Transmogrified Tiger

My guess is that's partially due to the team this year. There's only 4 seniors that I see on the roster, and Tepesch is the only remotely draftable junior. Can't be easy convincing draftable talent to go to a situation with that much youth already on the roster.

They replaced Piniero's 5 win season with Brad Penny, and Wainwright and Carpenter each have injury histories and each threw at least 100 innings more than they did in 2008. Offensively the Cards are extremely top heavy, so if they have injuries or ineffectiveness to Pujols or Holliday, they're hosed. Even with them, the rest of the offense is so unproven/ungood that they aren't guaranteed to take advantage of having Pujols and Holliday. Really, a fairly significant portion of the projected difference between the Cards and Cubs is defense. Problem is, all the Cardinals' plus defenders play positions where the measurement isn't very good(Pujols, Molina), or don't have the playing time to have a lot of certainty in them being 1-2 win defenders(Ryan, Rasmus). To clarify, this doesn't mean that I think the Cubs are running away with the 2010 Central. Merely, that there isn't much of a gap between the teams, and no one should be surprised if either wins or if the race goes to the wire. The Brewers can go sit in the corner with the Reds for all I care. They can come out of timeout when they get some pitching.

Actually they do miss his fastball. It's everything else that gets him in trouble.

The naming and description of shoe and clothing features never ceases to amuse me.

Anyone out of South Texas this year? Figured there might be someone out of Moody, Calallen, or Ray. The best player out of the Corpus Christi area will prob. be Mark Blackmar out of Carroll HS. Moody has a 3B by the name of Michael Franco committed to Mizzou. Calallen has a LHP/OF by the name of Rob Zastryzny also committed to Mizzou. None of these will be high picks and will likely go to college, although Blackmar hasn't signed anywhere yet. This post makes me happy. Especially since Mizzou is going to suck this year.

I SAID, THEY'RE GETTING AN IKEA SOON.

And that's exactly what makes a 64/65 team bracket great. It actually means something to get into the tournament. It would be like if Harvard or Yale went from their current accepted number of students to a number 2 or 3 times that. Yeah, you still went there, but how diluted is your educational experience over what the people who got in and graduated with higher standards? No one brags about making the tournament except small schools, and they're the big winner in this proposition because of exposure

What team has been optimizing its roster around LeBron for the last five years? Because it's not the Cavs. Okay, 7 years.

I'm sure a team like that would win a lot of games, just not as many as a team that has been optimizing its roster around LeBron for 5 years.

Mizzou's class is scary good, assuming they all qualify. I'm pretty jealous. Scary good? They're 17th (per Rivals) with no 5-stars and mostly 3-star commits Mizzou won back-to-back North titles with recruiting classes that didn't crack the Top 25. A couple weeks ago their class was like 13th. It's a significant improvement even if there isn't a headline player like Gabbert was(or Richardson will be).

Varejao and probably Williams are more valuable than Rose would be on a team with LeBron. i have no idea how you can say this. noah is better than verajao and williams is nowhere near rose, unless you're saying lebron prefers playing with inferior players. I'm saying LeBron prefers playing with guards that can shoot better than 25% from 3, because so much of his game is predicated on getting to the lane.

Varejao and probably Williams are more valuable than Rose would be on a team with LeBron. I think Varejao's very good and pretty underrated but the Bulls have Noah. And he's already getting more love than Varejao. They're very similar with the weird name, hair, and style of play. Mo Williams isn't in the same universe as Derrick Rose. He's nice but he's just another guy ultimately. Noah and Varejao are similar, although that wasn't really my point. You're right that Williams isn't on the same plane as Rose, if you swapped the two the Bulls would be much worse. However, Rose and LeBron have only one ball to share. That's why a borderline all-star guard like Williams that can shoot means more on a team with LeBron than Rose. Without that spacing the offense loses effectiveness(see Eric Snow's time as a Cavalier for an extreme example).

Varejao and probably Williams are more valuable than Rose would be on a team with LeBron.

They're getting an IKEA soon. I'm biased, but I'd have to think that right now Cleveland is the best spot for LeBron. They can give him the same salary, the best supporting cast, and it's hometown. I guess he could get marginally more recognition as a Knick, but I don't know why you'd take that gamble with a much worse team around him. More recognition and better supporting cast in Chicago. Done. I don't think that'd be the case. Especially the supporting cast.

They're getting an IKEA soon. I'm biased, but I'd have to think that right now Cleveland is the best spot for LeBron. They can give him the same salary, the best supporting cast, and it's hometown. I guess he could get marginally more recognition as a Knick, but I don't know why you'd take that gamble with a much worse team around him.

How many all-star games have been on cable? Is the NBA ASG on TNT? Or do they just have the rookie challenge/dunk contest/skills challenge/etc.? I think you're right, it is on TNT. It was on NBC for years though, much like the Pro Bowl and ABC I believe.

Explain this one to me. Do you think there's a tipping point where adding teams becomes a negative to the tournament? 64 creates a rapid fire atmospher dropping it from 64 to 16. There's going to be burnout with this number of games, especially with so many crappy games to start things off. You can duplicate that atmosphere though. Have the play in games on Saturday/Sunday then have the tournament proceed on the schedule it is now. Bit of a layoff for the teams with byes, but I don't think it's that huge a deal. I don't see how that duplicates the atmosphere. You think the 9-16 seeds playing the NIT teams is going to draw any sort of audience? Nobody's going to care about those games except for fans of those teams. The majority of first round matchups in a 64 team tournament aren't all that compelling. You can use NIT teams as an insult, but there's a bunch of teams that get snubbed that were a few bounces from a 7-10 seed

How many all-star games have been on cable?

A 30 game season in a division with as many teams as D-1(or even BCS) isn't quite enough for there to be a sure-fire best team. Especially considering the teams they needed to beat to win the title, when's the last time a team that won it all wasn't considered one of the best teams in the country?

Explain this one to me. Do you think there's a tipping point where adding teams becomes a negative to the tournament? 64 creates a rapid fire atmospher dropping it from 64 to 16. There's going to be burnout with this number of games, especially with so many crappy games to start things off. You can duplicate that atmosphere though. Have the play in games on Saturday/Sunday then have the tournament proceed on the schedule it is now. Bit of a layoff for the teams with byes, but I don't think it's that huge a deal. I think that layoff is also a problem. Right now, the tournament starts on the Thursday after Selection Sunday, right? (that's how I remember it.) And Selection Sunday is at the end of the conference tournament week. So when do you hold this initial play-in round? The weekend after selection sunday (when we'd normally be into round two of the tournament)? If you do that, teams with a first round bye wouldn't start until the Thursday after that. That's almost two weeks off. So not only do these teams have to find a way to stay sharp during an 11 or 12 day layoff, but it's all so I can watch the 9th place team in the ACC face off with the second place team in the Big Sky? Sorry, that would suck. If the layoff is that big of a deal, make it a weeklong event, adding the two extra days on Tuesday and Wednesday. There's space in Championship week to keep Sunday open(with selection on Saturday) if that's needed for travel purposes.

Explain this one to me. Do you think there's a tipping point where adding teams becomes a negative to the tournament? 64 creates a rapid fire atmospher dropping it from 64 to 16. There's going to be burnout with this number of games, especially with so many crappy games to start things off. You can duplicate that atmosphere though. Have the play in games on Saturday/Sunday then have the tournament proceed on the schedule it is now. Bit of a layoff for the teams with byes, but I don't think it's that huge a deal.

Explain this one to me.

You'd lose. Really? I'm going to use OPS+ and ERA+ because it'll be quick. Average of the last two years. Cubs Reds C SOTO 96 86 HERNANDEZ 1B LEE 126 140 VOTTO 2B FONTENOT 100 98 PHILLIPS SS THERIOT 88 85 CABRERA 3B RAMIREZ 128 112 ROLEN LF SORIANO 101 98 NIX CF BYRD 113 99 STUBBS RF FUKUDOME 96 99 BRUCE SP ZAMBRANO 118 102 ARROYO SP DEMPSTER 139 118 VOLQUEZ SP LILLY 128 97 HARANG SP WELLS 123 94 CUETO SP GORZELANNY 72 76 BAILEY And we have the better pen. They simply do not have the pitching unless like 7 things go right simultaneously.

It's like a billion times worse. Roughly. At least. There's really no point to it existing. And the point to the MLB ASG is . . . ? Seeing the best baseball players play baseball. The Pro Bowl is seeing the best football players jog around, with little chance of ever seeing anything cool happen. Football is too complex and team oriented to throw an all-star team together for 3 days with no motivation play hard and expect anything entertaining. Baseball, as a series of individual events, is much more suited to just throwing people on a field to play and still see great plays.

It's like a billion times worse. Roughly.