javy knows my name

That doesn't mean it's not where he should be, and that's all I'm arguing. Lineup structure, to me, matters only in that the best hitters are getting the most at-bats/seeing the best pitches. Other than that, don't care.

Poop on that. Switch Soto and Barney and it looks infinitely better.

He's always been a pitcher (at least in pro baseball; I don't know about before that). Last year was just his second year in the minors; he was drafted in 2009. He came over from the Dodgers along with Smit and a position player, right? I, too, thought he was the position player

It's certainly not common, but that's how I would describe someone like Soto's game. He's a patient hitter, but really aggressive with anything in the zone. I would love Castro to force pitchers to stay in the zone more. He wouldn't need to hit a ton of homeruns to really rake if he could add a few more walks and make pitchers challenge him.

WOAHHHH JERSEY'S BACK

Yep. CSN+ is non-HD and an absolute formatting nightmare. Heh, I get CSN+ in HD but not WCIU, so I feel the exact opposite. Do you get where the screen is so effed up that you can't see the score/ticker/logo no matter what format you choose? Fury

Yep. CSN+ is non-HD and an absolute formatting nightmare.

Thanks. I was trying to find a way to make fun of that.

All the images are blocked at my stupid work :(

IBL

Putting statistics (Putts per GIR, Putts per round) can be very misleading. If you're into this kind of thing, check out this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703791704575114071142473884.html This stat actually confirms what many people have suspected for a long time. Ernie Els is a horrific putter, although traditional putting stats haven't always shown it. Mickelson actually ranked 149 in this stat last year. During the time of his dominance, Tiger Woods was by far and away the best putter around with this stat. Anyone who's watched a lot of golf in the past 13 years has seen Tiger Woods drain 10-20 footers with major championships and big tournaments on the line, over and over again. And 5 footers? Forget about it. Gimmes. Conversely, you can go back and count multiple majors where Phil Mickelson has come up just short, and missed many 4 footers along the way. He would've won the Masters a few years back when he blistered the front nine, he 3 putted a critical time against David Toms in the last round of the PGA, he could've won the US open against Payne Stewart. Those are just the majors I can think of off the top of my head, and I know there are more. Everyone remembers his drive on 18 at Winged Foot. But I honestly feel that his putter has probably let him down more than his driver in his career. Tiger has won a lot spraying his driver as well. Many of Phil Mickelson's ball striking woes (and he's a damn good iron player) are covered up by the fact that he has the best short game in the world. His short game dominance is almost on par with Tiger's putting dominance. I think it also has masked some of his poor putting in the past. He has worked on his putting a lot. But Phil is just not a great putter, and he used to be a worse. Tiger Woods, on the other hand, has won 14 majors because he's the greatest putter that has ever played the game. Yes, he hits it a mile, and hits incredible shots. But his putting was inhuman. If he gets back there, then he will be dominant again. Great post, and thanks for the link.

If we lose tonight, it is a GUARANTEE that we are SWEPT by the Astros.

Ah man, I was right with you the whole way until RBIs and clutch-ness

Who's gonna be there to make sure you watch it?

1. Then it's not up to him 2. Why?

Bonds will get in the hall of fame when hell freezes over. No way the writers let him in with the combination of the steroid issue and the crappy way he treated the media all those years. Man, I wish I'd thought of that

I'm watching this on tv and the score/logo everything is cut off. Doesn't matter what I do to the picture format. I feel dirty watching it

AUSTRALIA

Unbelievable is the word that immediately came to my mind. It's not really the right word.

based on the numbers he produced, definitely. considering that he's been caught using PEDs twice now, it's pretty reasonable to think that he's been using throughout most of his major league career. so would he have been a HoF player without them? hard to say. but for most of his career they weren't banned by the league and everyone was playing under the same lack of rules, so based on that i'd vote for him. Hasn't he actually gotten caught 3 times now? He got caught from that 2003 anonymous testing that ended up not being so anonymous, then in 09 he got caught with the masking agent, and now. He would have only gotten punished for 2 of them but 3 different times over an 8 year period he was caught using PED's. I'd say its pretty likely he was using them his entire career, putting all of his numebrs in jeopardy. He's gonna have a hard time making the HOF. If a proven steroid user makes the HOF, that will open the floodgates and then he'll get in. But until that happens he'll be standing on the sidelines like McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, Palmeiro and the rest. i'd say bonds (and to some extent clemens) are different cases because the numbers are so overwhelmingly good. bonds is the home run king, #3 all time in OPS+ and #2 in WAR among position players. clemens is #2 in WAR among pitchers and #10 in ERA+. i'd say you could make an easy case that even without PED use, those guys were HoF-caliber players. whereas some of the more borderline players - mcgwire, sosa, palmeiro - may not have been HoF players without "help." I think you're right. I also don't think the committee is going to see it that way. If they can keep an extremely deserving, decent guy out for kicking his heels a few times, what chance does an [expletive] who cheated have?

NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR FANTASY TEAM hahaha

I...am also not a doctor

I audibly gasped when I read this. God dammit

Learned three things about Kevin McHale today (I don't watch a ton of NBA): He's fat He has a lisp that makes him sound like teh gay He has a Canadian/Yooper accent As far as Derrek Rose goes - I already knew he was awesome

+1. + the increase in payroll, overall bad team. Not to mention, I didn't like how Ricketts said he was going to spend $ on the draft and then didn't. Yeah, you can't be mad about that anymore. It's well-known now that he is literally building for the future in Latin America. A huge presence there is probably more important than spending big every year in the draft (with the exception of this year and 2001). I didn't read about the Cubs signing any big name Latin players, mostly just smaller slot guys. Ricketts better spend this June. That would be figuratively building. He's upgrading our training facilities down there to the tune of 4 mil, iirc