B - Youkilis SS - Tulowitzki CI - Helton MI - Weeks OF - Ichiro OF - Granderson OF - Cruz OF - Carlos Gonzalez UTIL - Matsui UTIL - Pierre UTIL - Borbon BN - Hafner (been reading decent things about him, last round pick figured I'd gamble) SP - Haren SP - Peavy SP - Garza SP - Harden RP - Broxton RP - Marmol RP - Aardsma P - Frank Francisco P - Capps BN - Sheets BN - Harang BN - Leo Nunez I'm not sure how to judge my team because it's not the type of team I usually build. I see potential though and with some trades I think it could be good.

Maybe Fred can shed some light on that game since he was there.

Can't say I'd take the perfect game. Don't get me wrong, major props to Buehrle, that was a terrific game and the kind of performance you only see a few times in a lifetime. It's probably in the top 30 pitched games of all time. But yeah Wood was unhittable that game. Yes he gave up a hit - a week grounder that a fielder with more range might have gotten to. I'd have to watch the game, but I don't believe that any balls were hit all that hard by Wood, or even aided by a good defense effort, but I can't say that with 100% confidence. If Buehrle's is top 30, Wood's is top 10. And I don't even feel like a homer saying that. In fact I think you'd get some Sox fans that agree. Not all but some.

Would be an interesting road season for us, playing on Thanksgiving in Dallas' season, still possibly opening up the season on Sunday night to christen the Giants new stadium and then going to Toronto for a Bills game. All we need now is to get in on that international game. Too bad those teams are already picked out.

Detroit is much better than their record obviously bc of injuries, but they also probably aren't as good as they've been in years past. Ideally let someone else that seemingly doesn't have a psychological hurdle to clear with Detroit face them in the first round and hopefully knock them out IMO.

No compelling reason? Because for the first decade in history (or at least post-FA history) the Cubs enter the decade poised to be amongst the top 4 in payroll all decade. Teams that were up there all last decade include the Yankees who made 9 playoff appearances, went to 3 World Series and won 2 of them, and the Red Sox who made 7 playoff appearances, went to 2 World Series and won both. So yeah there is a compelling reason why they should be more successful than the previous decade.

I'll trade him forgiveness for a playoff RBI

Yes he did. Sight for sore eyes (meaning Blackhawks fans). I can only hope he's getting the confidence of being the starting goalie and he can get back on track and play well like he's been doing this year.

Big win. Hawks have 2 games in hand over Phoenix who is 2 points behind, an 1 game in hand over SJ who is 1 point behind. And all the bickering about blowing Saturday's game aside we did take 3 points in 2 games against a red hot Phoenix team.

Never been more upset about a 2 goal lead.

Yeah I was just about to say Dolan (yes the fading star in the Cubs blog world as I regrettably put it) did a pretty good write up on this article.

Yeah, that's the philosphy to go through life with! And it's gotten you so far. it has gotten him far. extremely far. he not only made it to the majors, but he is getting paid tens of millions of dollars to play a sport. Did you not read the rest of my post? His attitude and personality has gotten him nowhere. His luck of being uniquely skilled in skill set that is rewarded hansomly. I suppose hard work is a positive trait that helped him get to where he is today as anyone who has had to play baseball has had to work hard to get there. But all the hard work in the world wouldn't have mattered if he didn't have god given ability to play the game. Show me one instance where his attitude and personality helped him get even $1, because that's what were talking about. Bradley said he's not changing anything about his personality, specifically his behavior towards umpires in this instance because it's gotten him this far. i just think it's funny that you imply he hasn't made it far when he is one of the slect few to make it to the majors, and one of the even more select few to get a huge contract that he could live comfortably off of for the rest of his life. milton bradley has a life most people dream of. he's a multi million for playing baseball. That's why I asked you if you read the rest of my post, because in it, I clearly state that he has made it far on his god given talent and hard work. I never said he wasn't far. What I meant by "and it's gotten you so far" is it's gotten him in a situation where teams have to take on Carlos Silva just to get rid of him. He's one of if not the most hated person in baseball, and that fact that even the casual baseball fan will admit that the umps probably have a vendetta against him says a lot about his perception around the game. One day he's not going to have the skills to play baseball anymore, and for the next 50 years of his life he's either going to have to learn how to deal with human beings or lead a sad and lonely existence.

You would Sox fan.