Jump to content
North Side Baseball

dew1679666265

Old-Timey Member
  • Posts

    20,547
  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Profiles

Joomla Posts 1

Chicago Cubs Videos

Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits

2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking

News

2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

Guides & Resources

2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks

The Chicago Cubs Players Project

2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker

Blogs

Events

Forums

Store

Gallery

Everything posted by dew1679666265

  1. With TCU 3rd (although one computer ranking is still not out). But of course Boise and TCU should slowly fade in the computer rankings as the season goes along. It's going to be an interesting season. Just keep pulling for Nevada to win out – and impressively – until they play Boise. Knocking off a top 15 team late in the year should really help Boise out.
  2. I saw the near pick-6 on the highlights. That was pretty cool. Didn't another Bruin, Dave Ball, tip it? I'm not surprised ATV is doing relatively well as a rookie - he's pretty technically sound which helps to make up for whatever he lacks physically. Also cool to see Marcades Lewis with a monster game for Jacksonville. Dave Ball did tip that, I believe. Didn't realize he was a former Bruin. That was a great read by ATV too. He saw that throw coming the whole way and made a great play on the ball.
  3. For most of Vince's career, I've thought his ceiling was Steve McNair and I really hoped he'd reach that. I'm wondering if he is, however. His problem has never been anything physical, it's always been reading defenses and making good decisions. He's improved his decision making quite a bit this year (not making flat out dumb decisions on where to throw the ball and not forcing it as much), but he still struggles with reading defenses and finding the best option against a certain coverage – best shown by his performance against Pittsburgh. I'm kind of concerned that if he isn't reading defenses well by now, he never will. As for his running, I'm not sure if he isn't running as much by choice or if the Titan coaches are trying to make him a pocket passer. I've heard it both ways and I'm really not sure who is keeping Vince in the pocket. He needs to use his legs more, though, because that will always be the best part of his game. As for the Titans winning, most of it has to do with the rest of the team. Kerry Collins was the QB two years ago when we had the best record in the AFC and without an injury to CJ, probably would have been in the Super Bowl. Last year, we started 0-6 with Kerry, but then went 8-2 with Vince. The key difference there, though, is that the defense played much, much better after the Patriot shellacking primarily because Nick Harper went out around then and Vincent Fuller returned around that time – he's a very undervalued player. This year, we lost the Steeler game in large part because Vince couldn't make a good decision against their defense (and nobody could hold onto the football), but we beat the Cowboys largely because Vince played pretty well. In short, I don't know that we're any better or worse than 3-2 with Kerry at QB at this point, though we probably don't win Sunday with him and we still lose the Pitt game.
  4. He never has before and I'd assume it'd be a weird transition for a guy who only has played second.
  5. Good point. The Cubs need to spend money on much worse players at positions where they can relatively minimal improvement instead. Yeah what was I thinking. It's not like they have a 2B who's certainly capable of being a 95-105 OPS+ guy already at around the league minimum and at worst can be part of a fairly productive platoon partner with Baker. Screw it, Instead of acquiring uggla let's just move Soriano back to second. Uggla's worst season was a 108 OPS+ back in 2007. I'm not sure I'd trade for him at 30 years old and at that price, but he's a much better option than DeWitt.
  6. That was the best I've seen the Titans' WR play as a unit all year. I actually was expecting us to give the game away as well. After the early 17-3 lead, Dallas scored twice to tie it and I fully expected the Titans to quit scoring and the Cowboys to pull out the win. Seeing us add three more scores after that makes me feel good – and makes me hope Fisher will continue to put a little more responsibility each week on Vince. Miles Austin is really, really good by the way. That long TD catch was really impressive. And for Raisin: Verner has started two games now and is looking pretty good. He's gotten beaten a few times and has looked like a rookie, but he made a really nice near pick-six against Dallas and is more than holding his own. He may be the full time starter to open the year next season, if not before.
  7. I wouldn't complain about Boise, Oregon, OSU 1-2-3. Boise has the best resume so far, but I don't really have a problem with OSU first.
  8. Solid win for the Titans. The defense looked like crap for the first time all season, but the offense was very good. And a week after I ranted about the coaching staff needing to open up the offense, the coaching staff opened up the offense. Vince's completion percentage hovered around 50% all day – which isn't good – but he didn't throw any picks and generally made good decisions. Still couldn't get a consistent running game going, but if we keep the offense opened up a bit that'll force defenses to loosen up. Then we can go back to relying almost entirely on CJ.
  9. Tennessee looked horrid Saturday. After not turning the ball over once in the previous two games, we made up for it Saturday. I figured if Georgia played like they were capable of playing we'd lose badly and that was the case. I was hoping the UGA that lost four straight would show, though. Justin Hunter is going to be a really good wide receiver.
  10. Your focus is entirely on firing Hendry as if that singular move would make this team significantly better. Firing Hendry in and of itself is not that important a move for this franchise. The key is to make an upgrade at the GM spot and other moves that Ricketts makes before firing Hendry give us a better idea whether or not he'd make a good hire. I'm not opposed to making a move at all, but I'm also not sure enough about Ricketts' philosophy to determine whether or not he'd make a good replacement hire. That's why my sole focus is not on firing Hendry and more on figuring out how Ricketts plans on making this club better.
  11. I'd be really interested in that as well, but as Mojo said, it's not likely to happen. There aren't a bunch of Theo Epsteins out there and the ones who were compared to him (Dayton Moore especially) haven't turned out to be nearly as good. Though Ricketts saying he wanted to model us after the Red Sox gives me some hope.
  12. One of the great things about having Extra Innings is that I've gotten to listen to a lot of color analysts out there. In doing so, I've found there simply aren't many close to as listenable as Brenly. There are a lot of terrible color analysts currently broadcasting games and, considering it's mostly those guys who would replace Brenly, he and Stone look a lot better to me. Brenly - nor Stone - is my ideal color analyst, but I just don't know many that are better and I've listened, in varying degrees, to all of them.
  13. Overhauling the front office is a big deal and I've already said he should have fired Hendry. However, I don't think we automatically become 100x better without Hendry nor do I think that's a cure-all. It would be a major move in and of itself, but the more important move would be who Ricketts replaced him with. He's made some minor moves that I perceive to be upgrades and they make me feel a little better about the type of GM he'd choose to replace Hendry. However, firing Hendry is not a move that will automatically fix all ills in this franchise.
  14. As much as he focuses on the Zambrano is too angry, Ramirez is too lazy, small ball is where it's at and nonsensical mental toughness aspect of analyzing baseball, he brings very little to the table. He's really only good for talking about pitching approaches, but even then it all seemed to boil down to "a slider low and away here and he's got him." Brenly is pretty big on the Z is too angry and Ramirez is too lazy as well. He also rails on Soriano too much. And maybe I've just heard good Stone games recently or something because I haven't heard that much small ball love recently from him. It could be there and it would bug me, but you'll get that with almost any analyst. They all love to see sac bunts and moving runners, etc.
  15. That's a pretty poor excuse. It's over. He was the final bidder since early 2009 and the deal was finalized in October. Year one is over. They didn't do anything. I guess it was a poor excuse because it wasn't an excuse. Outside of firing Hendry there was very little they could do up until this point that would have made good sense. I disagree with not firing Hendry, but am also interested to see how the offseason plays out.
  16. If that kid can throw the football even decently, he's going to be really good. He may be anyway.
  17. It may be childhood nostalgia, but I still like Stone in the booth. He's the only redeeming part of listening to Sox broadcasts for me and I'd be fine with him joining Len in the booth. Again, though, it may just be childhood nostalgia because I grew up on Harry/Steve. I've come to loathe Stone and his bitter style. I was happy to see him return the 2nd time, but didn't enjoy it as much as I liked him as a kid. And now I just don't want to hear him speak. I don't have any interest in hearing the moves he'd make as a GM, but that's generally contained to his radio show, I believe. As an in-booth analyst, he still seems pretty good and better than most of the options I've heard. I'd still prefer Brenly, but really wouldn't have a problem with Stone.
  18. Like others have said, there was simply very little the Ricketts realistically could do starting on day one. Most of the contracts on the team were unmovable - or didn't make sense to move - and firing Lou at the start of the season would have been pretty pointless. They could have fired Hendry - and I think they probably should still - but otherwise, there was very little overhauling they could do. I like what I've heard about some of Ricketts' philosophies and the hiring of the stat-guy seemed at least a good step in the right direction. Keep in mind, though, that year one isn't over yet. We still have the offseason to go and it'll be interesting to see how much independence Hendry has to make moves, how much money is made available and what other changes may be made (or not made) in the front office/management. I don't think you completely evaluate year one until after the offseason (January-March of next year).
  19. That makes me feel better, but it could just be Melvin posturing. I hope it's accurate, though, because I really like Brenly.
  20. It may be childhood nostalgia, but I still like Stone in the booth. He's the only redeeming part of listening to Sox broadcasts for me and I'd be fine with him joining Len in the booth. Again, though, it may just be childhood nostalgia because I grew up on Harry/Steve.
  21. I'm a big fan of Uggla, if he were available at a reasonable price. Otherwise, I'd prefer sticking it out with DeWitt and seeing how he develops.
  22. Wow, didn't realize the Jays were that good. Yeah, this seems overall a pretty good model, but the author took too many liberties with it I think.
  23. I'll agree they were the least efficient. Whether or not that money was wasted is determined by the benefit they received in spending the money. Even weirder was that they didn't count the Blue Jays in the "most efficient" category, because they didn't get at least 87 wins (which is a threshold only 11 teams reached this year), because the author wanted to set an efficiency threshold of "5 games over .500". That's weird. You can be efficient and bad, I would think.
  24. That would be an accurate statement, I think.
×
×
  • Create New...