Transmogrified Tiger

What evidence do you have to back that claim up? Hendry loves old ballplayers. He was, by all accounts, behind the Alou and Remlinger signings, he went hard after Maddux. He obviously likes older bench players, choosing to guarantee mediocrity rather than risk failure in the pursuit of greatness. Show me a longterm contract Hendry worked out with a player 35 years old or older. Remlinger.

where did Z go? He's arbitration eligible, so since his contract for this year isn't set at a value yet, that's why he's not up there I imagine.

BJ Ryan's a closer. The Cubs already have a closer. Ryan will command 2-3 times more then Eyre. Well, that's because BJ is good. This year was the first time in Eyre's major league career he had a WHIP below 1.30. He's 33 and had a career year. If we give him a long-term deal we're asking for another Remlinger situation.

Was that the year they went nuts and beat all those teams in Maui?

I'm glad you already know how they will fare in the future. The only thing spoken about in the future is Blum's performance.

Nivar got traded to the Orioles before the beginning of this season.

Independence bowl is against the SEC right? Any chance they will match up with either Tennesse or South Carolina? Those are the two teams that look like it matches up for, assuming Tennessee can get bowl eligible.

That's a character from The Office. Don't know the actor's name though, or his character's, even though I watched it last night. I do know that he convinced a coworker that it was Friday when it was really Thursday though.

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.