soccer10k

What people are saying is that our offense is so bad we can't afford to give him that chance. And if we give up on next season, then there are players more deserving than Theriot that should get a shot. Why would we even consider giving up on next season? Ridiculous. If the choice was between Ronny Cedeno or Ryan Theriot starting at second base next year, who would you pick? I wouldn't think twice before choosing Theriot. We've seen what Cedeno can do playing full time and .612 OPS is horrendous. 23 year-old middle infield prospects typically don't have great offensive seasons in their first full year, particularly when they have been rushed and have had only 1/2 a year of AAA. I think you're giving up on Cedeno too early. While I agree with many that having an Izturis/Cedeno combo would be horrible offensively, I'd rather have it than a Theriot/Izturis combo, simply because Cedeno has more potential. If you're going to rebuild, you should have the players out there with the most potential. And if you're going for the playoffs, you probably shouldn't have either out there with Izturis. Let's just throw out a hypothetical here. What if the Cubs acquired Andruw Jones? A starting lineup of... 1B: Lee 2B: Theriot SS: Izturis 3B: Ramirez LF: Murton CF: Jones RF: Jones C: Barrett would be a solid lineup. Three big bats in the middle along with J. Jones, Barrett, and Murton. You are making it sound like we need a lineup like the Yankees here.

What people are saying is that our offense is so bad we can't afford to give him that chance. And if we give up on next season, then there are players more deserving than Theriot that should get a shot. Why would we even consider giving up on next season? Ridiculous. If the choice was between Ronny Cedeno or Ryan Theriot starting at second base next year, who would you pick? I wouldn't think twice before choosing Theriot. We've seen what Cedeno can do playing full time and .612 OPS is horrendous.

Theriot has 5 HR in over 2300 Minor League plate appearances. His IsoP is an almost humorous .066. He was old for his leagues too, he simply hasn't shown any ability to hit for power. Well, power isn't the "end all/be all" to making a ballplayer. There are plenty of solid players with little to no power...guys like David Eckstein, Mark Loretta have made careers out of playing the game hard, and playing it right. Besides power is a requirment out of 2B, unless you have a Jeff Kent/Jose Vidro/ type 2b. Theriot for 2b in 07. Even lightweights like Eckstein and Loretta had minor league IsoP's pushing .100. Power is a requirement out of every position, some you're able to get more than others, but hitting as few XBH's as Theriot does just isn't going to cut it. If he's the only option we might as well bring up EPatt and see if he isn't overmatched before trotting out Theriot regularly. Or play Mike bloody Fontenot, even though he came down with a mysterious injury at the end fo the year. Yeah, let's bring somebody up to the ML too early and have him fail. That's a brilliant idea. I've seen that ending before.

I just don't see how you can be so definative about something like this. While I agree that it's not likely, you just can't be 100% sure about this sort of thing. You can go ahead and cite all the minor league statistics you want and compare Theriot to any player you want to but the fact remains that there is just one Ryan Theriot and you don't know what his major league career is going to end up looking like. To say he is a "bench player. Period." is just stupid. Let the guy perform. Give him a chance.

Aramis Wins!!!

Riding the Pine til the End of Time by the rookies on the team.

I don't expect anyone to take this seriously because it's from an ND outlet and obviously it didn't have any impact on the outcome of the game, but I agree fully with this paragraph, and it hasn't just been the Michigan game. First, I do agree with him that they shouldn't have Big 10 officials to call this game. As I stated in the other thread, in a game between two teams from opposing conferences, the officials should come from a third conference. I do think that a game between two BCS teams should have officials from a BCS conference though. Second, I don't understand why this guy is complaining about the holding calls when in the very next paragraph he states: If the offensive line "sucks" as he so nicely put it, don't you think it's possible that they hold the players on the opposing team more because they, well, "suck" more than their opponent's offensive line?

With Georgia at Florida being scheduled for the same day (Oct 28) Missouri-OU doesn't have a chance for GameDay. That's a CBS game, right? If Mizzou-OU is the saturday night game, I'd think they'd come to CoMo rather than fly Herbstreit from Florida to Missouri. Especially if neither team loses before then(which would mean OU beating Texas and Mizzou being 8-0). Heck, poll wise it would probably be a similar matchup, especially with Florida having a chance to lose at Auburn the week before. It doesn't list anything on ESPN.com's schedules as to what channel but the Florida-Georgia game is at 1230. There don't appear to be any marquee games that weekend that are TBA. Obviously that could change in 5 weeks but we'll have to wait and see.

Blow up the team. This decision is even easier if ARam opts out and signs with another team.

Just checked the box score and it seems ARam is having a decent night so far.

On the Mizzou end, the Colorado game next week will be on FSN in many regions, which is good news($$ and exposure). Unfortunately it means another 11:30 start for those attending. Also, the Mizzou website lists the following two games(@ Tech, @ aTm) as TBA, but ESPN has them as 7 PM and 2PM EST starts respectively. Could be good news for Cubbies75's hope that the Tech game is national. Congrats on your hot start TT! When does your team play a divison 1 team? :D After each win the better the exposure. If you guys can continue to go undefeated soon enough you'll have Corso gracing your stage. Corso said something this past weekend along the lines of: "Watch out for the Missouri Tigers." It'd be awesome if we were playing well enough and could get them here for the OU game, if not sooner. Yeah I bet Gameday is just drooling to get to any of those Missouri/Colorado, Mizzou/Texas Tech or Mizzou/A&M matchups. I know you guys are excited about being 3-0 but you aren't going to get much national attention until you play a good team and beat them. Looking at your schedule (wow), you don't get many chances. Gameday doesn't come to watch two unranked or barely ranked Big 12 teams play each other for a game on a regional sports network that isn't available to large parts of the country. You guys could have had your shot to get some major attention nationally and a ranking if Pinkel and your A.D. wouldn't have weasled out of the series with Iowa. Instead you chose Arkansas State last year and Murray State this year. I said OU has a chance on GameDay, not TT, CU, or A&M. With Georgia at Florida being scheduled for the same day (Oct 28) Missouri-OU doesn't have a chance for GameDay.

I'm not sure if the refs necessarily did anything wrong, but the replay officials should have been fired. This is why I hate having refs from one of the conference teams do the games. There are enough teams out there playing out of conference games to have them get refs that are not with either conference. I agree. I know in some of the games they would have the referees from one team's conference and the replay officials for the other team's conference to make it "fair" but that isn't right either. If you have Oklahoma vs Oregon you should not have officials, whether that be on field or replay, from either the Big 12 or the Pac 10.

The Art of Making an Strong and Accurate Throw to Home Plate cowritten by Jacque Jones and Juan Pierre. How to Throw the Ball to First Base by Ronny Cedeno Getting the Opponent Out by Glendon Rusch How to Close a Ballgame by Ryan Dempster Throwing Strikes by the whole pitching staff Winning Ballgames by Angel Guzman Don't suck in spring training or you'll be exiled to AAA by Michael Wuertz

Has anyone ever run any quantitative studies that actually document steroids improve performance? I'm not saying they don't, but I'm also not willing to just accept that they can make a great player superhuman (or a good player great). They certainly didn't turn Alex Sanchez into anybody's definition of "great". btw - I understand the theory of making the athlete stronger, quicker, yada, yada, yada. But the mainstream is just as convinced a corked bat will make the ball go further and that just isn't the case when they test it. Steroids alone aren't just going to improve a players performance on the field because the player still has to work at getting better. If you just take steroids and don't work out at all, they aren't going to build muscle mass because you still have to go and lift weights. A baseball player still has to work out to get bigger and stronger. Somebody else mentioned that steroids help a player heal faster and recover from the daily duty of playing a baseball game. Look at a player like Mark McGwire. Nobody will deny that he had home run power - as evidenced by his 49 HR's as a 23 year old rookie in 1987. But he was also known just as much for his inability to stay healthy. He had 4 great years in 1996-1999 in which he hit 42% of his career home runs (245/583). Steroids likely helped McGwire stay healthy. And there have been studies to prove that steroids do help people heal quicker. This also allows athletes to play a baseball game and then go have a hardcore workout in the gym after the game. The other way steroids help is the bat speed. In defense of potential steroid users I always hear "steroids don't help you recognize/hit a curveball or a 95 mph fastball." This is true. But since steroids help make a player stronger, they also help a player swing a bat faster. If you can get your bat through the zone a split second quicker, you have an extra split second to recognize what the pitch is. That split second is the difference between no contact and contact as well as between bad contact and good contact. That makes all the difference in the world. For a player like Barry Bonds, who has the ability to recognize pitches extremely well, that extra split second will allow him to make better contact on the ball more often than he used to and the extra muscle mass from steroids will help him hit the ball harder and subsequently, with the right swing, farther than he used to. I don't know how much Alex Sanchez worked at being a better baseball player. I also can't comment on the workout habits of other players like Brady Anderson and Luis Gonzalez. But I do know that Barry Bonds worked extremely hard at being a better hitter and worked out hard in the gym as well because the Giants (along with the A's) are the home team out here that the newspapers cover. They detail his offseason regimens and talk about how he gets up early to work out. "Game of Shadows" also talks about how Bonds would frequent a gym with Greg Anderson. That's how he became one of the best players in the game and won 3 MVP awards. It's wasn't the steroids. As myself and rawaction said, Bonds would have been a HOFer and likely would have been a first ballot HOFer even if he didn't, allegedly, take steroids. Bonds was a great player anyway and was likely to go down as one of the best to play the game. But because of the steroids he enters into the discussion of being the best hitter the game has ever seen (i.e. superhuman) and did things nobody has ever done before. To quote my original statement: "steroids can make an average player good and a good player great, but what affect will steroids have on a great player?" The key word is "can". Steroids can make an average player good and a good player great. They won't do that every time if the player doesn't continue to work to make himself a better player. And I do firmly believe that Bonds is the example of what could happen if a great player takes steroids. Steroids are almost akin to natural talent. You can have all the natural talent in the world, but if you don't practice and apply yourself, you are never going to reach your potential. Sure, steroids can help you, but if you don't work at what you do, in this case playing baseball, you aren't going to reach the heights you could reach.

That is partly due to the NFL having a salary cap and the ability for a football team to cut a player and not owe them the rest of the salary.

Thanks for the lineups Bruce. It's good to see Scott Moore in the lineup. Blanco batting 6th? At this rate he'll be batting cleanup by the weekend.

The Chargers and Ravens?? :lol: :lol: I crack myself up. The Chargers I will give you with Tennessee and Oakland. Baltimore also played Oakland but I don't think Tampa Bay is that bad of a team.

I agree, but they weren't scoring points like this last year even against the same bad teams. I'm scared of them right now. Yeah, we'll see what happens the next two weeks at Minnesota and against Seattle.

I guess the question would be, is this just a bad season for Hudson or is it going to become a trend?

You simply can't put that type of comparison on a player who has only been this productive in such a short amount of time. This is just as bad as being overly judgemental of Hill's small sample of poor major league outings. perhaps, but you also cant overlook what he's done and relagate him to a utility role either imo. I'm not overlooking anything, I'm looking at the whole picture. I see no reason why he can't compete for a starting job, but any competent GM should have him penciled in as utility next year (if anything, his small sample of great numbers shows he won't get embarrassed in the bigs) with a much more likely producer as the starter. There's no reason to settle on him at 2B right now. Yeah, I think it depends on what the Cubs do in the offseason and what signings/trades they make. If they sign Soriano to play 2B, then obviously Theriot is out of luck. But if they get power somewhere else, whether that means in LF and or CF, then let Theriot compete for a starting job. But I definitely think the Cubs should try to improve on Theriot at 2B if they have the opportunity to.

Has anybody had a weaker schedule than the Bears so far?

I love it. Thank you.

If that's true, I don't see why it would be any harder to call a guy offsides based on being past or being a yard past. Because you don't have a yardstick to tell you exactly what a yard is. The way it is now, either the attacking player is past the defender or he isn't. Making it a yard would bring a lot more judgement into the decision. Well, it doesn't have to a yard, it could be something like "significantly past". I've seen quite a bit of controversy over the current calls with the "he is or he isn't" system, I don't see why it would be anymore with a different system. Oh yeah. Either way because it's a judgement call, there will be controversy surrounding the call no matter how you change the rule. As long as the rule is in place, there is going to be controversy.

to me it goes like this The earliest he could have possibly started using was mid to late 2000. That year he had a .688 the highest of his career to that point, and had a .730+ SLG after the all star break in 00'. From 2000-2004 He used on and off (unknowingly or knowingly i won't get into). After his injuries and the Balco Investigations, he was off them completely, he hasn't used since. Barry Bonds is one of the most if not the most patient hitters of all time, whether or not you think the steroids inflated his power numbers dramatically, he deserves recognition based on that fact alone. 232 walks (.609 OBP) in one season. That's insane. Before he was "using", based on how he would have fared in his roid years, he would have still made enough of an impact to be considered for the hall. I'd place him at about 450-550 HR's. i guess we will never no though. After the 1998 season Barry Bonds had 411 HR's. He also became a member of the 400HR/400SB club during the season. Up to that point he had won 3 MVP awards. Barring a career ending injury, he likely would have hit 500 HR's and still could have stole 500 bases as well. He would likely have been a first ballot HOFer without the roids which is what makes him (likely) doing roids so much more confusing. He didn't need to. I read the book "Juicing the Game" by Howard Bryant and in there he stated something along the lines of "steroids can make an average player good and a good player great, but what affect will steroids have on a great player?" Barry Bonds is the example of that. They make the great player superhuman.

If that's true, I don't see why it would be any harder to call a guy offsides based on being past or being a yard past. Because you don't have a yardstick to tell you exactly what a yard is. The way it is now, either the attacking player is past the defender or he isn't. Making it a yard would bring a lot more judgement into the decision.