Magnetic Curses

aram would be stupid not to opt out. and i can't say that i'd be a huge proponent of re-signing him. in fact, our best chance at success next seasons lies with our ability to acquire TWO top of the rotation starting pitchers like zito and schmidt. best case scenario, we let aram go, moore proves to be worthy of replacing some of his offensive production and we snag a low-risk big bat to put in the outfield like edmonds (if he'll come for around 3-4 mil for 1 year), replace pierre with clark and move him to right and find a taker for jacque. clark theriot DLee edmonds barrett murton moore izturis zambrano zito schmidt hill prior re-sign wood and try to move dempster, perhaps eating a significant portion of his salary if we have to. this team could compete.

agreed, i don't see anything that we could offer that would intrigue florida. they asked for david wright before this season.

was wondering why he didn't do that. i guess he's just not used to being in that situation. great win, though. i've said it before, juice and mendenhall will have the program up and running again at some point. pierre thomas looked pretty good today as well.

the astros are annoyingly back in it. i'd rather the cards win, as the astros always get hot when they're almost out of it.

a season is a marathon, not a sprint, like i said. although the games appear to matter more in august and september, they really don't. don't let the "music of the spheres" fool you. although a pennant race may appear to be more of a race in september, it's just as much of a race in april. I agree with you, but it is obvious his lack of production that past two months has hurt their chances. if he had had bad or average months in april, may, june, and july and then great months in september and august we'd be talking about how amazingly clutch he is, but the effect would be the same. i'll take dunn over any of our outfielders. I think most people would (although the case for Murton is getting stronger) but is Dunn worth the amount that it would take to trade for him, and then the amount that it would take to pay him? I think that factoring both of those in that Dunn is not a big enough upgrade to be worth it, although he definitely would be an upgrade. i think the point is moot because there's no way that hendry does it anyway.

a season is a marathon, not a sprint, like i said. although the games appear to matter more in august and september, they really don't. don't let the "music of the spheres" fool you. although a pennant race may appear to be more of a race in september, it's just as much of a race in april. I agree with you, but it is obvious his lack of production that past two months has hurt their chances. if he had had bad or average months in april, may, june, and july and then great months in september and august we'd be talking about how amazingly clutch he is, but the effect would be the same. i'll take dunn over any of our outfielders.

a season is a marathon, not a sprint, like i said. although the games appear to matter more in august and september, they really don't. don't let the "music of the spheres" fool you. although a pennant race may appear to be more of a race in september, it's just as much of a race in april.

The defense was great, and the offense stunk, yet they concentrated on defense throughout, getting line and linebacker depth and "ignored other areas of need". I don't think you're reasoning holds up. Part of it was needing to replace Azumah, part of it was probably anticipating further troubles with Brown. I'm a little concerned with all the 4-receiver talk that the running game is going to be what Seattle tries to exploit. The Bears seem to run-up an awful lot of tackles for no gain, but the right running game gets way too many 5-15 yard runs against these guys. i think you're right. the 2 or 3-gap defensive front is designed to get pressure in the backfield and the linebackers and safeties are just there to stick receivers between the sticks, with run-stopping duties as well. i'd just run draw after draw on the bears.

i could do without stone in the booth, thank you. except for the nostalgia, i can't see one reason to hire him. i guess his pitching insights are pretty decent, but other than that, he doesn't know what he's talking about. i'd prefer brenly to stay, he actually is much more in tune with the modern game than steve "billy beane got lucky" stone.

when did the reds need it most? a season is a season, the games in april are just as important as those in september, they count for the same number of wins, last time a checked.

i'm not sure what "playing the game right" means. my idea of playing the game right probably conflicts with his. "right", in the way we use it, is absolutist--but at the same time relative. it's some sort of paradox i'd say. personally, i'd take a team full of mannys and beat the hell out of his team full of ecksteins. Ryno's "right way" was playing without ego. but how are the white sox an example of that? i don't get it, do you see what i mean?

right? and i think he realizes that the reason he didn't play against the vikings was that they were blitzing on every play and he needs to improve his blocking. if seattle doesn't blitz as much, we'll see benson in this game. benson will get his shot eventually, and we'll like him much more than jones.

i'm not sure what "playing the game right" means. my idea of playing the game right probably conflicts with his. "right", in the way we use it, is absolutist--but at the same time relative. it's some sort of paradox i'd say. personally, i'd take a team full of mannys and beat the hell out of his team full of ecksteins.

brady clark has more actual value than pierre while having less perceived value. he will be less than half of what pierre will make next season, plus, we'd get some sort of compensation for letting him go. the brewers would probably take a player like guzman for clark, especially since he's not really in their future plans.

but managers shouldn't "rock the boat". they're there to do a simple job--do whatever upper management wants them to do. unfortunately, in our case, that would be a terrible thing, as upper management is even more incompetent than field management. and while i think that girardi rocking the boat would help us in the short-term, the only thing that will help us truly is the deconstruction and reconstruction of the front-office with a team president like sandy alderson, a GM like paul depodesta, and any old ex-player they can find to do an easy job in the field. Why choose Depodesta? He wasn't exactly a success in LA because he was there for a cup of coffee? if you want to be short-sighted, he DID make the playoffs in one out of two years. but yet he is somehow to blame when the team floundered last season?

That's pretty much how all football prognostication works. Lots of people still think of STL as an explosive offense. It took forever for people to realize Green Bay wasn't unbeatable at home. It took about 15 weeks for people to realize the Bears were good last year. seattle, sports-wise, is a strange and isolated place.

Maybe Lawrence can just root for whoever wins the world series this year. He was a Cubs fan last time I listened to the Score. I have no respect for those people. i think holmes is the best thing that station has outside of dan bernstein. and holmes HAS to be a sox fan, he works for it's flagship.

this game worries me because the vikings are more balanced than either the lions or packers. conceivably, the vikings could try to stop both facets of our offense rather than simply stack the line and let rex torch them time and again. however, i think the bears will win due to the fact that few people understand that the bears defense is a warm weather, dome-style defense, it's built on speed, not physicality. i worry about rex and other key players staying healthy on turf, but not much else. the bears defense is faster than the vikings' offense, and that will be the deciding factor. i think the vikings score less than 7 points. bears 20 vikings 6

brady clark ryan freel barry zito jason schmidt re-sign ramirez 1. brady clark 2. ryan freel 3. DLee 4. ARam 5. Jones 6. barrett 7. murton 8. izturis z zito schmidt hill prior

I'm not saying he should have done anything in particular. I was questioning the "pitchers didn't perform" line. And I do question adding another innings eating mediocre pitcher to a staff full of them, but if I was a WS fan, I wouldn't have much to complain about. Maybe he should have tried trading off 2 pitchers for 1 great one, and filling in with another mediocre guy elsewhere. But it worked last year, I see why he'd want to stick with them this year, it wasn't bad. He should have expected a decline though. And the team was very close to the playoffs even with that decline (and an overly dramatic decline from Buerhle that wasn't expected - although I've been thinking that guy would have troubles for years now, don't know why, just never liked him). In reality, they probably win a couple more games if Buerhle didn't absolutely suck, though that might not have been enough. they declined pretty badly, and i don't think that anyone expected such an egg to be laid by the starters, though. KW DID improve the offense significantly, which is all that he really could do. he might have been able to bring in a better starter than vazquez, but why change something that worked last season? why not just ride it until it breaks down, and then do something else? unfortunately for KW, he has some big bucks on the books and will have to really play the part of the genius next year.

but managers shouldn't "rock the boat". they're there to do a simple job--do whatever upper management wants them to do. unfortunately, in our case, that would be a terrible thing, as upper management is even more incompetent than field management. and while i think that girardi rocking the boat would help us in the short-term, the only thing that will help us truly is the deconstruction and reconstruction of the front-office with a team president like sandy alderson, a GM like paul depodesta, and any old ex-player they can find to do an easy job in the field.

no, the biggest difference is that their pitching went sour this season. if their pitching was up to last year's par, they'd be coasting into the playoffs easily, despite the emergence of detroit, who'd be battling it out with minnesota for the wild card. kenny williams did a great job in the offseason, he even shored up the staff with vazquez as a 5th starter. the rotation just didn't perform. But that's only because last years results skewed expectations. They pitched over their heads in 2005, and were bound to decline in 2006. but you can't really demote anyone because you expect them to decline, can you? especially after a monster year. No, you probably can't. But I wasn't really saying they should have. KW put together a 90+ win team, that's his job, to give his team the chance. There's no surefire way to build a winner (excepting the Yankees spend way more than anybody else plan), but GM's have to play the odds. what i see you saying is that KW should have expected his starters to decline, but i don't see what you would have had him do. he did a good job in the offseason, especially compared to what hendry did. if williams's only problem is that he didn't expect his starters to decline, he's still light years ahead of our guy.

no, the biggest difference is that their pitching went sour this season. if their pitching was up to last year's par, they'd be coasting into the playoffs easily, despite the emergence of detroit, who'd be battling it out with minnesota for the wild card. kenny williams did a great job in the offseason, he even shored up the staff with vazquez as a 5th starter. the rotation just didn't perform. But that's only because last years results skewed expectations. They pitched over their heads in 2005, and were bound to decline in 2006. but you can't really demote anyone because you expect them to decline, can you? especially after a monster year.

exactly, it's a comfort.

what's hilarious is that the same people who picked against the bears last week because of what the lions did to the seahawks are the same people who this week are saying the bears are still unproven because they haven't played a non-garbage team yet. but, guys, i thought that the lions were goo.......oh, forget it. just watch, if the bears beat the vikings, people will say the viking suck as well. incidentally, the same exact thing happened with the lions last year--the mask came instantly off after playing the bears. i think that roy williams even made a couple of his now famous predictions last year.