David

Sure, but then the playoffs and the champion comes down to what amounts to a crapshoot in the playoffs.

Even if they win the division, this team is not winning the World Series. I love statements like this that have no basis in reality. If they win the division, they have approximately a 1/8 chance of winning the World Series. Just like every other playoff team (some marginally more, some marginally less). There's no curses, jinxes, or inherent failure genes in the players. There's nothing to keep bad players from playing very well or great players from playing very poorly in a stretch of a few games, especially in a game like baseball. I don't understand why people continue to make absolute statements like this when it's obvious that the playoffs in baseball are, for all intents and purposes, a slightly weighted crapshoot.

Larry Meyer on Bears.com is typically nothing more than a propaganda-ist/mouthpiece for the team, so it is weird how much he seems to pimp the idea of Plaxico in his latest mail-bag. Makes you think the Bears are looking in that direction...assuming he doesn't end up in jail.

Well, not necessarily. The best team and the champion aren't the same thing, especially given the nature of the NFL playoff format. That said, the analysis is still a bunch of nonsense. I can't see any measure being worthwhile other than winning the Super Bowl. If that's not the measure, then it's just blowing wind. Therefore, if your system isn't predicting Super Bowl winners -- it's rather pointless. We can argue who's good and who's not until we're old & gray, and still accomplish nothing. I guess that's why you wind up with articles like this in the offseason: people want to argue pointlessly about stuff. For me, who wins the Super Bowl: they had the great season, they had the success. After all the pontificating about who might be good and who might not be, that pretty much ends it for me. What I'm saying is that there's a team out there that is intrinsically the best. It may not manifest itself in the results, but there's a team out there that has a (marginally) better chance than the rest to win it all. It can be difficult to measure, and even if it were measurable, it's not going to predict the Super Bowl winner all that often because the Super Bowl winner is just the last team standing after a group of team qualifies for the playoffs and then purposefully eliminates all but one team in a series of single elimination one on one match-ups based on a bracket. Lots of things stand in the way of a team becoming the last one standing. I don't know if what I'm trying to say there makes sense, but basically, the best team will win the Super Bowl sometimes, but the Super Bowl winner isn't necessarily the best team. Had the Cardinals held on at the end of last year's game (when they very easily could have), for instance, they would've been the Champions, but I think very few people would argue that they were the best team in the NFL last year. The year before, the Patriots were probably the best team in football by a decent margin but lost to the Giants in the big game. The fact that there's so much parity in the league and the fluky nature of the game itself makes it even harder for me to say that whoever wins the Super Bowl = the best team. I guess I've always separated the idea of the "best team" and the "champion," though. The latter is a result. It's the one that came through, after the fact. It's the one that ultimately performed the best in terms of winning football games and winning important ones. The former is the one who simply had the best chance to come through. Can be the same team, but not necessarily.

Well, not necessarily. The best team and the champion aren't the same thing, especially given the nature of the NFL playoff format. That said, the analysis is still a bunch of nonsense.

Who are we dying to get onto the roster?

Is it possible that Randy Wells is actually good? I didn't know the whole back story on him (on how he was recently converted and hasn't been pitching for very long)...

The only thing I remember about the Escobar incident was him getting all crazy trying to stare down our players all the way into the dugout.

Being all thuggish last year vs. us.

Imagine if he gets the no-no and misses the perfect game on that.

Yes, good that one of the better hitters on the team is hurt so an inferior hitter against righties can play. Bradley is good? Have I missed the first 60 games of this season or something? I'd rather have Hoffpauir, Fox out there You must've missed like 7 years of Bradley's career, I guess.

I actually meant that idiotic rating system that Rogers came up with an offseason or two ago.

Almost as bad as Phil Rogers.

This too.

Yea, that team was really good.

If we win tomorrow, I'll feel real good about this week.

Without even looking, I bet Jr.'s career strikeout average is significantly skewed by the injury shortened years and the first year or two of his career where he might've had less playing time.

I don't get at all how this means anything. It doesn't

He just made it even better by saying Soriano was a 2B with the Yankees and then for a while with the Nationals before moving to LF with the Cubs.

I'll probably regret asking, but what's he saying? (game blacked-out where I am) He's talking about Harden coming back and Marshall being moved to the bullpen as if it's a given. I really, really hope that is not going to happen. I bet you it will. If there was any doubt, the way Wells has pitched has pretty much cemented it. Between that and Lou's obsession with L/R matchups, I'd put it at like 90%.

I really like Blanco's glove.

soriano and sandberg. probably a better guess than mine

and i guessed that before they said it, i swear

i'll guess jeff kent and ryne sandberg

I should have been clearer, in that case. My bad. Can we move on now? Didn't mean to sound argumentative. I just pointed that out because I was going to argue with the Cards fan and then realized that I couldn't. :-"