David

The Bulls aren't 10th. There's a three-way tie for 8th. Not as nice as being tied for 6th, but not as bad as being 10th all alone either. Oh, ok. Nice. That's actually a slight relief. What are the tie-breakers, though? As in, if none of the teams tied for 8th get a top 3 pick, where do the Knicks end up?

Bulls -150 against Heat for the series. I was hoping they'd be 'dogs so I could bet them. http://www17.pinnaclesports.com/guestcontestLines.asp?redirected=yes&ContestType=NBA%20Series%20Prices

This seems oddly familiar. Didn't you express something similar back in November when the Bulls were 3-9? Or how about back in February when they struggled a bit heading into the All-Star break? Is this some kind of defense mechanism? Expect the worst and be surprised when things work out kind of thing? No one played better basketball down the stretch than the Bulls in the East. They have the best home record in the East. They have home court in their series against the Heat. I don't understand the pessimism. Soul is just pessimistic by nature. He was the same way about the Bears all season. I've learned not to let it annoy me. :)

Eh? Don't we need to do a ping pong ball blower-thingy first before we know that? We were tied for 5th (or was it 6th?) yesterday. Worst case scenario was we'd wind up at 10th, and we did. Knicks won and everyone else lost. As for the ping pong balls, we know have a lot fewer ping bong balls to be blown... If I understand it correctly, it's either get incredibly lucky and land in the top 3... or wind up 10th (or worse, if a later picking lottery team gets lucky with the ping pong balls). i still think the draft lottery is a sham until they actual draw the ping pong balls live. All this secret drawing, envelope nonsense is crap Wait... you think the idea of Stern telling the refs to call the games in favor of the Heat is ludicrous yet you think the draft lotto is fixed? Seems contradictory to me. Frankly, I think both conspiracy theories are ludicrous. Okay, sham is the wrong word. But there is no reason to hide the drawing. In fact, I think it would be more exciting to see the ping pong balls come out then the super boring envelope reveal That I can agree with.

300+ million underachieving group of losers, or hard working playoff basketball team...I'd go with the Bulls game. Christ...now the fans are citing this stupid $300 million thing, too?

Eh? Don't we need to do a ping pong ball blower-thingy first before we know that? We were tied for 5th (or was it 6th?) yesterday. Worst case scenario was we'd wind up at 10th, and we did. Knicks won and everyone else lost. As for the ping pong balls, we know have a lot fewer ping bong balls to be blown... If I understand it correctly, it's either get incredibly lucky and land in the top 3... or wind up 10th (or worse, if a later picking lottery team gets lucky with the ping pong balls). i still think the draft lottery is a sham until they actual draw the ping pong balls live. All this secret drawing, envelope nonsense is crap Wait... you think the idea of Stern telling the refs to call the games in favor of the Heat is ludicrous yet you think the draft lotto is fixed? Seems contradictory to me. Frankly, I think both conspiracy theories are ludicrous.

Eh? Don't we need to do a ping pong ball blower-thingy first before we know that? We were tied for 5th (or was it 6th?) yesterday. Worst case scenario was we'd wind up at 10th, and we did. Knicks won and everyone else lost. As for the ping pong balls, we now have a lot fewer ping bong balls to be blown... If I understand it correctly, it's either get incredibly lucky and land in the top 3... or wind up 10th (or worse, if a later picking lottery team gets lucky with the ping pong balls).

I'm far more concerned about having dropped to 10th in the draft than I am about the Heat. Bring 'em on.

Bulls in 6

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A CURSE. Anyone who believes otherwise is freaking kidding themselves.

Nope. Bad baseball. the ball bouncing right back to the catcher was bad baseball? That happens to the good teams all the time. They still win. that doesn't make sense. the cubs have turned over their management, coaching staff, and personel so many times over the years it can't just be bad baseball. what are the chances that theriot GIDP? You can't be SERIOUSLY arguing in favor of believing in curses... are you?

Last I heard, Prior was fully healthy and ready to go full speed with the rest of the team. Yep. Heard the same thing. Is this for real or is it a sick joke? Unfortunately I'll never be able to make myself give up on Prior. It's a sick joke. As of yesterday... http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070417&content_id=1914512&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc

That's about all I would do on that list. Not a fan of breakfast, lunch, dinner, or sleeping with Courtney Cox?

Miller gives up 6 hits and 4 walks and it's tied, you're darn right I'm ecstatic. but, but a 5.40 ERA with a 2.00 WHIP is never acceptable, right GOONY? Correct. It's an unacceptable performance by the pitcher. I'm ecstatic that they were lucky enough to still be in the game. I thought it was a quality start by Miller! He had less then his best and battled!!!! You can't be serious. He didn't have less than his best. That is his best. His best is bad. And he was lucky to get out of there with a performance that works out to a 5.40 ERA and a 2.00 WHIP. EDIT - Thought so. ;)

Anyone with a brain could see this was coming. Miller's stuff is garbage. Why the decision makers would feel that his lucky performances in spring training earned him a rotation spot is inexplicable and beyond me. He's garbage. Batting practice. To all those that jumped on me and questioned my loyalty to the Cubs, THIS is why i was rooting for Miller to get pasted and suck bad in his last few spring training starts. I'd rather lose spring training games than give away ones that count.

I really hate flat brimmed hats. When did that become cool? It looks terrible. I've trained every hat I've ever owned.

Wrong thread...

This organization smokes crack. They're probably stretching him out to start after Miller sucks today.

I agree completely. So, he'll have more pressure on him for his first AB, but after that it's just like any of the other 40 at bats. Plus, won't he see better pitches with T-Riot and the heart of the order protecting him, versus Blanco? So it didn't matter when Neifi and Corey were hitting 1-2 in front of Lee as opposed to 7-8? It's generally accepted, I think, that lineup configuration does not matter significantly in wins and losses. If you're deciding whether to hit Ruth ahead of Gehrig or vice versa, I totally agree. If you're deciding whether Neifi hits second (with his .300 OBP) or Murton and his .360 OBP, I think over the course of a season, it can cost you enough runs to make difference. But that would be nearly impossible to prove. There have been studies along these lines - I think Tangotiger proved that creating optimal batting orders can be expected to add 1-2 wins by the end of a season. Batting order is one of the most straightforward, concrete decisions a manager can make, so I disagree with the argument that it's trivial and doesn't rate discussion. Optimal batting orders may add 1-2 wins a season, but I have my doubts as to what an optimal batting order actually is. I don't think it's what conventional baseball wisdom would define as an optimal lineup.

What's the gay joke?

That JD Drew. I'd really hate to have him on the Cubs. He doesn't hustle.

So, Felix Hernandez is going into the 8th with a no hitter going.

I wish the Cubs had Felix Hernandez.

Is there a problem with playing the hot hand? Yes, yes there is. So when Murton was slumping horribly last season you'd still play him? This isn't the prospect development league. It's MLB. Wins and losses matter. Murton isn't some wildcard unknown, he put up an 800+ OPS last year in pretty much a full season. Floyd needs to be pretty much at his best to be worthy of more than just giving him a day off. "Playing the hot hand" is way too arbitrary and puts too much pressure on either player to produce or get benched. Either platoon them, or let one get the lions share of the starts. Considering there's probably not going to be a significant difference between Floyd and Murton v. RHP(at least one large enough to justify stunting further development of Murton, the difference between them defensively, etc.), then Murton should be starting the majority of the time. So far it looks like Lou has done the right thing production-wise. To say otherwise is 20-20 hindsight. Floyd has been great. Murton has been lackluster and impatient at the plate. His infield dribblers remind me of the first half of 2006. Infield hits galore. It wasn't until the second half that he started putting it in the air and driving it. I'm sure Murton will get his playing time through merit. He's a good player (not great). Floyd is outproducing him at 80% health right now. Over the long hall Murton will take ABs away from Floyd, but he'll have to earn it. He's not such a great prospect that a team will throw away productivity temporarily to develop him. That's the nature of the game. I don't know if you've been watching the games or following via gameday/radio, but Floyd is making very solid contact. Loud outs. Booming XBH. Murton is lost. You don't have to follow splits to get the most productivity out of a platoon. Part of it's it who's hot now. If you want to play some guy b/c of last year's stats, that's not going to work. Is Soriano raking right now? Izturis? DeRosa? Play the hot hand. It has been SIX GAMES. SIX. 6! Do you not understand how utterly insignificant a sample that is? This is the problem with playing the hot hand. Players look good and bad sometimes, and it varies sometimes at bat to at bat, game to game, series to series. To "play the hot hand" is just playing roulette with the lineup, short hot streaks are so far from being predictive it's ridiculous. At the same time, you want to reward good performance, but there needs to be a structure in place for that. Murton was better at everything last year. He's younger, healthier, a better defender, and is probably better at cards. He should be getting the majority of the starts. Now, this isn't necessarily a criticism of what's happened to this point, because it has only been SIX GAMES, but over the haul Murton needs to be getting the lion's share of the playing time unless something goes very wrong for him and very right for Floyd, for an extended period of time. Was Floyd not significantly injured last season? It's pretty dubious to rate Floyd vs. Murton based on last year's numbers. So far Floyd has outproduced Murton. The numbers don't lie (not to mention the naked eye for anyone that's watched the games). Murton has sucked so far. Absolutely sucked. Will that continue throughout the season? Nope. But playing Floyd over Murton has helped us win games so far. You're arguing long term and I'm arguing short term. Have you seen Murton lately? Crap. Until he gets it figured out, Floyd's the man. Sample size, shmample size. We're talking short term. Sample size is irrelevant. Geebus, Neifi was good at times. Are you suggesting we should have played some SS stud in a slump b/c his overall numbers warranted the start? This is baseball. Everyone slumps. A smart manager can take advantage of the depth on his roster. Otherwise he'd be playing his starters every day no matter what b/c their career numbers suggested it. You can't be serious. I mean, really, are you? I'm glad you used such an extreme example, too, because it illustrates the point incredibly well and I don't have to take the blame for it (since the Floyd/Murton situation isn't nearly as clear, although I'm in agreement with those who say Murton should get the majority of PA's). The best decision isn't the one that turns out better in hindsight. It's the one that is made based upon the most amount of good information possible. Whether it works out is irrelevant. Let's say ARod is this "SS stud in a slump" that you refer to. It would never, and I mean NEVER, be a good decision to start Neifi over him (at least, if you're only taking into account potential performance and not fatigue or injury). I don't care if ARod is 0 for his last 25. We have thousands of plate appearances to tell us that ARod is an elite hitter. We also have thousands of PA's to tell us that Neifi is one of the worst hitters in MLB history. I don't care what either has done for the past few games. Even if Neifi goes 3 for 4 in this hypothetical game while ARod would've gone 0 for 4 in that game, it still wouldn't have been the right decision. It would've just been a bad decision that luckily worked out well. Do you play poker? If you had pocket 4's and you know an all in player before you has pocket aces, would you call hoping to hit a set because you've had a good run with pocket 4's the last few times you got them? (Or, to make the situation more analogous, would you trade your pocket aces for pocket 4s because you've hit a few sets recently with pocket 4's but have had your aces cracked the last couple times?) Hell no. You fold (or, for the other scenario, you sure as hell don't trade). You even fold pocket kings there. And if you call with either hand and get lucky and crack the other guy's aces, it still was a terribly bad play and the wrong decision. Sorry about the poker analogy, but I just felt like it worked pretty well here. There's, admittedly, a difference in that there's a human element in baseball, and it might help 'stud SS in slump' out, mentally, to sit out a day if he's had a bad run. That's a far cry from "sit him because he's cold and player 'y' is hot," though, and it's more of a long term type of decision to give him a day off here or there to clear his head than a short term one. If I'm in a one game playoff, and ARod is 2 for his last 15 and Neifi is 9 for his last 18, I'm starting ARod 100 times out of 100. Ok, done rambling.

Some serious ownage of the garbage "clutch" myth in this thread. I love it.