UMFan83

Thank you for not saying Super Bowl XLI and making me relive the pain. Actually maybe I'd have rather you said that game cause at least then the game would have been closer.

And that same site lists the Bears o-line as 26th/32. There are problems all over the field. I have the opinion that a good offensive line can make receivers better than good receivers can make an offensive line.

Sweet, DePaul lost at home to American tonight, who is rated 335th out of 347 in D1 RPI. This might be the worst loss in DePaul history.

He's not going to take Mike Fontenot and turn him into Chase Utley or anything, but I think he will help with the hitter's consistency, quickly finding flaws in their swings and adjusting it before it turns into a prolonged slump. Will be interesting to see what he can do with Soriano and Fukudome, 2 hitters that have been known to fall badly away from their swing mechanics from time to time.

That was the first thing that popped into my head after hearing about this. Between their coordinator's wife and this, there is a lot of outside forces working with the Bengals this year.

I did notice that... I bet you the PP scoreboard was malfunctioning or something. They do that in the NBA when the shot clock is down.

Nice productive 1st period. I thought the Blues started out strong, and then about 8 minutes in the Hawks just took over and were able to get on the board a couple times. And hey look our offensive minded defenseman finally scored a goal

They are saying he fell out of the back of the truck during a domestic dispute?? Edit:

OMG. I'll pray for Chris Henry. Hope he makes it.

"My school is a better party school than yours" is one of the dumbest arguments around. Every Big Ten school save Northwestern has a great party scene. Whether it be bars, house parties, frats or a combo, you go to any of those 10 schools and you're gonna find yourself a great time.

That's what they said? They did mention it was won in penalties.

Yeah I honestly don't know if the Big Ten would even consider Chicago for a title game location. Not only because of the weather factor, but also because the capacity of Soldier Field is so small (smallest venue in the NFL IIRC). As much as I'd absolutely love it here, I don't know if they'd do it.

I can't think of one. And I agree. A lot of people said that about Penn State but that turned out well. Trouble is they shouldn't add a school like Missouri. Penn State football was a huge addition. Syracuse basketball and Notre Dame football are the only additions that will mean anything to the conference. Exactly. If Notre Dame were willing to come I would be all for it. Adding Rutgers or Mizzou doesn't really do much besides get you a football championship game. Yeah there's the NY/NJ market (and to a lesser extent KC/STL) but do they really care that much? Let's just drop Northwestern and have a round robin schedule in football and basketball. Adding Rutgers for the NYC market is like the Big East adding DePaul for the Chicago market. If hardly anyone cares, do you really gain anything?

I disagree for one reason: He won't end up a value because Hendry always overpays for his man.

Looking at Byrd's stats he doesn't look that bad. .800+ OPS for the last three years at CF? I would take that. Sure he wouldn't be a huge upgrade over Bradley, but considering defense and the fact that Fukudome would move back to RF, I wouldn't be against signing him for a reasonable contract. What makes you think he's gonna have an .800+ OPS outside of Arlington? And crossing into his mid-30's?

You enjoyed "the ride"? If the Bulls' decade was a cross-country car ride, it would have started with you driving your 1993 Ford Taurus 70 mph into a concrete barrier just outside Philadelphia. After getting a rental car, you would have sputtered along at 24 mph across I-70 until you again crashed, this time slowly into an oak tree off the side of a residential street in Columbus, Ohio. After getting another rental car, you then would drive without incident (except for that pretty decent cheeseburger you ate in Tulsa) until you reached Albuquerque, when you would hit a family of deer, killing a baby doe and leaving yourself stranded on the side of the road for 19 hours until you were forced to hitch-hike to Los Angeles with a sketchy, probably felonious trucker. After he drops you off near Skid Row, you go to bed, finally at your destination, only to wake up in the middle of the night feeling sick. You are rushed to the hospital, diagnosed with H1N1 and spend two days on a ventilator before breathing again on your own. Your ride is now complete. What a trip! That was a pretty entertaining read, but I still don't agree with you. It's perfectly logical to base your memories of something on the end result, I just don't look at it that way. A few of my favorite sports memories of the decade include the Cubs trading for Nomar (ended up not making playoffs, Nomar was mediocre at best), Barrett hitting a grand slam to beat the Cardinals on SNB (Cubs lost 97 games that year, Cardinals won WS), and the Bulls winning a 3OT Game 6 against the Celtics (Bulls lost Game 7). Just because what happened after the event sucked doesn't mean the feeling at the moment wasn't memorable. Of course the whole argument is based on a disagreement of the term "decade to forget". If your saying the decade sucked because we got nowhere as a franchise, I'd agree wholeheartedly. And would I give up those memories to redo the decade over and be a title contender all the time? Of course. But it doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the decade as it was happening at the times that were good and had promise.

Yeah, this was ridiculous. My dad wasn't able to watch and I must have texted him 5 or 6 different times that the game was over one way or the other. That game was probably more exciting than any Jordan era Bulls game I can remember, and I lived and died with those teams. If Syracuse/UConn, as a Big East tourney game can be on there, why not that game?

I'm not given the source.

How is a regular season Texas/Texas Tech game on the top 25 list. Granted it was a great game, I remember watching it. But it wasn't any sort of playoff game, neither of the teams won the championship that year (although the loss kept Texas out of the title game). I think there were bigger games that could have gone on the list.

I'm sad my favorite baseball game of the decade isn't on here. That was Rockies/Padres one game playoff. I know it's not even the first round of the playoffs, but it was a terrific drama filled game and the winner ended up going to the World Series.

Based on last year's numbers, Byrd has a reverse split. .300/.344/.491/.835 vs. RHP .244/.293/.451/.744 vs. LHP Don't know if he's the best platoon partner for anyone but another righty. But to be fair, in his "career year" in 2008 his splits were even and for his career they are even. The scary number is the H/R splits. Now remember, the road number isn't his true value because hitters in general tend to hit better at home than road where they are more comfortable. But when you're evaluating a player who is playing in a bandbox, you don't like to see these: Home: .282/.336/.538/.873 Road: .285/.322/.419/.740 Ouch, 133 point difference in OPS between home vs. road. And this one isn't a 1 year thing. In '08 when he had a better statistical season, the difference in OPS was .911 vs. 772 (139 points). And like in 09 the biggest reason from the drop in OPS is SLG, which is of course where you'd expect to improve playing at Arlington. The switch to the NL would help him, and historically he's been more of a doubles hitter than a home run hitter, which could help lessen the blow. Overall I probably wouldn't be thrilled at all with Byrd, and I have no idea how he is defensively, but he technically only has to replace Bradley's .775 OPS (although theres no way he'll reach Bradley's .378 OBP). Assuming Fukudome can hit like he has his first 2 years (mediocre) and an improvement from Soriano, you would expect the OF to perform better on the whole than the 09 outfield, but will it be enough of an improvement to matter?

Yeah, well....but what about the time before that? That's what I was thinking haha.

You have to wonder how many of those things that went "wrong" for the Cubs last year are likely to reverse themselves next year. Soriano has to be somewhat better than he played last year, but what can we really expect out of him at age "34"? Soto is an interesting case. He was basically not very much of a prospect until 07, he played awesome, started out 08 very well, kinda dropped down a bit later in the year but was still above average, and then the bottom dropped out in 09. Which Soto is real? Do we just assume that the 07-early 08 Soto is the legit Soto, or is the Soto that had a .795 OPS the last 100 games of 08 and fell apart even worse in 2009 the real one? After that who else do you really have that you'd expect to have a much better season? A full season of Aramis will certainly help if that's the case, but who else had a bad year that you'd expect to be better in 10? On the other hand, can you count on Lee to have another .972 OPS at age 34 when he's only done it twice in his career? Maybe, but how likely is it? Can you count on Wells to give you a low 3 ERA next year? Is Lilly going to have another year with a 3.10 ERA when his previous career high was 3.83? Who is even going to replace him for an entire month when he's out in April? Will Gorzelanny have numbers that even remotely resemble Harden's last year? I am not necessarily as negative about next year as my point makes me out to be. I am presenting a counter argument to people who think just hitting the reset button is going to make the Cubs back into a 90+ win team. The Lou Piniella era for the Cubs is going on it's 4th year. There have been several changes each year so comparing the teams isn't an exact science. But with this "core" around, we were an 85 win team, a 98 win team, and an 83 win team. Which one is the outlier? Can we expect another 90+ wins from a team that's 2 years older than the 08 team? The key pieces of that team are mostly all there. Only time will tell...

Yeah definitely a horrific offseason as it pertains to the short term so far.

You mean we haven't seen what Halladay can do outside the best offensive division in baseball yet? Hope he can adjust to the NL East (and remember he's pitching for the Phillies). yeah that post didn't really make sense to me either You guys have it backwards. I was saying Lee and Halladay would give you similar numbers, but I haven't seen how good Halladay will be outside the AL East. Meaning if he put ups those numbers in the AL East, I can only imagine what he'd do in the NL East. Sorry for making it confusing, it made sense to me when I wrote it.