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They dumped DeRosa for youngsters that almost certainly won't help this year (Stevens might). I don't think Soriano will be traded (unless BroLight has some insider information), but Hendry has already proven this offseason that he'll dump some of our offense for future minor league help.

He slugged .413, .518 and .444 three of the past four seasons. The one year when he wasn't over a .400 slugging (2007) looks like a complete crap year all around. He also OPS'd .903 with a .526 SLG last year against lefties, 1.086 OPS and .680 SLG in 06 and .766 OPS and .416 SLG in 05. His 07 OPS (.676) and SLG (.411) were not good, though. Though the 2007 season worries me, if he were to come in pretty cheap I think he might slug decently for us as a righty off the bench.

The Titans won't be a great matchup either, though. A worse Titans team last year (with Vince at QB and no Chris Johnson) went to SD and led the entire 1st half and was down just 10-6 until a late Charger TD sealed the 11-point win. This year's Titans are much better and the game would be in Nashville. The Chargers scare me, but I think the Titans can win it. The Titans have been overlooked by most, methinks. They "slumped" at the end of the season by losing three of six, but won the only game they had to by 17 points over a 12-4 team. To me, that's far more indicative of the team they are and the team they'll be in the playoffs. Of course, if the Colts had won last night I would be rooting for the Dolphins today (more because the Colts won at Pittsburgh and not Tennessee and duplicating road wins is extremely difficult -- see last night). The Titans have certainly been overlooked much of the year, but when you play the style we do, you expect it. I'm guilty of it too. I thought, and probably still believe, that if the Colts could get by San Diego (and subsequently Pittsburgh, depending on today's outcome) they'd win at Tennessee. As I've said before, the Colts terrify me. I'm worried about most any team that is effective with the deep ball because that's where our defense seems most susceptible. There's no team better at the deep ball than the Colts and Peyton Manning. It would've been an awesome game and perfect case scenario for me. I'd obviously be rooting extremely hard for the Titans, but even if they lost, I could pull for Peyton in the Super Bowl.

Ok, not sure where I heard that about Monte. I tend to prefer coordinators and the head coach not really handling a specific position anyway, so I like the news. I'd be perfectly happy with any of those scenarios. I've heard Gran is a great special teams guy, so I'm hoping we bring him in. Got no problems with any of those guys, though.

The Titans won't be a great matchup either, though. A worse Titans team last year (with Vince at QB and no Chris Johnson) went to SD and led the entire 1st half and was down just 10-6 until a late Charger TD sealed the 11-point win. This year's Titans are much better and the game would be in Nashville. The Chargers scare me, but I think the Titans can win it. The Titans have been overlooked by most, methinks. They "slumped" at the end of the season by losing three of six, but won the only game they had to by 17 points over a 12-4 team. To me, that's far more indicative of the team they are and the team they'll be in the playoffs. Of course, if the Colts had won last night I would be rooting for the Dolphins today (more because the Colts won at Pittsburgh and not Tennessee and duplicating road wins is extremely difficult -- see last night). I hope and pray you're right. The end of the season worried me a bit, but we played with no intensity whatsoever against the Colts and, the week before, we played great against a terrific (and I think ultimately better) Pittsburgh team. The Titans have certainly been overlooked much of the year, but when you play the style we do, you expect it.

This is from Roy Adams. TIFWIW. Well, that answers my previous question. I like the sound of Billy Gonzalez to UT, but I hate the idea of Trooper going to Florida. IF all this happens, the staff is going to look like this, I'm guessing: Chaney (OC/OL) Reaves (QB's) Drayton (RB's) Gonzalez (WR's/Passing Game Coordinator) Garner (TE's/Running Game Coordinator) Kiffin (DC) Orgeron (DL/Asst Head Coach/Recruiting Coordinator) Cregg (LB's) ? (DB's) I thought I heard Monte was going to coach DBs? And is Drayton confirmed to return, or are you speculating on him? I'd say unless we get Gran then Drayton should return, since Trooper's not coming back.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/ If only the Cardinals had tried a little harder . . . They would have STOLE Miles from US!! I think I'd have eventually gotten over that one. :wink:

The Titans won't be a great matchup either, though. A worse Titans team last year (with Vince at QB and no Chris Johnson) went to SD and led the entire 1st half and was down just 10-6 until a late Charger TD sealed the 11-point win. This year's Titans are much better and the game would be in Nashville. The Chargers scare me, but I think the Titans can win it.

This is from Roy Adams. TIFWIW. Well, that answers my previous question. I like the sound of Billy Gonzalez to UT, but I hate the idea of Trooper going to Florida.

Does that mean no Trooper, or is that still up in the air?

Would you prefer that I pull a Vance and post in only emoticons for a while? :wink: I'm actually probably going to tone it down a bit. Since the Titans clinched the #1 seed a few weeks ago and the Vols didn't have a bowl game, I've had to expend my energy into Hendry's recent bad moves. Now, though, I'll be able to fret and worry about Saturday's playoff game for the Titans - which will distract me from the Transactions thread for a while. :D Before you go I'm hoping you could clarify how many games you think Bradley will miss. Haven't seen you comment on that much. ;) Nah, I'm going to keep that opinion under wraps for now. :ninja:

I've looked back at DeRo's stats. As I said in another thread, however, is that DeRosa's initial career year came in perfect correlation with a timing tweak (a step) in his swing implemented by Jaramillo at Texas. DeRo made the change, had a career year and said it was primarily due to the tweak. Miles, on the other hand, has made no major adjustment that I know of. His career year (which still produced an OPS+ under 100) was more likely a fluke than DeRo's. Also, in Miles' career year, he still couldn't even manage a .400 slugging. DeRosa, however, slugged .456 that year.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/ If only the Cardinals had tried a little harder . . .

Would you prefer that I pull a Vance and post in only emoticons for a while? :wink: I'm actually probably going to tone it down a bit. Since the Titans clinched the #1 seed a few weeks ago and the Vols didn't have a bowl game, I've had to expend my energy into Hendry's recent bad moves. Now, though, I'll be able to fret and worry about Saturday's playoff game for the Titans - which will distract me from the Transactions thread for a while. :D

I haven't decided who I want to see the Titans play yet. The Ravens are probably the better matchup because we play mostly the same style, but the Titans are slightly better. The Chargers, however, are a bit more explosive and could really hurt us over the top. I'm going to be panicked next week no matter, so I guess I'll just try to sit back tomorrow and see what happens between the Ravens and Dolphins.

The Colts seem like a gimme today, don't they? Superior team facing an average at best team, who might be missing one of their elite players, and the Norv factor. The Chargers won last year in Indianapolis with Philip Rivers, LaDanian Tomlinson and Norv Turner all on the sidelines. Of course, they did have Michael Turner at that time. I'd rather have LT than either Turner or Sproles. The Colts have contained LT pretty well in the games they have played him. When he went out last year in the playoff game, I knew it had the potential to be a big problem, and it certainly was as Turner and Sproles really hurt the Colts defense. That screen play to Sproles especially is something I'm very concerned about for tonight's game. Oh, no doubt. Sproles has been death to the Colts. Turner also, to a lesser extent. LT has never hurt the Colts the way he hurts others. I was sad to see LT leave the game last year, and hope he plays more than Sproles this year. I certainly didn't expect Rivers to leave the game and Volek to lead a game-winning drive though. The spirit of the Titans remains in Volek! :wink: Volek to Drew Bennett!! TD TITANS! Those memories would be a lot better if the Titans had won more in the Volek era. :D

They were starting the stories back up on ESPN this morning about Dungy "considering retirement" again. I would like to see Dungy stick out Peyton's career. The two of them retire together and then Peyton can come coach at UT. :D

Kinda like last year when it nearly came down to the wire? I still remember some commentator saying Norv Turner was a better coach than Jeff Fisher. That was humorous.

I'd absolutely love getting Trooper back. Garner would be pretty nice as well, but if I had to choose between the two - it'd be Trooper. Thanks for the news, this is very good stuff.

ku is obviously better coached, though ut is far more athletic. You serious? Because I'm not seeing in this game where that's being shown at all. Tennessee's had terrible hot/cold streaks throughout the game. If they were a bit more consistent hitting their shots then this would be a much closer game.

But he's Gritty? He might be grittier than Theriot. Especially since he's not as good as Theriot. We easily have the grittiest team in the majors this year, our grit fact at SS/2B with Theriot/Fontenot/Miles is unprecedented. So we got that going for us... They ought to just give us the trophy now.

The Colts seem like a gimme today, don't they? Superior team facing an average at best team, who might be missing one of their elite players, and the Norv factor. The Chargers won last year in Indianapolis with Philip Rivers, LaDanian Tomlinson and Norv Turner all on the sidelines. Of course, they did have Michael Turner at that time. I'd rather have LT than either Turner or Sproles. The Colts have contained LT pretty well in the games they have played him. When he went out last year in the playoff game, I knew it had the potential to be a big problem, and it certainly was as Turner and Sproles really hurt the Colts defense. That screen play to Sproles especially is something I'm very concerned about for tonight's game. Oh, no doubt. Sproles has been death to the Colts. Turner also, to a lesser extent. LT has never hurt the Colts the way he hurts others. I was sad to see LT leave the game last year, and hope he plays more than Sproles this year. I certainly didn't expect Rivers to leave the game and Volek to lead a game-winning drive though. The spirit of the Titans remains in Volek! :wink:

But he's Gritty? He might be grittier than Theriot. Especially since he's not as good as Theriot.

Yeah but you followed the Cubs all of last year so you know DeRosa made a change to his swing. How do you know Miles didn't change anything? I bet Indians fans are wondering if DeRosa's season was a fluke last year too because they didn't hear anything about a step being added to his swing. I actually heard a little bit about it when DeRosa was a Ranger and then looked more into it when the Cubs signed him. I knew about DeRosa's stance change before he was a Cub, though. Yes. He worked with Jaramillo in Texas in 06 and changed the stance. So since his change he has had 3 good years, thus making his improvement in #s less 'flukey'. Flukey isnt a word but who cares. It's not even the three good years I'm looking at, because Miles hasn't had two more years after his initial career year. What I'm focusing on is that DeRosa made a pretty major change to his stance (Jaramillo's timing mechanism) and immediately had a career year. Miles had a career year completely out of the blue (unless you count the Cardinal pixie dust). The latter seems less likely to be repeatable than the former. None of that even matters. AARON MILES DOES NOT HAVE THE PHYSICAL TOOLS TO BE ANY GOOD AT ALL WHATSOEVER. That's what matters. The guy is shorter than David Eckstein, and he can't even get hit by a pitch or be obnoxious like Eckstein. A new swing isn't going to jack crap for him because he's a midget with no muscle tone. He's a switch-hitting, less good, more expensive version of Ryan Theriot.

And Tim has said he doesn't like what they got for DeRosa. I was for selling high on DeRo as well. Hendry didn't sell high though.