Transmogrified Tiger

that's wrong. hendry orchestrated that entire deal. theo gets the credit because of the title. Yeah, there was an article last offseason that backed that up. Hendry definitely made that deal happen.

While it's true that ND has blown out their opponents while Oregon, UCLA, and Alabama haven't been good, look at their competition. The quality of Notre Dame's opponents rapidly deteriorates after USC on their schedule, and by nature of a conference schedule, the others' schedules improve. Cpatt, I don't think we ever agree on this issue. Perhaps, as I mentioned earlier we should just not discuss ND in the College Football threads. Lets talk about your team. Is Mizzou going to be bowl eligible? (I don't mean that sarcastically, I am trying to change the topic an d am genuinely curious). I know they have a very outside shot of winning the conference, pretty much a miracle will be needed, but will they be in a bowl? If so what one? Missed the edit. :D Mizzou is bowl eligible, and what bowl they get will depend on how the last game of the season goes for the Big 12. As outlined before, they can still win the Big 12 north and conceivably get in a BCS bowl, but if they win this weekend against K-State, they'll probably get into the Houston Bowl or Independence Bowl.

On it's own SOS isn't an indication, but if a team beats USC and "looks" the same way they do when they beat TCU by the same margin, how do you know which one is better? Record and SOS.

While it's true that ND has blown out their opponents while Oregon, UCLA, and Alabama haven't been good, look at their competition. The quality of Notre Dame's opponents rapidly deteriorates after USC on their schedule, and by nature of a conference schedule, the others' schedules improve. EDIT: This is my last post related to Notre Dame in this thread.

In what way? He was having a career year before getting hurt. He turns 33 this January and is going from one pitcher's park to another. I don't see him improving at all. The Mets make out like bandits in that deal. Nady is young and cheap, and has potential to be a solid 1B: http://www.baseball-reference.com/n/nadyxa01.shtml I like the deal from the Mets' perspective. Nady's minor league numbers suggest that he could be a good corner OF and an above average 1B offensively, but he's had 775 MLB AB's, and he hasn't been very good for a corner OF/1B, and his splits aren't any better(worse actually) away from Petco. He certainly has the potential, but if it were me I would've tried to capitalize on Cameron's big year more with more proven production.

They're this year's Cal, but with another loss and the Media likes them. That was a pretty poorly written article IMO. He dismisses the records of teams in lieu of watching them play. While there's something to be said for how a team plays, their record, strength of their schedule, etc. are REFELCTIONS of how the team played. This part in particular made me wonder: He compares this to people pointing out MSU-ND. Maybe the difference is that in the former case, it's the opponent of the opponent losing compared to just the opponent. And if he were to apply that Miami-FSU-Clemson logic to the other situation, then he could ask a similar question about ND-MSU-Northwestern/Purdue/Minnesota. It's just poor logic.

Rotoworld's being awful nice to Leicester. He had a 1.49 WHIP in almost 600 minor league innings, and his Major League totals are almost mirrors of his minor league numbers. He'll be 26 next year and is behind Wuertz, Williamson, and Novoa for the RH middle relief/setup spot(s). That said, this isn't a bad gamble for the Rangers, since Leicester does have decent stuff.

Well done.

Ramirez took a big step back defensively in 2005. He was much better in 2004. Really? Well, I didn't see him alot. Maybe I just saw him on his good days, but I was surprised at some of the plays that he made look easy. Ramirez has the ability to be a fine defensive third baseman, and can make some really good picks. His problem mostly is in consistency, moreso than lack of range or arm accuracy.

Thing is, it's likely that it's more for Rule V purposes than a trade.

Didn't we think the same thing last offseason? The market was down, no way were guys like Varitek, Lowe, Drew, Renteria, etc. getting the deals they were demanding. Turns out, almost everyone got what they intially demanded. Nothing would surprise me. Beltran and Drew were the only ones that got longer than 4 years, if memory serves. Damon may con someone into giving him 12 million, but the length I think is what BBB was getting at mostly.

40 man casualty number 1. Hopefully Hendry continues to have reasonably good fortune with PTBNLs.

And he's spent it like a freaking moron. When guys like Tejada and Vladdy are out there, he's giving raises to Alfonseca, Macias and Neifi. Before he even gets a chance to spend on the impact players, he spends significant chunks on replacables like Rusch. He cuts corners repeatedly. I'm not saying he doesn't eventually spend the money. I'm saying he spends it on mediocrity, and that is exactly why this team has been barely above average under his control. Where were they going to put Vladdy?? LF?? Cmon that's not a fair criticism. Seems like he wanted to go west as he chose between LA and Anaheim. Sosa was horrible in RF from 2002 on. They very easily could have put Sosa in LF and Guerrero in RF. With only a year remaining on Alou's contract, they could have worked a deal with San Fran for a number of options to offset the cost of Alou's final season. Alfonso would have been nice as a back up to Ramirez and Walker in 2004. As stated before, they could have gotten creative to make it work. Just like they would have needed to get creative to make a Beltran deal work. Just like they could have been creative to make a Tejada deal work. Obviously, they never would have gotten Tejada, Guerrero and Beltran. But, they missed the mark on getting ANY of them when there was availability. Giles could end up being the next in a long line. There is no creativity needed to sign Giles. Just pony up the cash. Simple. Painless. Obvious. Once that's done, then figure out how much cash you have left to possibly upgrade over Walker, upgrade over Cedeno at SS, upgrade over Patterson in CF, upgrade the lead off situation, etc... It was upgrading over Burnitz, but we don't have him anymore. Now, we need an upgrade over????? We don't have any in house options to upgrade over in RF. That is the biggest hole. Period. What's especially annoying about the Giles situation is that he fills one of our biggest needs precisely, we have over $30MM in money to spend, and his contract looks to be extremely affordable. I just saw a blurb today saying the Yankees could offer him 3/30. That's it? Given our needs, I'd happily pay Giles up to 3/35, and it is sounding like that will get the deal done. Hendry sure as heck better see it the same way, or the pitchforks will be out. The ONLY reason Giles should be shied away from is if he got crazy with his demands for contract length. Everything so far has been 3 years, which means that if we don't get him, it's on Hendry's head.

Cavaliers dominate the Wiz at home yesterday for their 5th consecutive win. Lebron goes for 37 on 15/23 shooting from the field. Fun fact of the day: Cleveland leads the NBA in FT%, at 82% as well as Points per Shot, at 1.30.

Extrapolating a report in a Florida paper speculating who the Cubs' back-up plan at SS is to their urgency to win is quite a leap.

So basically, Cubs fans are right, and the rest of America is wrong? Didn't BP do a feature a while back touting Lee for MVP?

I really doubt the voters went beyond best OPS or VORP. In fact, I really doubt they made it to best OPS or VORP. By "beyond", I meant that they might have considered other things, besides two raw stats. Yes, and I'm saying I doubt many of them considered any statistics of meaning, nevermind OPS and VORP, which are two good metrics for total production.

I really doubt the voters went beyond best OPS or VORP. In fact, I really doubt they made it to best OPS or VORP.

I really disagree with you on each points of this post. First, the secret was out pretty fast with DLee. Second, you are overvaluing the impact pitches a player sees because of another player in the lineup. I don't think the secret was out very quickly on Lee. I think that everybody expected him to come back to earth for the first two months of the year, and maybe started taking him more seriously after that. I think the fact that his OPS dropped by 225 points after the All Star break is evident of that, to some degree. I don't think I'm overvaluing the impact that a player like Pujols or Lee can have on other players in the lineup. For examle, Nunez had a .704 OPS in 2005, but his OPS jumped to .885 when he batted in front of Pujols. It might also have been because hardly anyone can maintain that level of inhuman production for an entire season... Curse that Derrek Lee for not maintaining a 1.200 OPS all year long.

How do you justify that statement? It's not complicated. Where do the Braves finish without Jones playing everyday? Where do the Cubs finish without Lee playing everyday? The Cubs stunk. The Braves were pretty good. And the difference between making the playoffs and missing them is far more important to the MVP award than the difference sucking and Royals-ly sucking. The MVP is not an individual stats award* in principle. It is about leading a team to a winning season and whether people like it or not, a team's win percentage and ability to make the playoffs factors heavily into this award because the voters make it so. It is what it is. From the voters' perspectives, an MVP must be be the leader that carries the team to the playoffs. Do I personally think Jones is as good as Lee? Absolutely not. I'd take Lee every day of the week and twice on Tuesdays in a pick-up or fantasy game. Lee wins the Fantasy Player of the Year. There's no doubt about that. *The exceptions usually come when the stats are so overwhelmingly undeniable and dominant over the nearest competitor. In Lee's case, his numbers don't dominate Pujols and he was perceived to lead an injury-riddled team to the playoffs (just like Jones). Lee clearly produced much much more than Jones. It's not remotely close. Lee did so with a crappy supporting cast. Jones did so with a good supporting cast. Therefore, Lee was more valuable to his team than Jones.

That's the most ridiculous thing I've read all day. Wilkerson as a bench player...OML....that's funny as hell. he only hits .250 OBP is not the only thing that makes a good leadoff or nuber 2 hitter. He needs a low number of strikeouts, a decent batting average in the 275, and a good OBP. Wilkerson only achieves one of the three. Lets say you have Wilkerson batting second and Furcal batting first. Would you want someone who strikes out 150 times a year batting behind Furcal. Would we not complain about his inability to advance the runner? I'd rather have a guy who bats 285 with a 330 OBP with a low number of strikeouts batting second. The reason being that he would be more likely to advance the runner. I think we are overvalueing OBP because of how bad the top of our order was last year. We can't forget their are other things than OBP involved in making a good top of the order hitter. I also said in a later post that I may have exaggerated just a bit and that I just believe Wilkerson is not the best fit for our offense. Strikeouts as a whole are overrated, but even if they are this evil, they are most tolerable in a leadoff hitter. Guess who's going to come up the most with no one on base? The leadoff hitter. Therefore, how they make an out would be less relevant. Also, AVG is less important in a leadoff hitter relative to OBP. Since they don't come up with runners on as often, it doesn't matter as much if they reach base via a hit or walk. If you'd rather have a .285/.330 low K hitter hitting 2nd than Wilkerson's .250/.350 100+ K's(lest we forget that Wilkerson has OBP's in '02-'04 of .370, .380, .374) then you are going to score fewer runs. That's all there is to it.

Exactly, if the Olympics can test for it, congress should push around MLB some more and get this included as well. I am curious to see what testing pitchers for meth will do. Meth? Yep, methamphetamines/crystal meth It is the most common drug used in MLB, pitchers are the dominant user of it. you sure you don't mean amphetamines (aka uppers/pills/greenies)? Crystal meth is a recreational drug that's snorted or smoked. it's also the reason why you can't buy Sudafed without getting it from a pharmacist behind the counter. Not trying to get off-topic, but are you sure about this? I've always bought my Sudafed straight off the shelf at Walgreens. In some places they still sell it on the shelves, but in a lot of places (basically the entire rural midwest) they've moved it behind the counter. Pseudoephedrine is a meth precursor. You have to be 18 in some areas to buy it too.

No

I like to play games.

Have you seen the numbers Huff put up last year?