XZero771679666304

Considering the alternatives, I'm praying for Pena at this point.

He'll probably be better than Lee was last year, so that's something. No guarantee. Lee was a 2.0 WAR player last year, LaRoche has peaked at 2.6 in his career. According to baseball reference, Lee had sub-1 WAR last year.

He'll probably be better than Lee was last year, so that's something.

I'm not sure how delusional he was considering he still got paid. He knew, or at least his agent knew, that the Yankees were going to overpay. Why would he ask for less? He didn't get paid what he was initially looking for, and apparently he's not entirely happy with his new contract. That's being a bit delusional.

Guh. Suddenly Chris Davis doesn't seem so bad. It's not surprising, though. Pena probably wanted "too much".

I'm just amazed by Jeter's delusion. He was over paid for the duration of his last contract. Now he's not even nearly the player he was for most of that, and he was looking for more (apparently $20-22MM per)? He had to be drunk on his own NY hype. He's lucky the Yanks paid him what they did, because it's a lot more than he's worth. The notion that he was disrespected in any way is just ridiculous.

At this point Jeter needs the Yankees more than the Yankees need Jeter. The Yankees are still going to be the Yankees long after Jeter leaves or retires. Playing anywhere else, Jeter loses much of his mystique. Yeah. Jeter isn't worth half that contract. The only reason he got that much is because of Yankees' PR, and there's no way he'd have gotten near that much on the open market.

Apparently the Nationals offer was so far and beyond what anyone else was offering, Boras didn't even ask other suitors to match before they accepted it.

Good lord, that's silly.

Like when Davis put up 20 on Carolina? Coming into today we were tops among Big Ten teams in % of points on 2 pointers. I'm talking about establishing a real physical presence in the post. Someone who can be fed down low, back a guy down and score at the rim. Other than Leonard (potentially), I don't see any players that can fit that bill. As we have seen (Texas), big teams can really push us around down low, and we don't rebound well at all. I'm concerned about what guys like Sullinger can do to the Illini. Quick, name me ten guys in all the NCAA that can do that. Sullinger, Morris..... True. I guess my perception is that while the Illni do get a lot of 2-pointers, relatively few of them are in the paint. The rebounding is genuinely concerning, though.

Like when Davis put up 20 on Carolina? Coming into today we were tops among Big Ten teams in % of points on 2 pointers. I'm talking about establishing a real physical presence in the post. Someone who can be fed down low, back a guy down and score at the rim. Other than Leonard (potentially), I don't see any players that can fit that bill. As we have seen (Texas), big teams can really push us around down low, and we don't rebound well at all. I'm concerned about what guys like Sullinger can do to the Illini.

Lou Holtz's voice makes me want to strangle him.

You have to talk about the first base situation because it's really the only thing to talk about. Dunn, Berkman and AGon going off the board so quickly has to force Hendry's hand, unless the Cubs plan on going with Colvin at 1B next season. Once Dunn was gone I turned my focus to Pena, and hopefully Hendry has his focus in the same place.

That was a good win, but the Illini really need an interior game. Opponents can't be counted on to leave shooters open all game like we just saw, and Tisadale is soft. I'm hoping Leonard develops a post game quickly.

Gonzaga's perimeter defense has been nonexistent.

Nick Johnson is still out there as well. He's the best option if he could stay healthy, but that's a really big if. That's a gigantic if. In fact, it would be stunning if he did.

Understood. Earlier dew pointed out that signing Dunn to this deal would've been "a different story" if the Cubs were better positioned to contend for the WS. And I'm saying the Cubs took that same "one player away" mindset into the Bradley situation. As we all know, that ended very poorly. For some reason that was labeled a "really, really ridiculous take." I dunno, seems spot on to me. :shrug: Because it's really, really ridiculous. Adam Dunn and Bradley are completely different in every sense of the word and Dunn IS the type of player that can put a team over the top. There was no reason for the Cubs to go into next season effectively surrendering in such a weak division, and that's what they've effectively done by not landing the one difference-maker FA they had a shot at getting on the market right now. People can spin it all they want, by any combination of dinking and dunking moves they make instead of getting Dunn isn't going to do anything except almost certainly result in a mediocre team that can't even compete in a division this weak. Your overgeneralization is a silly take on this, and the Cubs easily could have been just one player away given their competition, and Dunn is that type of player. To compare it to Bradley in any way is just absurd. The Cubs very realistically were just a Dunn away from being competitive and having a real shot given the circumstances of their division whereas Bradley was nothing but an oft-injured role player at best. You're drastically undervaluing Dunn's impact on this team to make your point. You're wrong. The Cubs may have "kicked the tires" on Dunn, but they never actively pursued him. Berkman and Pena are the options for them at 1B this winter, so stop living in a fantasy world. Secondly, the Cubs aren't "just [one] Dunn away from being competitive ... ." This team seriously lacks leadership both on and off the field. While Dunn may have provided some home runs, there weren't leadership qualities there, as there is with other players the Cubs are pursuing (i.e. Berkman, Kerry Wood, Brandon Webb). Besides, did the team get anywhere by hitting solo home run after solo home run last year? No. The Cubs are one big bat and bullpen arm from being competitive in 2011, IMO. Don't look at 2010 as if it were the status quo. A lot of stuff went really, weirdly wrong last year, and Lou made things worse. The Cubs didn't have a great team by any stretch, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the results made it look.

You're acting as if there's a 10 win difference between Dunn and the other options. If Pena returns just to 2009 level, we're looking at a 2 win difference between the two. That's simply not that much and certainly isn't worth three extra years and $40-50 million more. If it was Dunn or Hoffpauir, I could understand. But Pena, Johnson and Gordon simply aren't that much worse than Dunn. Yeah, I don't think Pena is a bad option, especially if it's one year. Even at 2009 levels he's a good pickup.

Comparing Dunn to Bradley is ridiculous. Milton was a talented guy with durability and character issues out the wazoo coming off by far the best season of his career. The guy never managed 150 games in any season, only coming anywhere near once. His career OPS is .100 lower than Dunn's, and was coming off a year that was clearly an outlier at the time the Cubs signed him. That's not even mentioning that in the 2008 season used as the basis to sign him, Bradley OPSed .200 higher from the right side, when the reason he was signed was to add a LH bat. And in 2009, he performed better from the right side as well. That trend goes back a few years as well. Adam Dunn is a player who has his faults (particularly that he is an awful fielder), but hasn't played fewer than 152 games, hit fewer than 38 homers or OPSed lower than .855 (most often at or above .900) in seven consecutive seasons. Dunn is nowhere near the risk Bradley was from a performance, durability or character standpoint. The signing of Bradley, based on an outlier of a season and flawed logic, was a high risk move. Adam Dunn is the picture of consistency, and in a worst case scenario of aging gives you more than Bradley without the headaches. Having said that, I wouldn't give Dunn four years at his age, but I certainly think it would be a far more prudent move than giving Bradley the contract Hendry did. Calling them similar moves based on gossamer parallels is silly.

Yeah, that made zero sense.

Is there TV for tonight's game? BTN

I have a phrase for you..."process of catching the ball" that was just a shameful win. i'm talking about an exciting win where it looked like we would lose 10 times over. Illinois/Arizona, elite eight in 2005?

He had a 1.2 WHIP. Yeah, because of his .192 BABIP. His babip with the Yankees this year was .236, not .192, according to Baseball Reference.

3 am is about the best time to drive. Nearly all of you crazy people are off the road then !!! I've driven the length of Nebraska more than a few times, and I always try to do it in the middle of the night. It's straight, flat, and there's nothing to see there anyway. And I drive, well, let's just say in excess of 71 mph there. And I have never been pulled over.

Ashton went to Iowa didn't he? I know there's something about not being able to have alums recruiting for you. He got kicked out before he graduated, iirc.