soccer10k

It will be a mistake if the Cubs offer those types of contracts to those two pitchers. I would much rather have the Cubs pass on both of them but if I had to pick one for the Cubs to go after, I would go with Schmidt. Although 11 mil per year is too much to offer him.

Key to the game: Score more than the other team. I've heard that the team that scores more wins something like 98% of the games played. Not sure on that stat though.

John Rocker? Honestly? Both made some extremely offensive comments in a public forum. Rocker gets absolutely lambasted and destroyed in the media after his comments. Rocker had stories run about him every single time he went to New York to play. Ozzie makes his comments last fall and nobody talks about it. I don't even remember it. There isn't any difference between what they both said. Ozzie gets let off the hook because English isn't his first language and that's crap. Note: If the mods want to combine this with the other thread, that's fine. I figured I went off on a bit of a tangent so I made a new thread.

Official report is that Owen tore his ACL. Link

Does that mean it's not travel related? My point is that if you do 2-2-1-1-1 or 2-3-2, do it for every series. Changing something as significant as home court advantage should be consistent, no matter what the reason behind it. While I agree with you that each round should be the same to keep it consistent, I believe that the NBA has a different format from the MLB because of where the teams are located. MLB has east and west coast teams in each league while the NBA separates the east and west coast teams. I'm not defending it, I'm just trying to provide reasoning behind it.

It can't be the worst lineup ever because Walker and Nevin are in there. Dusty could have easily started Bynum and/or Womack as well. As a side note, on first glance at the lineups I thought "wow, those lineups look a little long, did Bruce screw up," then remembered that the game is being played in Cleveland so he added the pitcher (obviously not batting) which made 10. ](*,)

While this is probably true, how much of an effect will playing in the AL West, namely Oakland, and moving to the hitter's paradise of the NL Central offset the benefit? Zito has not been a special pitcher for quite some time. His ERA+ was between 125 and 175 for 4 years, but he's been at just 105 and 116 the past 2 years. He might be off to a better start this year, but if he stays in that lower range he doesn't deserve the type of money people are talking about. It's interesting to note that baseball reference lists Mike Hampton as the most similar pitcher. Hampton signed his big free agent deal at the same age (actually a little younger) as Zito will be when he signs his deal. And he was actually coming off better years than Barry. I agree with you. I guess I didn't make it clear that I don't really want to sign Zito. I live out West and hear about him all the time and think he is overrated. I was just listing one theoretical positive of signing him. Obviously there are numerous negatives, includeing the point you made, that I believe outweigh the positives. He had two spectacular years (2000 and 2002), two very good years (2001 and 2003), one good year (2005), and one eh year (2004). The trend is not moving in the right direction. If he didn't win the Cy Young in 2002, I don't think there would be as many people talking about him as a premier pitcher. But because he has a Cy to his resume, he gets more pub.

Who cares if there is somebody to replace him? You don't need a closer to win 70 games. At the rate he's going, you might have to replace him anyway by next season. Besides, Howry is having a much better year and could easily step into the role Howry is more affordable and has better peripherals. I'd rather keep him and deal Dempster, whose status as a "proven" closer might bring back more value in trade. How do you know Howry could step into the role of closer? He's only had one season (1999) in which he recorded more than 10 saves. Sure he's had a bunch of holds, but LaTroy Hawkins did as well and we know how that turned out. I agree with you that it wouldn't be a big deal to trade Dempster and that we could find somebody else to fill in, but I just don't want to ruin another perfectly good set up man. Who knows, I could be wrong and Howry could step in and be lights out, but for this year at least, why not try somebody else out as closer, maybe somebody from the minors if we trade Dempster?

I'm not a big fan of Zito but one positive to signing him would be his going from the American League to the National League which means his ERA would likely drop a bit. I don't think the Cubs should shell out the money it is going to take to get him (like somebody else said, in the $12 mil range) especially for 5 years. Of course, I think that either the Yankees or Red Sox will offer Zito more than anybody else. As for Schmidt, I wouldn't mind seeing him in a Cubs uniform if we gave him a 2 or 3 year deal. But they would have to be careful about the amount of money they give him because Schmidt could be the successor to Kerry Wood. He has missed a few starts in each of the past few years because of arm trouble and over 105 P/GS for each of the past 3 years (4 if you include this year). I'm not saying we shouldn't, but I would like to see a semi-incentive laden deal. Give Schmidt the opportunity to earn a couple extra million a year.

Are you kidding me? At least Pedro admitted he picked the WBC because he hates soccer. This is a joke of a question. It is without a doubt the World Cup. Just wait until the knockout stage of the tournament because the fans are going to get even crazier then.

Spain would have to put in four but I agree, it could happen. If it did, and even if it didn't but Spain put in 3 goals, then Spain would become the only team to put in 10 goals in the group stage.

Time to post the games for Thursday June 22. We will have the final group stage games for both Groups E and F. Here are the current standings: Group E Team W D L P GS GA GD Italy 1 1 0 4 3 1 2 Czech Republic 1 0 1 3 3 2 1 Ghana 1 0 1 3 2 2 0 United States 0 1 1 1 1 4 -3 United States v Ghana 7 AM PT ESPN Italy v Czech Republic 7 AM PT ESPN 2 Nobody in the group has advanced yet. Italy wins the group with a win or a tie and either a USA-Ghana tie or a USA victory. Italy also advances with a loss and a USA-Ghana tie. Czech Republic wins the group with a victory and a Ghana loss or tie or if Ghana doesn't win by as many goals as the Czech Republic. Czech Republic advances with a tie and a Ghana loss or tie. Ghana wins the group with a victory and an Italy tie. Ghana will advance with a victory or a tie and a Czech Repulic loss. USA will advance with a victory and a Czech Republic loss. Obviously there are other scenarios involving goal diffentials but I don't feel like going into those. Group F Team W D L P GS GA GD Brazil 2 0 0 6 3 0 3 Australia 1 0 1 3 3 3 0 Croatia 0 1 1 1 0 1 -1 Japan 0 1 1 1 1 3 -2 Brazil v Japan 12 PM PT ESPN Australia v Croatia 12 PM PT ESPN 2 Brazil wins the group with a win or a tie but has already advanced. Australia advances with a victory or a tie and a Japan loss or tie. Croatia advances with a victory and a Japan loss or tie. Japan advances with a victory and an Australia-Japan tie. Again, other scenarios that I don't want to go into. The winner of Group E will play the runner up of Group F (and vice versa) in the Round of 16.

Final Group C Standings Team W D L P GS GA GD Argentina 2 1 0 7 8 1 7 Netherlands 2 1 0 7 3 1 2 Ivory Coast 1 0 2 0 5 6 -1 Serbia & Montenegro 0 0 3 0 2 10 -8 Congrats to Serbia & Montenegro for being the first, and likely only team to give up 10 goals in the group stage of the tournament.

Shaq took his first shot at Kobe and the Lakers when talking to Stephen A. Smith saying "We only had 0.9 of an argument, and I wasn't even involved." I can't wait for the Kobe jabs to continue all offseason long.

Final Group D Standings Team W D L P GS GA GD Portugal 3 0 0 9 5 1 4 Mexico 1 1 1 4 4 3 1 Angola 0 2 1 2 1 2 -1 Iran 0 1 2 1 2 6 -4

This thread should be titled "Ozzie Guillen has his panties in a bunch...AGAIN"

Doesn't he always give credit to the other team and make it seem like the Cubs were powerless to do anything?

Yup. That will just about do it.

Hey Ozzie. America is your country now too because you're a citizen. Learn how to behave appropriately. Good column by Couch as well.

Ozzie Guillen is a foul mouthed punk and needs to learn some restraint.

Yeah, Glendon will eat the apple, and more. In all seriousness, I wouldn't mind having the Cubs pay for their contract for the rest of this year (not the following two years in Jones' case) if that's what it took for the deal to go through.

Angola gets a goal and now leads 1-0. Angola will need to put in 2 more goals (assuming the Portugal-Mexico match stays the same) because the tiebreaker after goal differential is most goals scored. Mexico has 4 and Angola only has 1 so Mexico is still safe right now.

Quite possibly the worst dive of all time by Luis Perez as gets his second yellow card. The guy didn't even get touched. That was horrible. EDIT: I don't know who Rob Stone's announcing partner is for the Mexico-Portugal match but he is an idiot. He's steadfastly trying to defend Perez's dive saying that "there could have been a little bit of contact" which there wasn't and "it might not have been a dive" which it most definately was. Perez deserved a yellow card for blatently diving in the box for the sole purpose of trying to get another penalty kick for his team. He deserved a yellow card for that. It's unfortunate for him that it was his second yellow of the game, but that's his problem not mine.

Omar Bravo hs a chance to send Mexico into the second round on the penatly kick but shanked badly. The goalie went the wrong way as well. Too bad Angola is scoring goals at the same frequency at which the Cubs score runs.

Oh, man, Go Angola!! It's 2-1 now and not looking good for Angola. They haven't scored a goal in the WC yet and will have to put in 2 to have a chance to advance. I don't think Portugal is going to try as hard in the second half. We'll see though.