Soul

Nah, we haven't seen that at all. :wink: Recent development: they were wrong again.

It's freakout time. Why? You seriously think Hendry would do that just for Roberts? Come on... It's not. Just the fact that MacPhail even mentioned Hill is enough to freak me out. How dare he!

It's freakout time. I think I just had a heart attack. This can't be happening.

Eh, I'm sure they have sources but a message board is a message board. People will say things on a mb that they would take more time to verify if their byline was sitting next to it in a newspaper. Full of it? Alright, not full of it. "Willing to be a little more loose with their info given the forum" is how I would attempt to describe it.

I don't want to see it, but... DeRosa at 2B, deal for SS Uribe I don't think they feel a need to change the shortstop situation. Me either. I think they envision Theriot = Eckstein, and they like that very much.

The guy didn't really say anything of interest. IMO, he sounded like he was afraid to offend some of the O's fans by speculating on the trade. Either he doesn't know or he was keeping his true feelings close to the vest; at one point he admitted that the O's have been shopping Roberts for a position player(s) and pitching then he says he thinks it's "70%" that he doesn't get traded. Which is it? So he refused to spout off a tirade of rumor and innuendo and present it as if he has "inside information" so everyone should just believe him? There's a novel concept.

Nah, after page 100 the real freak out begins.

Alright, now I'm starting to get scared. Hendry, you better not be screwing us royally again.

=D> Too funny. Always good to hear the other side of the story. They aren't getting Hill and Pie though. I don't think Hendry is *that* stupid.

This is exactly how I feel about it. Wait it out and see. If we do open up the season with a rotation of Z, Lilly, Hill, Marquis, Dempster, then I'm disappointed. There's still plenty of time to change that, though. Hey, we've been waiting it out for 100 years, bud 8-)

I think Gallagher goes in any deal..he's the centerpiece of it all. Orioles fans think that at most a name might be wrong. Other than that, they believe that MacPhail is just bluffing saying that the deal isn't official, which of course it's not. But they believe it is complete. The administrator of the site has checked with 2 different of his own sources and confirmed the deal (both sources said 100%) and he apparently doesn't post anything unless he's completely sure he won't be wrong, unlike the other insiders. Alright, so his neck is on the line. I really don't care either way, I hope this thing just ends one way or the other now.

Cedeno's been to the majors more than once, and has been less than impressive each time. I'm not so concerned with giving him up.

Alright, fair enough. If this is true, really the biggest problem I had was giving up what I considered our best option for #5 starter in Marshall. I know Gallagher is liked in these circles, but he's still firmly a prospect. I really feel Marshall would be solid @ the 5. That said though, it's pretty clear with the Dempster announcement earlier in the offseason that the Cubs did not necessarily agree with that position, since they were set to slot Dempster in the rotation, which would presumably have left Marshall in the BP or @ Iowa. So I guess I'm left wondering why the Cubs soured on Marshall, when he seemed to me to be the one guy who did a halfway decent job in the role last year.

Nightmare. Good Lord just kill me, we lost to the frakkin' Knicks at home.

That is true. None of the Orioles insiders have said today. One of them said soon, one of them said a few days, and one of them said not soon (and clarified that he didn't mean hours but more like days). All of them agreed that the deal was Marshall, Gallagher, Cedeno...and a couple of them said that paperwork had been exchanged. That doesn't mean the deal is going to happen, but these facts remain. 1) There are a lot more posters on there then there is on NSBB (check out how many people they have vote on polls-a poll started today had 257 votes, and that's not unusual). 2) These posters give a great deal of respect to these insiders, and they have been doing so for years. The level of respect on there is around the same that people on here give to Bruce. Now some of us could search through and find every deal that these insiders have gotten completely right beforehand. Simple logic tells us though that they have sources. If they didn't, they would have been discredited years ago by the large community over there. Imagine if we had a person come on here labeled as an insider. If they didn't get things right, would we continue to listen to him? Yet they hang on every single word their insiders say. The insiders have had to give them information that has made them justify that faith. Obviously of course their sources are sometimes mistaken, or sometimes things change before they become official. This deal could still fall through. I have every belief it is likely (more than 70 percent) to happen within the next week though because of what the insiders say, and especially now that they are telling a very consistent story. There was at least one of them who had the deal happening before Christmas. One of them already had his chain yanked -- badly and publicly. Like I said, it's still a message board, still open to the usual nonsense of message boards.

There's really nothing solid about this deal other than being mentioned a couple times as a "good fit" for the Cubs or a "likely destination." I'm sorry, but I don't care who people think these orioles dugout guys are, bulletin board rumors will always be very shaky. Maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't. But please at least consider that these orioles fans might not have any clue what they are talking about.

how is this hit not a personal foul? since when can you leave your feet to tackle the QB? You aren't seriously asking that question, are you? As far as I know, defensive players can leave their feet or even crawl when trying to sack the QB if there isn't helmet to helmet contact, a facemask infraction, or such... It's borderline. The bicep is hitting the head, but I don't think it was an intentional blow to the head. I'm OK with the no call there. It's not like it really makes any difference. OSU just got beat, plain and simple. They started off good, but couldn't sustain the effort.

I love how if the deal doesn't get done by 50 pages, we devolve into bickering at each other. :mrgreen:

I view him as well-suited for that #5 start, at least for a couple years. I don't think many teams can be tossing #5 starters who have had some success in the majors around like candy, or they risk the wrath of the baseball gods. Namely -- Dempster sucking bones.

No. No it has not been the one glaring need. Leadoff hitter is not a position, it's just a spot in the order that any of the 8 position players can fill. This team's most glaring need for a very long time has been walks, and players who are both willing and capable of taking them. A little more generally, they've lacked OBP. And to the extent that a new hitter can significantly improve the OBP by replacing somebody who is already here, that player would have considerable value to the Cubs. Yeah, I'm not so sure the "prototypical leadoff hitter" is this holy grail of making a World Series, either. Plenty of teams have done it without one. I'm more concerned with the overall OBP now -- and I'm still leery that Roberts is going to suffer a drop in production. I wouldn't mind getting the guy, but the back of our rotation is suddenly going to look mighty shaky. And wasn't SP a big advantage that eventually lifted us over the Crew last year?

Put plexiglass up all around the field and any ball that bounces off is in play. You wanted offense, Chicago.

He had plenty of time to practice, you know! I like how he believes he should receive "the benefit of the doubt" because of all the good he's done for the community. Yep, we should all be able to buy our innocence that way. I watched the 60 Minutes interview as well. I was patiently waiting for Wallace to drop the "lie detector" bomb on Clemens and was starting to wonder if he was ever going to ask Roger if he would be willing to take the test. This is where I think Clemens REALLY failed to look believable. Not that I needed a lie detector question to determine his innocence. Wallace asked Clemens if he'd be willing to take a lie detector test and Clemens really skirted that question, calling into question the validity of the tests. Wallace posed the question 3 or 4 different ways, and each response continued to call into question the validity of a lie detector test. So, if and when McNamee and Clemens each take a lie detector test and McNamee passes and Clemens fails, it will just be more icing on the cake. During the interview, I learned that McNamee had to be truthful to avoid prosecution. So, if I understand this correctly, and according to Clemens, McNamee risked his get out of jail free card and lied about Clemens taking steroids. Sure thing, Roger. :roll: Roger's story is now that McNamee was threated with prosecution if he didn't say what they wanted him to say about Clemens. The law suit is really a stretch. It's talking about "Cold-War era style questioning" and crap like that. I couldn't help but wonder if it was even written by an actual lawyer, it sounds so amateur. I would love to have had a bug on that Clemens/McNamee phone call.

I know a bucs fan, and getting him to even want to talk about his team is like pulling teeth. Most Pittsburgh baseball fans are so beaten into submission by now they couldn't care less what happens.

I can't believe we're going to give up 2 good pitching prospects for this guy and Cedeno. I think it's likely to turn out just horrible for us.

I think that last part is the only reason people are giving the Jaguars a chance. The Jets did it in horrible conditions because Brady couldn't pass the ball well at all. If the conditions are even decent for passing, New England will blow out the Jags. If they aren't, it could be interesting. I can't even imagine the Jags could win that game. This is Foxboro in January against the best team in a decade. Jags will fold like a house of cards.