CuseCubFan69

Record of Cincy's wins: 15-27 Their only win over a team that isn't at least 2 games under .500 is conference opponent South Florida(who has yet to beat anybody above .500, 4-4 McNeese St. being the closest), who lost to one of the worst teams in the Big 12, Kansas. But they beat S Florida easily so what's your point? Even though you're considering these teams like Cincy, UConn, South Florida and Syracuse to not be "gimmes," they still haven't beaten any of the top 3 teams: Pitt versus Louisville, WVU and Rutgers: 0-1 USF: 0-1 UConn: 0-2 Cincy: 0-1 Syr: 0-2 That's zero wins and seven losses against the top three teams in the conference. Until some of those teams start beating WV, UL and Rutgers, I have a hard time not considering them pushovers. The same could be said of any conference. Has anyone beat Michigan, Ohio State or Wisconsin in the Big 10 yet? In all honesty, I wish Penn State would come home back where they belong.

Arkansas has to play S. Carolina, Tenn, Miss St and LSU. If they win all those games and go 11-1 and then lose in the championship to Florida they deserve to go over Auburn, LSU, or Tenn IMO. They won't like you said but they would deserve to. I don't think they would deserve to go over Auburn in that case. Florida beat Arkansas Arkansas beat Auburn Auburn beat Arkansas It would be one of those triangles in that case. The difference between Auburn and Arkansas at that point would be that Auburn would only have 1 loss, while Arkansas would have 2. It would be close, but I think a 1 loss team with a similar schedule would have to take precedence, even with the head to head. When did Auburn beat Arkansas unless you have them playing in the SEC Championship Game which I would agree with you. Can Auburn play Arkansas in the SEC title game? Are they in the same division? I don't know.

I'm sure Ramirez would have a full no trade in his new deal.

Arkansas has to play S. Carolina, Tenn, Miss St and LSU. If they win all those games and go 11-1 and then lose in the championship to Florida they deserve to go over Auburn, LSU, or Tenn IMO. They won't like you said but they would deserve to. I don't think they would deserve to go over Auburn in that case. Florida beat Arkansas Arkansas beat Auburn Auburn beat Arkansas It would be one of those triangles in that case. The difference between Auburn and Arkansas at that point would be that Auburn would only have 1 loss, while Arkansas would have 2. It would be close, but I think a 1 loss team with a similar schedule would have to take precedence, even with the head to head. When did Auburn beat Arkansas unless you have them playing in the SEC Championship Game which I would agree with you.

Record of Cincy's wins: 15-27 Their only win over a team that isn't at least 2 games under .500 is conference opponent South Florida(who has yet to beat anybody above .500, 4-4 McNeese St. being the closest), who lost to one of the worst teams in the Big 12, Kansas. But they beat S Florida easily so what's your point?

Arkansas has to play S. Carolina, Tenn, Miss St and LSU. If they win all those games and go 11-1 and then lose in the championship to Florida they deserve to go over Auburn, LSU, or Tenn IMO. They won't like you said but they would deserve to.

Maybe if they didn't piss all that money away on Burnett, the could afford Wells. I think Toronto can more than afford Wells. They have plenty of cash. The issue is they don't see him as a superstar. I don't like the idea of Mathews. If he was a platoon guy, fine, but he has sucked for most of his career. Counting on him as a starter next season would be risky. I don't think an ARod trade would at all affect depth. The Yankees won't be asking for depth. I meant depth in what the Cubs need to win or trade from there on. It might take a Z or Hill and others and that would be hard to recoup.

oh come on, we can top that You bet they can. If Hendry misses this oppurtunity and gives us a crappy OF I'm not going to be a happy camper.

That's because the Big East sucks as a football conference. If Penn State were in it they'd be the strongest team in it. Why, because they'd be on the bottom holding all the other teams up in the standings! Yeah I bet. It'd be really tough to run the gauntlet like Rutgers, Pitt and West Virginia have done this year. Let me know when your team crosses the 50 yard line so we can celebrate. 3 losses - @Notre Dame, @Ohio State, home versus Michigan. How many Big East teams don't have three losses if they play all three of those games? Why is Penn State so scared to played Pitt in a home and home? You guys want a 2 at your place and one at Pitt. They are natural rivals but yet Joe doesn't want any part of it.

It's like the stupid preseason polls during the season. I'm not saying the Big East is the best but it's just as good as any major conference. I was listening to Mike and Mike and they were saying since Miami and the others left everyone assumes the conference is weak and they just brush it off. It's like we have to wait for 4 to 5 years for them to prove they belong while IMO they already have. This conference has 2 losing teams out of 8 or 75% of the teams in it. No other conference can say that. That's partially because the BE plays less conference games though. For example, the SEC has 8 of the 12 teams with a winning record. Most teams in the SEC have played 5-6 conference games already, while the BE has played 3-4. Two of the SEC teams, Kentucky and Vanderbilt, if they had only played 3-4 conference games so far, they would also be over .500, which would put the SEC at 10 of 12 teams over .500. As teams play their conference season, it becomes harder and harder for a large percentage of the conference to stay above .500-because if teams at the top are staying close to undefeated, then teams have to be losing to them and hurting their records. The BE certainly is not weak. It's just very much an unknown quanity right now, and the bowl games will be a good indicator where the BE is this year. If Cincy played bad teams instead of Ohio State and VTech they'd be 7-2. and if Syracuse played bad teams instead of Iowa and Wake Forrest they'd be 5-4. There are no gimme's like Mississippi St or Mississippi are this year. The SEC is good no doubt but it isn't the God people make it out to be. The bowls hurt the BE if they are the same as last year. If a 2nd BE team doesn't go to the BCS they go to the Liberty Bowl and play an inferior team which once again people will say they didn't play a tough enough team. If we win it's because we should have and if we lose we are over rated.

That's because the Big East sucks as a football conference. If Penn State were in it they'd be the strongest team in it. Why, because they'd be on the bottom holding all the other teams up in the standings! Yeah I bet. It'd be really tough to run the gauntlet like Rutgers, Pitt and West Virginia have done this year. Let me know when your team crosses the 50 yard line so we can celebrate.

It's like the stupid preseason polls during the season. I'm not saying the Big East is the best but it's just as good as any major conference. I was listening to Mike and Mike and they were saying since Miami and the others left everyone assumes the conference is weak and they just brush it off. It's like we have to wait for 4 to 5 years for them to prove they belong while IMO they already have. This conference has 2 losing teams out of 8 or 75% of the teams in it. No other conference can say that. I think almost everyone else on this board would disagree with this. And that's why the good ole boys stay on the top. It's funny how so many here use all kinds of numbers when they talk about baseball but when it comes to college football they go right back with traditional powers. Kind of Hendryesk.

This is what happens when you have two coaches at the same school with names that are too much a like!

That's because the Big East sucks as a football conference. If Penn State were in it they'd be the strongest team in it. Why, because they'd be on the bottom holding all the other teams up in the standings!

It's like the stupid preseason polls during the season. I'm not saying the Big East is the best but it's just as good as any major conference. I was listening to Mike and Mike and they were saying since Miami and the others left everyone assumes the conference is weak and they just brush it off. It's like we have to wait for 4 to 5 years for them to prove they belong while IMO they already have. This conference has 2 losing teams out of 8 or 75% of the teams in it. No other conference can say that.

Yeah, they said Beltran type money. I think Hendry has a lot of options to make this team better and depending on what Toronto wants this should be explored. Wells is good, but far from great. He'd be a substantial improvement over Pierre though. He's exactly the type of player Hendry would go gaga over though. Toolsy, with glossy traditional numbers. He'd call him a .300 hitter even though he typically doesn't hit .300. He doesn't strike out much. All-in-all, a very Hendry guy. Now, if you end up giving him $15m per year, you aren't getting a bunch of bang for your buck, but seeing as how he's a CF, and significantly better than most CF, he's not going to kill you either. If Hendry keeps doing things the Hendry way, Vernon is one of the better options. What you wrote reminds me of Homer....well that's our Hendry! I wouldn't mind the combo of Matthews and Durham, one of the Japanese guys and a big trade/or sign an impact pitcher. I think an ARod trade would rob the team of it's depth and recources. Durham Murton Lee Ramirez Barrett Jones Matthews Theriot/Cedeno/Izturis

Well, Michigan did take out the number 2 team earlier in the season, and WV will be ranked about the same spot as the team that Michigan destroyed on the road. So why does Louisville get to jump ahead of them based on one game again? The thing is, if Louisville gets ranked behind Texas or Florida, I support you completely if you're upset. Why does Louisville automatically go ahead of Michigan though? Because they beat WV at home? Michigan beat ND on the road Because they beat Miami at home? Michigan beat Wisconsin at home, Penn State on the road and Iowa at home. Those are really the only impact games that either team has played. Michigan has more of them, and they have had more chances to be impressive because of that. Right now, IMO Michigan deserves to be ahead of Louisville. If you think Louisville should be ahead, fine. There certainly are good reasons to argue the other way though. I agree with what you wrote but it just makes no sense regarding the "leapfrog" of another team. If you think a team is better than you should rank them as that but just because one team is ahead of them being the reason why they can't move ahead, I just don't agree with that logic, I'm not saying you said this but talking about the polls in particular. The undefeated teams should be at the top and what worries me is if Michigan and Ohio State go to overtime people will want that game to be the BCS Championship game too. If Rutgers runs the table I know they will not play in that game and I think they should if they beat Louisville and WV. This brings me to another pet peeve. The teams with a Championship Game send in a possible 2-5 loss team to the BCS and the team with the best record goes. The Big East will only get 1 team no matter how good the second place team is even if WV wins the rest of their games and ends up 11-1 and Rutgers ends up 10-2. I think WV would have a shot to get into a BCS bowl at 11-1. It would really depend on how all the other conferences shook out. There are 4 at-large spots in the BCS. One of those will likely be taken by Notre Dame, and another one will be taken by Boise State. That leaves 2 at-large spots-but remember, for most of these 1 loss teams, that means they will win their automatic conference bid. If Texas stays at 1 loss, that means they would be already be automatically going. The same goes for a team like Florida. The winner of the USC/California game gets the automatic spot, and the loser will have 2 losses. The competition for the 2 at-large spots would be WV, either Auburn or Tennessee (no more than 2 conference schools can make it into the BCS in a year, so both of these teams cannot go along with Florida), and the OSU/Michigan loser. Your best hope then is for either 1)Boise State to lose, which means they won't make the BCS-2)Notre Dame to lose twice, 3)Auburn and Tennessee losing again before the end of the year (which is certainly possible, especially if Auburn makes the SEC title game) or 4) somehow OSU or Michigan losing twice. Any one of those 4 scenarios will send WVU to a BCS bowl game. Let me ask you this. What happens if Rutgers beats Louisville, WV beats Rutgers. What makes Florida or the winner of the SEC, winner of the Big 12, or the winner of the Pac 10, or Notre Dame if they run the table automatically better than a 1 loss BE team? The Big East team HAS to go undefeated to go while other conferences can have a loss.

Yeah, they said Beltran type money. I think Hendry has a lot of options to make this team better and depending on what Toronto wants this should be explored.

Didn't Wilken draft Wells when he was with TOR? It wouldn't surprise me if he was someone the Cubs were targeting this offseason. Yep, and Izzy too.

Laugh out loud funny. I still wonder how in the hell Dusty ever got this "leader" reputation. He's the exact opposite of a "take-charge" manager - essentially he's a non-leader. I still remember a spring 2004 column by Phil Rogers in which he said Dusty's leadership gave the Cubs a 5 game lead before the season even began. That's embarrassing. He's pretty good when it comes to battling the press.

So much for my dream of going to the "Randa Bear" giveaway at Wrigley in 2007.

Threat? Such choice words from the GM of a last place team. But, that's pretty much my gripe as well. I sure hope this opt out stuff doesn't become a trend. It appears to give the player too much leverage. Yep, Ramirez agent 2 - Cubs front office 0

How can one really predict how much power Pie will have? He won't be 22 until February. If he puts on 20-30 pounds of mass over the next 3 or 4 years, he may end up with even more power than Wells. If I'm Hendry, Pie isn't in any trade discussions, period. Just a guess I suppose BbB. I could see him as a 15-30 HR guy. I put on 20-30 pounds and it didn't help my power. :D I assume you meant muscle, right?

I agree. You could sign a Durham to play 2nd and have Theriot and Cedeno battle it out for SS and bat 8th and trade for an impact bat for the OF.

Well, Michigan did take out the number 2 team earlier in the season, and WV will be ranked about the same spot as the team that Michigan destroyed on the road. So why does Louisville get to jump ahead of them based on one game again? The thing is, if Louisville gets ranked behind Texas or Florida, I support you completely if you're upset. Why does Louisville automatically go ahead of Michigan though? Because they beat WV at home? Michigan beat ND on the road Because they beat Miami at home? Michigan beat Wisconsin at home, Penn State on the road and Iowa at home. Those are really the only impact games that either team has played. Michigan has more of them, and they have had more chances to be impressive because of that. Right now, IMO Michigan deserves to be ahead of Louisville. If you think Louisville should be ahead, fine. There certainly are good reasons to argue the other way though. I agree with what you wrote but it just makes no sense regarding the "leapfrog" of another team. If you think a team is better than you should rank them as that but just because one team is ahead of them being the reason why they can't move ahead, I just don't agree with that logic, I'm not saying you said this but talking about the polls in particular. The undefeated teams should be at the top and what worries me is if Michigan and Ohio State go to overtime people will want that game to be the BCS Championship game too. If Rutgers runs the table I know they will not play in that game and I think they should if they beat Louisville and WV. This brings me to another pet peeve. The teams with a Championship Game send in a possible 2-5 loss team to the BCS and the team with the best record goes. The Big East will only get 1 team no matter how good the second place team is even if WV wins the rest of their games and ends up 11-1 and Rutgers ends up 10-2.