soccer10k

Kind of figured it would end up somewhere near there after what Strasburg got. Add an extra year and an extra million per year and you're up to 8 for 288. He got the Yankees to add on the extra year.

What’s that? It’s for a team show you say? [tweet] [/tweet]

Take one guess what happened LOL.

The semi with Clemson should be a good one. I feel bad for whichever of OSU/LSU gets the 2 seed.

Giannis is such a cheat code. Still think over the course of a 7 game series they can be beat in the playoffs and even though those team didn’t have Giannis Bud is kinda doing in Milwaukee what he did in Atlanta for 2-3 years. Great regular seasons then falter in the playoffs with not making the right adjustments/too 1 dimensional on offense. He’s definitely a cheat code, though they’ve taken a step up from last year. They’re currently at a +13.6 differential on the year. NBA record is 12.3. Obviously they’re not going to keep that up all year and glancing at their schedule, it looks as if they’ve had an easy road so far. The only thing that stopped them last year was Kawhi, and even then it took Toronto winning a 2 OT game to keep that series alive. Barring other teams making trades or figuring things out, they’ll be a heavy favorite in the East. It’s pretty impressive that Giannis won the MVP last year and got better.

The Bucks are really good.

I could see them putting Oklahoma in over LSU but doubt they would go with Utah. Of course Utah is ahead of OU in the rankings right now but who knows.

Here’s a situation where I don’t like replay. End of the first half and Auburn guy gets tackled with one second left except the clock runs to 0. Auburn has no timeouts but picked up a first down so the clock would have temporarily stopped. They review and determine that the clock should have stopped with 1 second left. This allows Auburn to get the FG unit on the field and set. Have them a free chance at 3 points. There was no way Auburn would have gotten set to run a play had they stopped the clock at 0:01. I still generally like replay, there are just kinks that need to be worked out.

The Raiders are kind of garbage. They’re 6-5 but all 6 wins were by one score. They should be a 4-7 team right now. On a related not I have no idea how DVOA is calculated but how isn’t Balt-Mia on there?

So the Rams are probably effed for the next few years, right? Barring McVay pulling some miracle with Goff. If the biggest bargain in the NFL is a good/great QB on a rookie contract, the worst thing is a mediocre/bad QB getting paid a ton of money. It's looking like the latter is what the Rams have in Goff. The Rams have also traded their first rounders in 2020 and 2021 to the Jags for Ramsey. I know things change really quickly in sports, but boy do they appear to be in a bad spot unless Goff/McVay figures it out.

Managers definitely do get fired too quickly. I’d forgotten until the other day that Ranieri won the title with Leicester, won his UCL group the next year (it was weak but they still did it) and was fired after they lost their first R16 leg to Sevilla because they were in 17th.

This could truly be one of the worst unforced errors in the history of sports business. They make it to the mountain top of super clubs after decades of being second class and then they hire someone who is the antithesis of their culture and business model. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, just playing devil's advocate here... What should they have done with Poch? Last 24 league games (12 this year and 12 last) and they have 25 points. So for almost 2/3 of a season, they played like a relegation team. And they couldn't score while playing a chunk of their normal team against a 4th division side. I know they had the UCL run and that was amazing, but that can't be the only thing you're judged on as a manager. This wasn't some string of unlucky results in the league either where Spurs dominated but couldn't win. They got outplayed by teams like Sheffield and Brighton. They need an 86th minute goal just to tie Watford. In 5 of 12 games they held a lead and didn't win. They also blew two leads in the UCL. I'm not saying Poch was the whole problem or even the main problem. But he's certainly not blameless. He can't be. How long do you let it go on before you make a change? I really don't know what the right answer is here. This is strictly regarding the Poch firing, not the Mourinho hiring. I won't even try to defend that because you're spot on with that part.

With regards to firing Poch, I'm torn. On one hand, this was the best stretch in the team's history. On the other, things were horribly off with the team. Poch clearly had a foot out the door. He talked at the beginning of the season how he would have quit Spurs had the won the UCL final. I would have understood it because there was nowhere to go but down after that. I know he returned but it was like Zidane leaving Real after their third title. Nothing else to accomplish really. But something had gone stale at the club. Had they just been bounced by City in the UCL QF last year, there would have been more talk about it going into the season. But the UCL run kind of papered over the cracks. With 12 games to go last year they were in 3rd and closer to City and Liverpool than whoever was in 4th. It was a dumb conversation because they were never winning the title but the media was actually wondering if it was a 3 team race. From that point on they took 11 points out of 36 and only finished in the top four because Arsenal and ManU tripped over their own feet even worse than Spurs did. I totally understand that Poch was frustrated because they didn't buy a single player for two transfer windows. Any manager would be for any club out there. But he'd also gotten away from what got them to where they were. They used to be a high press team. Not anymore. Why go away from what was working. There's been talk about how the players have been unhappy with his new tactics, whatever that means. This sucks. Poch is a great manager and he'll get almost any job he wants next. The best of luck to him. But sometimes you need a change and this team clearly needed some sort of change. Levy isn't going anywhere and you can't just change the whole team. Will this be a good move long term? I don't think so, but it's certainly possible. Maybe this was as far Poch could take them. I doubt it, but it's possible. As for Jose Mourinho:

Nice bad beat in the Niners-Cards game today (or good win depending on the side).

Tua done for the season.

From that post on... .330 .425 .617 1.042 with 14 HR at home .317 .417 .653 1.070 with 16 HR on the road Maybe he learned people were on to him? Or maybe he chickened out and got scared? Or maybe he just had a good 10-12 games at home?

Yeah, he won’t be playing for a few weeks.

why are you suggesting/assuming that they were doing this on every pitch @Minute Maid Park the entire season Astros team-wide postseason splits, 2017 home: 862 OPS away: 632 OPS the videos above showed games in the regular season. Doesn’t mean they do it every game or for an entire game when they do it. Maybe they only do it in close and late situations.

Ok Mike, now tell us how their pitchers are cheating also.

He only pitched once in Houston in that series. Game 7 was in LA. Obviously could have mattered in Game 3.

[tweet] [/tweet]

So Bama should be out, right, barring some weird stuff happening? For sure teams ahead of them at the end of the year: 13-0 Clemson 13-0 LSU or 12-1 Georgia 13-0 OSU or 12-1 Penn St. Then you've got a 12-1 Oregon or 12-1 Utah in the Pac-12 and a potentially 12-1 Oklahoma in the Big 12 (theoretically Baylor could go undefeated but I doubt that happens). I'd say if 11-1 Georgia beats 12-0 LSU in the SEC title game, there's no way Bama gets in. The only reason they got in a couple years ago was because OSU got hammered in their loss. Oregon, Oklahoma and Utah all have close losses. So Bama probably needs to hammer Auburn, have Oregon win the Pac-12 close, LSU win the SEC and hope Baylor beats OU the first time but loses the title game. Then you'd have Bama beating Auburn who beat Oregon and a probably underwhelming Baylor.

I thought LSU missed their chance to put this game away early but they’re going to be up 20 at the half and they get the ball to start the second half.

Thought for sure Minnesota was going to blow this game.

Sounds like the Rickettses are meddling in the hiring process.