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It may be about time to make Truffle's pick for him. What are the biggest needs for the Eagles? I'd say OT or wide receiver. King Dunlap from Auburn and Oniel Cousins from UTEP are likely the best tackles here and Andre Caldwell and Earl Bennett are probably the top rated receivers left, though I've heard very good things about KState's Jordy Nelson. I like Dunlap myself.

Ok, i will give you that.....but the Cubs have held on to both thinking they were the next great thing in CF and neither are amounting to it. If we continue to give Pie "time" he will be the 5-6 year player CP was and still be doing the same thing he was when first brought up. Swinging too big for himself. There is no possible way it can be argued that Pie has had enough time to prove himself one way or another. He's 23 years old and hasn't been in the majors a full season yet. Plus, Patterson's bad habits were only encouraged by Dusty, whereas Pie has Lou and Gerald Perry around - two men who are much better at developing positive habits in youngsters. I'm not completely sold on Pie, but there's also no way I'd consider him a bust yet either.

That is insane to try to compare. Lee was a proven player. I'm sorry, but Felix Pie at the Major League level is nowhere near proven. He, honestly is bad. He had a big hit against the Pirates on a bloop single, but outside of that anytime he comes up with RISP he strikes out. In all honesty I don't think Pie is that great of a prospect. The only reason any of us think he is is because we have such a lack of prospects that are any good that he is our best. Around baseball though, I don't think Pie is that HIGHLY thought of. I feel like people think he can be a good player, but not an all star. If he didn't lose his rookie eligibility, he would have made Baseball America's top 100 for 6 years in a row, so he is fairly highly thought of throughout baseball and has been for quite some time. Does that mean he is guaranteed to do anything? Of course not, however its pretty foolish to feel that he is overrated as a prospect when your only evidence is a handful of major league at bats at such a young age. He could very well be a bust, but its way too soon to give up on him. And good players are valuable, especially when they come from your farm and you have them under control for 6 years at low salaries. I agree with not giving up on him. He is still only 23. I just feel like he isn't ready for the MLB. There is nothing wrong with that. He needs another year in the minors to work on hitting breaking balls. In a year where the cubs can possibly win the world series, I don't want a 23 year old there putting up a .230/.300/.600 line. The main problem with leaving him in the minors is that he won't see major league worthy breaking balls much in AAA. He'll get some serious major leaguers down there, but most of the pitchers he'll face don't have near the ability that he'll need to learn to hit major league pitching. I'm fine with him in the majors getting personal instruction from Lou and Gerald and seeing some pitching through pinch hitting duties. Would I like him to start against righties? Sure, but Lou's earned the benefit of the doubt to this point.

That is insane to try to compare. Lee was a proven player. I'm sorry, but Felix Pie at the Major League level is nowhere near proven. He, honestly is bad. He had a big hit against the Pirates on a bloop single, but outside of that anytime he comes up with RISP he strikes out. In all honesty I don't think Pie is that great of a prospect. The only reason any of us think he is is because we have such a lack of prospects that are any good that he is our best. Around baseball though, I don't think Pie is that HIGHLY thought of. I feel like people think he can be a good player, but not an all star. Depending on how you classify Soto, Pie is our top position prospect. Now, in all of baseball, he's probably just a good prospect. Most of what I've heard projecting him is a borderline all-star. He'll be good to very good, but probably not great. That said, he's still a very solid prospect and producing a borderline all-star is nothing to sneeze at. Up until last year there was little to no reason to put much stock in Soto developing into anything but a good defensive, little to no bat catcher. I, for one, am glad I was wrong and we stuck with him. I'm fairly confident Pie will learn to hit. The primary question is what is the best way to achieve that point.

That was in 64 at-bats, you can't possibly tell anything from that. Just a year older, he hit .352/.378/.538 in 91 at-bats. Did he magically improve that much in one season, or was sample-size at play? We'll never know that for sure, will we? The very high likelihood is, though, that a very good sample size of at-bats will give us worse numbers than his career averages since he was 23 and fresh in the majors. Personally, I think Pie would do better than Rosey's line at 23. How much so is highly debatable, though. And if fixing the swing will aid him in putting up better numbers, than why not try it? Lou and Perry have shown at least a decent ability to instill positive traits in hitters (hence the offense's ability to walk this year, thus far). If Lou honestly thinks shortening Pie's swing will help him improve, I'm comfortable with seeing what happens. Were it Dusty, I'd be much more apprehensive about trusting him. The real-life numbers don't bear that out, though. We can all cherry-pick individual players that did or did not translate AAA success into the majors, but the average player jumping from AAA to the majors has a very clear trend in how much of their production they lose. And it isn't as much as some seem to think. There's a huge difference between the top half of the majors leaguers and AAA, but I see very little difference between the bottom half of the bigs and the top half off AAA. The very bottom of the majors and the absolute best of AAA are similar, yes. But, most major league starters are not the bottom of the barrel in the majors. I'm not comfortable saying we've faced anywhere near the worst starting pitcher in the majors yet (save, perhaps, for Matt Morris - though that's doubtful). I also wonder how well Pie did against the best of the best in AAA. Were his numbers against them in line with his overall numbers? Or did he utter demolish the truly terrible AAA pitchers and struggle some with the Homer Bailey's of the world?

I think whether the AB's will help or not depends on Lou's read of the entirety of what is wrong with Felix right now, where he stands in his progression, whether Lou thinks Pie would actually regress into previous habits with regular AB's, his read of Felix's psychology on how the struggling would affect him with more or less AB's, etc. Exactly. When you're starting full time, the player tends to put more pressure on himself to produce (to keep starting) even if the manager isn't applying pressure. Also, sending Pie in on pinch hitting duties allows Lou to control the situations Pie hits in. Lou then has the ability to put Pie in particular situations he wants Felix to work on and can perhaps find some situations where it's not crucial he perform (pinch hit him to leadoff an inning instead of in the middle of a rally with runners on second and third).

Given how many LHP we've faced, I think it makes sense to run Pie out there against the RHP. I hate the idea of giving Pie a handful of PH at-bats every week, like that's going to help him get better or stop pressing. To improve, I think he needs to see regular ABs, at least against RHP. I don't think we would have a worse record if Pie had started against the RHP we've faced so far. And I think it will make the team better for the rest of the season to help Pie improve quicker than to get more ABs from Reed Johnson. The only start he's had in the past week was against Aaron Harang. Really, Lou, what's best for this team and his development is sitting against Snell, Fogg, Volquez, hell, even Jamie Moyer and Gorzelanny, but facing Aaron Harang? To me, what Lou is doing with Pie is the slowest possible way of developing a young player. So long as Pie has the assurance of Lou that he is the unquestioned future in CF, this type of development gives him the ability to see major league pitching without the pressure of holding down a starting job. Now, the problem really occurs if Lou told him his performance in the highly scattered pinch hitting duties was what would determine his future. I don't have a problem with this so long as Lou isn't putting pressure on Pie to produce every at-bat.

Brown Career majors: .251 .311 .407 Career minors: .300 .354 .501 Zuleta Career majors: .247 .309 .466 Career minors: .294 .348 .484 Hubbard Career majors: .257 .333 .382 Career minors: .320 .400 .471 If we apply the same average drop to Pie (career minors .300 .355 .469), he ends up somewhere in the 260/310/400 range. Which would make him the equivalent of... Reed Johnson vs. righties. At 23, Rosey put up these numbers: .219/.239/.391 in the majors. Zuleta debuted at 25, two years older than Pie. Hubbard debuted at 28 - though he did put up a .280/.357/.520 line at 5 years older than Felix. Mechanics are most definitely part of determing a major league baseball player's potential for success. And the jump from AAA to the majors is one of the biggest an athlete will ever make. Most AAAA players are just that because they can't make the needed adjustments from what was successful in AAA that won't work in the majors (i.e. an extremely long swing for hitters or a shallow pitch repertoire for a pitcher). I like Pie a lot, but I have no problem with Lou and Gerald Perry (both of whom have shown to have some idea of how to be good offensively) working with him to shorten his swing.

Cap is dead. He's out of the running. I heard rumors of the sort. I was hoping they were a terrible, terrible lie.

Good pick. The Titans have been rumored to be interested in him for one of their first two picks and I'd like him - but I may lose it if we take a running back with a top two pick for the third straight year.

And they still have one more second rounder. I agree that the actual draft could turn out this way for the Falcons (though I doubt Cason drops to the second round).

Good pick by the Falcons. I'm actually intrigued by DJ Shockley, though. It may just be my SEC bias, but I would give him the shot this season over Harrington or Redman - both of whom have proven they suck.

Don't want to pressure you into anything. If you want to keep going, that's fine with me but if you need to back out, I can handle things. Just looking out for you man. :D And the Jets may want to run a little of Arkansas' Mustang package now that DMac is in the fold...considering the QB situation is what it is. :wink:

No problem bhogg. If you still want (or need) to back out, I can handle the Jets. I'm not a fan, but I'm fairly familiar with them and their needs. Interesting pick, by the way.

Went with the Hulk, even though I leaned strongly toward Captain America for a while. Both are extremely familiar characters even to non-comic readers, but the Hulk tends to get referenced more often.

The Chiefs are discussing trading defensive end Jared Allen away. His contract is up after the year and they're unlikely to re-sign him. Current leaders to acquire him are the Vikings and Bucs.

Bump. Didn't want this to stay off the front page in case bhogg doesn't check his PMs. Wonder how the Chiefs' desire to trade Jared Allen will affect their draft picks? Likely not much for our purposes.

A bit of sad, yet unsurprising news...Steve McNair has officially retired. Even though he had some extremely mediocre seasons his final years in Baltimore, McNair was a great QB and was the centerpiece of the Titans franchise in the best years of their existence - as well as taking them to the only Super Bowl in franchise history. McNair was an extremely tough player (even though some Colt fans will dispute this :wink: ) and did plenty to earn the respect of players and fans. I will certainly miss McNair and hopefully the right thing will happen and he'll get a spot in the Hall of Fame. I realize he may be right on the border, but I'd definitely like to see him get a spot.

Cason may actually be a better pick here. He's a first round talent and with the departure of DeAngelo Hall, Chris Houston is their only viable starting corner option (unless you count Lewis Sanders, which I don't). Plus, with the depth at QB (Flacco, Henne, Ainge, Booty still available) they could take a QB with a later second rounder. I'm now in the Cason camp with Truffle.

Well past that time now. Their biggest needs are probably offensive line and quarterback. How about Joe Flacco? Or is this too early for him? The reasoning behind Flacco to the Falcons would be that he might have the most raw talent of any of the QBs in the draft and would be able to play behind the Joey Harrington/DJ Shockly duo for a year to refine his skills. Other QB possibilities would be Chad Henne or John David Booty.

As tempted as I am to pull for a Bonds signing, I tend to agree with this. The Cubs who finally win the World Series will go down in history and should be remembered fondly by all Cub fans. I'm just not sure I could get behind someone like Bonds - even if it brings a championship. I wouldn't root against a championship, though. If the Cubs signed Bonds, I'd root in spite of his presence.

I definitely think Zell would greenlight it because it wouldn't hamper his ability to sell the team in any way. Any contract Bonds signed would end after this season, thus negating any impact he would have on next year's squad (when the sale may actually take place). Also, as for this season, I think Zell would approve the 1-year contract because having Bonds raises the Cubs' marketability and, thus, the amount of money they pull in. More people would come to games, ESPN would televise more games and Bonds/Cub merchandise would be sold. All of that is added money for Zell and would help offset the 20-25 million that Bonds would demand. Plus selling the World Champion Chicago Cubs would net a monstrous profit.

I guess I was going off this quote from you too much. You did mention previously you doubted they would take a tailback, but you sounded fairly adamant they wouldn't. My argument is that passing game isn't good enough to have two mediocre (at best) running backs - Julius Jones and TJ Duckett - and one injury prone tailback - Alexander - as the only options. Wide receiver and tailback are likely the greatest needs for the Seahawks and either will help them this year.

Interesting pick...I think he's the best QB in the draft. Could easily have gone wide receiver there too - if there's any hope still left in Smith. Limas Sweed will be a very good pick by whoever grabs him at this point.

I've seen a lot of mock drafts with Seattle taking Stewart. I know I am stretching it, but would New England take a QB on the first of the draft, even tho they still have Brady? Or the Colts with Manning? No. That's more than stretching it. Peyton and Brady are the two best QBs in the game today and two of the best ever. If we were debating whether the Chiefs or Chargers would draft a running back first round, those would be viable comparisons. The better comparison to make in this situation is whether the Buccaneers with three mediocre QBs on their roster would take a QB first round or whether the Ravens with three mediocre QBs would take one. The answer to both of those is maybe (and they probably should, in my opinion) as it is with the Seahawks. Julius Jones, Shaun Alexander (as he is today) and TJ Duckett should not keep you from taking a running back you feel is great. If they see Jonathon Stewart as worthy of the pick, three mediocre tailbacks should not change their minds. That said, they probably have slightly bigger needs and won't certainly go running back. But to rule out the possiblity is premature.