Outshined_One

tHom Brennaman had a HUGE gaffe during yesterday's game. Barry Alvarez: These guys are down on the field pounding each other out there! I love it!! tHom: Barry and Chris (I think it was Chris?) are enjoying this hard hitting so much that they're BANGING each other right up here in the booth!

MSNBC wunderkind Mike Celzic (aka Hatguy) also gets a vote.

Sounds like he's totally ready for the NFL. Well, yeah. I suppose so. I just don't prefer the "I'm bigger than the game itself" attitude. He IS Keyshawn's protégé.

Crazy, crazy, crazy game. I loved it!!! :D Definitely one of the greatest games ever. Wow.

Santana got a four year extension back before the 2005 season. He won't be a FA for another two years at the minimum. I could understand if he were going to be a FA next offseason or something...but his deal is incredibly cheap for his production (his extension was 4/40) and he's entering his prime years. I don't think the Yankees have the ammunition to get him, even if the deal was Hughes/Tabata/Sanchez. It'd take some unholy combination of prospects and young players that I think maybe a select few teams have to pry Santana away from the Twins.

Didn't Drew take all year to sign, almost to the next draft? This seems about par for the course. It took Weaver and Drew until the day before the next draft to sign. However, other Boras clients are already signed at this point (Hochevar, Kennedy) and he's been much more amenable to getting guys signed lately (save for the whole Hochevar debacle).

I just saw that he still hasn't signed with the Diamondbacks yet. He's still the only unsigned player from the first round as of now. I know Boras is his agent, but that hasn't stopped the Diamondbacks from signing his guys before (Stephen Drew). Does anyone know what the deal is?

Those announcers are absolutely atrocious. Gottfried sounds like he had a stroke.

Potential to be the #1 overall pick in the 2008 draft.

The offseason has hit a bit of a lull, so I figure now would be a good time to start posting random questions and hypotheticals. So, to start out, let's say you're GM of the Cubs and a few teams have inquired about Prior's availability. What would it take for those teams to make a trade for Prior? Would you accept him for a small package of decent prospects? Ship him off for a talented guy in the last year of his contract in hopes of getting a contract year performance out of him along with draft picks when he leaves? Or would you instead trade him for the highest lowball offer a team makes? I'm curious as to where everyone stands on Prior now...

Remember, these guys could have tested positive for anything from steroids to cocaine.

I'd rather see the Cubs get involved as a three-way partner and attempt to get someone like Carlos Quentin, Carlos Gonzalez, Chris Young, or some other young OF.

Hester managed to give the ball enough of a love tap to force it out. Good play on his part.

I would normally think that...but this deal bothers me in that respect. McCarthy is the kind of pitcher a lot of teams would really want. He has ML experience and success, plus he projects nicely. Maybe he won't become an ace, but he could become a very good middle of the rotation guy at the rate things are going. Plus, he's managed to stay relatively healthy. What makes him more valuable than Danks, Masset, and Rasner? Danks bothers me. He has ace upside, but ever since his promotion from High A, his production has been suspect. His GO/FO was skewed more towards flyballs this year than in previous years. He also gave up more HRs (22). Now, his Ks have improved and his BBs remained constant this season, to his advantage. I just worry about a guy who begins giving up noticeably more flyballs and HRs as he advances through the minors. He'll be going to one of the most HR-friendly ballparks in baseball, to boot. He'll need another half season in AAA to get fully adjusted, imo. I think he'll turn out okay, but I have doubts about him becoming an ace under these circumstances. Masset has good potential and should contribute right away. No problems there. Rasner doesn't appear to be anything special. Not enough Ks, too many BBs, and a mediocre GO/FO rate. I can't find much about Paisano. He's a 19 year old 6'1 165 lb OF out of Venezuela with decent patience and some pop in the Venezuelan Summer League. It's tough to project those guys, so he could make the White Sox regret trading him or he might turn out to be nothing. Who knows?

So much for trading Garland to make room for McCarthy.

That typically happens for nearly every system. Draft picks are mostly all about potential and upside at this point; they haven't had the opportunity to get themselves injured. Just look at BA's Top 10 prospects over the past few years and see how many of those guys were drafted the previous June. I'm willing to bet they'd put Colvin every other list if another team drafted him and they'd probably put Samardzija on a decent number of those lists. Better than expected, in all honesty. The Cubs did a pretty good job in later rounds and made up for those lost draft picks with guys like Samardzija, Rundle, and Huseby. We'll see how it looks five years from now, but at the moment, it's a pretty good haul.

If I owned a team, I'd basically hire a limo/personal driver service. Any time any of my players went out on the town, all they'd have to do would be to make a phone call and someone would be there to pick them up in style and drive them either around town, back to their hotel, or back home. It'd be expensive, but it'd be worthwhile.

Little bit from Column A, little bit from Column B.

Quite frankly, I have a hard time buying into the problems of having a team that has too many RH/LH bats in a given lineup. As long as the guys you have on your team are capable of hitting righties and lefties on the mound, I don't think that really matters.

Only this time, the offense pulled the defense and special teams out of the fryer.

I'd think about it, as they have some similar tools, but I have more hope for Pie than I do for Rios. Rios probably won't be a high K guy, but his IsoD numbers in the majors and minors have been mediocre to abysmal. He'll probably give you 25-30 HRs in his peak. However, his OBP is strongly tied to his AVG; he'll have to be able to maintain good BABIP and LD percentages over his career to be a productive hitter. If he goes into a slump where he can't hit his way out of a paper bag, he won't have patience to pick up the slack. I don't know if Rios has the speed and instincts to play CF. If he doesn't, then I'd shy away from dealing Pie for him.

The secondary needs to be addressed in the offseason. Vasher, Johnson, and Brown are all out and Peanut is clearly dinged up while the DL is short-handed, but everyone on the field right now has plenty of issues.

&^&*#^*$!

We're making this game way closer than it has any right it has to be.

Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap.