Splendid Splinter

Yeah, great season for the Pacers. They accomplished all the goals I had for them (wish they could have avoided Miami until the Conference Finals . . . but that's all injury-related hindsight because of Rose). The Pacers really need to add a player that can get his own shot of the dribble. That player doesn't even have to be a starter-caliber player. Also, the Pacers can't lose Hibbert. That would be a massive blow. For a team without superstars, taking away a piece -- especially a skilled 7--foot-2 piece -- would be pretty unrecoverable. I could see them having to overpay him because someone offers him a contract, but I don't see how they can't match. Losing him would likely destroy all the progress they've made. Yeah... Pacers need a James Harden/Manu Ginobili because their bench is umm.... well... eh. They'll probably get that guy in the draft (or a PG).

Soooooooooooo..... Ian Stewart doesn't fall into this category?

so you don't like his games stats at all? I know your point was that his goods stats were at PCL even you have to admit he has far outdistanced what you thought he would do. Yes, I know it's a small sample and could change a lot. The Angels are 2nd favorite team and I follow/watch them alot. When Mike Scioscia sings a hitters praises and says he has to have him in the line-up I tend to believe him. The kid is good, and should continue to improve on last year's rookie numbers. Just based on Marmol falling apart and his contract I take that trade in a heartbeat, of course hindsight is 20/20 This is awesome on so many level. http://gifsoup.com/imager.php?id=22330&t=o GIFSoup

Okay ... go ahead and question my sanity ... but that would be an awfully tempting package. I'd have to ponder it some more ... and I'd want a secondary piece or two thrown in there, but Davidson has really taken off and is probably one of the top 3rd base prospects in the minors. That's 1 elite prospect (Bauer), 2 really high quality talents. There is absolutely zero chance that I think that happens, though. Call ME crazy but like Skaggs better than Bauer. Theyd still have to improve the deal. Like I said earlier... if Diamondbacks was asking for Castro... I'm asking for at least Upton and one of Skaggs or Bauer (whoever you like)... No less than that for sure. I would start with Upton/Skaggs or Bauer/another high upside prospect (lets say 7-12 in their top 20 prospects).

Ok.... Castro for Trout? Yes or No?

Pretty sure they had #1 hardest non-conference schedule this year? I thought that was the reason why their RPI was so high?

Here's my problem with it... We all know he Ks quite a bit. The problem is that he never K this much for this long (almost a month). That's why a lot of people are wondering/guessing/making excuses/etc as to why he's doing so bad. Lets me give you an example here... In April (still a really bad month for B Jax), he had 103 PAs (AB+BB- i dont know where else to find any HBP, etc...) and 28 Ks which is good for a 27.2% K rate. It's high, but it's not bad when you take in account of his BBs. This month so far... 80 PAs and 32 Ks for 40% K rate. Past 9 games since he came back from back injury... 38 PAs and 18 Ks for 47.4% K rate. If you would take his 27.2% K rate from April for the past 9 games instead of 47.4%, he would have 8 less Ks. Are you honestly going to tell me that this is who B Jax always been? So there's no reason/problem/excuses for this slump because "he always strike out/who he has always been"? Maybe it could be a mental thing or maybe the back injury is still bothering or maybe he just flat out fell off the cliff with his hitting skills. We all don't know, but we could guess. If it was like 35% then ok, I'll agree with you that he's in a funk/slump and he's K'ing more than usual. Right now... it's so far out of the norm that it's beyond slump/funk/etc. The only comparsion I can think of is like having the shanks in golf as to why he's doing so bad. Still... there was no need to talk about Wilken. Nobody was talking about him until you did. Do you know how hard it is to draft an "impact player" outside of top 10 picks? I'm not counting guys like Pujols and anyone else who were drafted later and max out their potential. In that 2006 draft in the 1st round plus supplemental, I see 3 impact players (Longoria/Kershaw/Lincecum) and all 3 of them were drafted in the top 10. At least Colvin was productive for us in 2010. It could've been worse.

Those numbers are per PA, right? I know he was at around 35% per AB at Iowa last year. Those numbers suggest what's probably typical for the vast majority of baseball players: K's usually go up with level. As he's worked from A- to A+ to AA to AAA, the K-rate continues to grow. And 23-25% is very high to start with, especially relative to PA rather than AB. But the jump to AAA has been pretty severe. Too many breaking balls? He's something of a guess-hitter, and it's harder to guess right against more experienced multi-pitch junkballing AAA guys? It's just gone to his head and he's just a mess now? Oops... those are ABs at each level, not PA. So it would be 106/128 in 2009, 312/268 in 2010, 297/215 last year and 182 so far this year.

Here's the thing... He was at or BELOW 25% until he got to AAA. Good thing is that he's at like 12% BB rate since A+ ball so he's still getting his walks. I can't tell you why he Ks so much because I haven't seen enough of him and the games I've seen of him so far (3 games in Peoria and 1 in Tennessee), he had good games. Could it be that he's a bad 2 strike hitter? 2009 A-: 88 ABs- 18.9% A: 112 ABs- 25% 2010 A+: 263 ABs- 20.2% AA: 228 ABs- 23.5% 2011 AA: 246 ABs- 24.9% AAA: 185 ABs- 29.8% 2012 AAA: 153 ABs- 30.5% I decided to check... This year B Jax has a 0:25 BB:K when he's behind the count.

Dexter Pittman ain't care. Them bows can't throw themselves. NBA can suspended Pittman for the rest of the playoffs. It won't matter to the Heat. Was that his first time playing this series? He should be suspended that long at least regardless because there's no place for that kind of crap. That was worse than Artest elbow to Harden's head IMO. 10 games min. Haslem... I'm on the fence with. He mostly hit Hansbourgh in the arm although some did catch his face. I do believe he "tried" to play it off as if he was going to the ball, but it was horrible. I don't believe that he was "intentionally" trying to hurt Hansbourgh like Pittman did. It was a hard foul for payback, but a horrible way to go about it. Why not do it on Hibbert/Granger/George/West (their good guys) instead of freakin' Hansbourgh? Either way... they need to upgrade the foul to flagrant 2 and fine the crap out of him (double or triple of they usually give out) with no suspension or don't upgrade it to flagrant 2, but still fine the crap out of him and suspend him for game 6 and game 7 if Pacers win. Is it me or this years playoffs is a lot more physical/crazier/thuggish/etc. than the past couple years? Seems like there's been a ton of technicals/flagrants/hard fouls.

Throw in Wieters and you got a deal!!!

If Diamondbacks are asking about Castro and I'm Theo/Hoyer... I'm asking AT LEAST... Upton and one of Skaggs/Bauer. Probably throw in some type of low level, high upside arm as well. No way would you trade Castro for only 2 blue chip prospects unless you get another very good prospect came along with them or one of the blue chip is on Harper/Trout/Moore type level. If it was for Garza, yes easily. What's considered a "blue chip" prospect??? Top 20 in MLB? Top 30??? Basically with Castro, it's the type of deal where there's no way you could say No.

Hopefully they'll give him another day off tomorrow as well. Why do you think that? El Duderino already mentioned it... He sat out a couple days because of back injury recently and IMO it's bothering him more than he's letting on and his game suffers as a result. Just give him a couple days to rest up and get his mind off of the Ks/slump/etc... Jackson struck out a ton in college and many questioned whether his lack of contact would be his eventual downfall. You have no clue on whether or not an injury is bothering him. This isn't some shocking evaluation - he strikes out a ton - always has. Wilken has whiffed on pretty much every first round pick he chose here -- paint me pessimistic until proven otherwise. I mean just off the top of my head - Colvin (garbage), Cashner (struggling - but projects well IMO), Simpson (complete joke), Vitters (close to chalking this one up as a loss), etc. Really.... Really??? Well... duh. I know he strikes out a ton. Dude also produced while striking out a ton for his entire minor league career. I'm also pretty sure he never had a slump like this (with a HUGE % of the outs being Ks). Of course I don't have a clue if the back injury is bothering him or not. I'm just guessing it is because it "probably" started when he first hurt it (I'm guessing early May) and he's been racking up Ks since then. It's to the point where it's out of the norm... even for a guy like B Jax. I mean isn't his K% is like at 45-50% since he came back? That's unreal and no way it'll stay up there. I'm not sure why you went on and talked about Wilken afterwards.

Hopefully they'll give him another day off tomorrow as well. Why do you think that? El Duderino already mentioned it... He sat out a couple days because of back injury recently and IMO it's bothering him more than he's letting on and his game suffers as a result. Just give him a couple days to rest up and get his mind off of the Ks/slump/etc...

Hopefully they'll give him another day off tomorrow as well.

I seriously hope they don't lock this and the Ian Stewart threads. It's just mind-blowing incredible. Also... who is this Neely guy? It looks like he joined here a long time ago, but I don't remember him being on here since I've joined (in 2009 although I've been reading this site since 2007)... until now. Did someone FDB??

Seven. LOL... that's a joke.

They've had an amazing season and have a really strong RPI. Weak competition or legit draft-able players? Did you not read what Raisin said? Amazing season on top of a strong RPI. If you had a really strong RPI, it can't be weak competition.

Where's Chris Johnson? Unless you are just a physical freak like Peterson or have enormous big play potential, you're lumped together for me. Peterson, McCoy, and Johnson are top 3 for me because of that. Foster and Rice may be a notch better than Forte, but I don't think it's extremely clear.....though Rice runs circles around both Foster and Forte as a receiver, and those guys are really good receivers. I would put MJD with Foster/Rice. Forte inability to get short yards and goal line TDs really hurt him against this group of RBs IMO.

I think its fine to criticize LeBron for not being a good fourth quarter player. But it drives me nuts when people think its mental. "LeBron needs to be more assertive." "LeBron needs to demand the ball at the end of the game." "He needs to play like he does in the first quarter." "What's wrong with LeBron? It's mental". You see educated sports people in the media spew this nonsense. It's like they've never watched LeBron play and only follow the box score. It also drives me nuts when the LeBron lovers who claim he's the greatest of all time ignore the fact that he's not a great fourth quarter player. All they can do is spew stats. "Look at his PER. Look at his FG%. His assists." Give me MJ or Kobe over LeBron any time. No question. http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/plus/shot_finder.cgi?request=1&player_id=bryanko01&match=single&year_id=&is_playoffs=&team_id=&opp_id=&game_num_min=0&game_num_max=99&game_month=&game_location=&game_result=&shot_pts=&is_make=&shot_type=&shot_distance_min=&shot_distance_max=&q4=Y&q5=Y&time_remain_minutes=3&time_remain_seconds=0&time_remain_comp=le&margin_min=-3&margin_max=3&c1stat=&c1comp=ge&c1val=&c2stat=&c2comp=ge&c2val=&c3stat=&c3comp=ge&c3val=&order_by=fg_pct http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/plus/shot_finder.cgi?request=1&player_id=jamesle01&match=single&year_id=&is_playoffs=&team_id=&opp_id=&game_num_min=0&game_num_max=99&game_month=&game_location=&game_result=&shot_pts=&is_make=&shot_type=&shot_distance_min=&shot_distance_max=&q4=Y&q5=Y&time_remain_minutes=3&time_remain_seconds=0&time_remain_comp=le&margin_min=-3&margin_max=3&c1stat=&c1comp=ge&c1val=&c2stat=&c2comp=ge&c2val=&c3stat=&c3comp=ge&c3val=&order_by=fg_pct I figured on 3 minutes or less, the game being within 3 pts either way, and in the 4th and OT during the season and playoff in their careers. You can get pretty specific with this shot finder (like adding a criteria of only shots to tie or take the lead- go ahead... LeBron still shoot better in this situation). I'm not sure if I would take Kobe over LeBron. Kobe has made some last second/clutch/circus/etc... shots in his career, but everyone focus on that so much that they just overlook (or willing to) that Kobe honestly isn't THAT great of a 4th quarter player himself. It's the same way with Wade. Wade have made some big shots and everyone thinks he should take the last shot over LeBron. I'm not saying LeBron is a great 4th quarter player or he's the greatest player of all time. Just wanted to add my 2 cent to this.

he does strike out a good bit. his babip's the last two years at AAA have to be crazy high. .369 last year and .384 this year 19.1 K% is his lowest since 2009, but his 8.3 BB% is also his lowest since 2008

Where at? I'm going as well.

From another NBA great: 19 points on 18 shots in an elimination game. 30 points on 30 shots in an elimination game. 25 points on 22 shots in an elimination game. 31 points on 27 shots in an elimination game. 21 points on 25 shots in a closeout game. 25 points on 24 shots in a closeout game. 23 points on 19 shots in a closeout game. 22 points on 19 shots in a closeout game. 24 points on 23 shots in a closeout game. 28 points on 31 shots in a closeout game. 39 points on 35 shots in a closeout game. 28 points on 25 shots in a Game 7. 28 points on 26 shots in a closeout game including an airballed three-pointer at the buzzer. 44.4% (also 10 rebs and 9 asts) 30% (11 rebs/7 asts) 45.5% (8 rebs/8 asts) 48.1% (8 rebs/9 asts) 36% (4 rebs/8 asts) 33.3% (2rebs/9 asts) 31.6% (3 rebs/2 asts) 26.3% (9 rebs/7asts) 39.1% (7 rebs/7 asts) 35.5% (6 rebs/5 asts) 42.9% (11 rebs/4 asts) 36% (9 rebs/8 asts) 34.6% (4 rebs/4 asts) Bulls went 6-7 in those games... the 44.4/45.5/48.1 games shouldn't be there IMO. Take those 3 games out and the record is now 6-4.

Not sure where you're going with this... Didn't Soriano already changed his age when he was involved in the A Rod trade to Rangers? Like they found out that he was 2 years older than what he really was...

I was kinda hoping for a Clippers/Heat Finals... Flop City vs NBA's whinest team And I might've just saw the worst technical foul I've seen ever. A T cuz Griffin/Evans were doing a high five to each other.