CentralChamps21

He might not be, and that's not in any way a knock on him, but Hendriks, Bummer, Marshall, Crochet and Kopech could all be better than him. This pen could be better than the 2005 pen except without needing every single guy to have a career year to do it.

Loyola is a Top 10 team in both KenPom and NET. They totally got screwed, and Illinois too as a result. I was going to have them as a potential Elite 8/Final Four team depending on the draw, and while I wouldn't be shocked if they beat Illinois I'm not going to predict it, not with how the Illini are playing right now.

When I say weekend games I mean Saturday-Sunday games. When you play Thursday-Sunday both weekends you get 16 games the first weekend and 4 games the second weekend. When you play Friday-Monday and Saturday-Tuesday you get 24 games the first weekend and 8 games the second weekend. You end up with fewer Monday-Tuesday games than you had on Thursday-Friday.

The first weekend is pushed back one day and the second weekend is pushed back two days compared to normal. I have to say I like this. It gets more games on the weekends. I wouldn't mind seeing this become a permanent change.

Fun fact: the last 9-inning MLB game to finish in under 2 hours was started by Mark Buehrle and Chris Sale.

Your favorite NFL team plays once a week, your favorite MLB team plays 6-7. NFL games are mostly on weekends when we have all day to watch football. For people who have to get up on weekday mornings for work or school, MLB games running longer start to cut into your sleep, especially if you're watching a game in a time zone west of where you live. I don't know what the best way to do it is, but something has to be done to get the average game length down to 2:50 or so.

Grandal was better than both of them last year, and while one or both might be better than him this year, not by a large enough margin to justify moving that plate discipline and OBP out of the 2 hole. Bury Grandal down in the bottom third of the order and most of his walks get wasted. You shouldn't even both signing a guy with Grandal's plate discipline if you aren't going to bat him in front of your best run producers.

Grandal sees a lot of pitches and gets on base a lot. He's exactly the kind of guy you want batting in front of Abreu and Eloy.

You think it's 3 and Colin Cowherd thinks it's 5. Given Cowherd's long history in sports media, I'm 100% certain that you're right.

Five first round picks????

Baseball needs to do something to shorten games. Banning the shift doesn't really do that. Limiting throws to first sounds like it might but if it leads to a huge increase in steal success then probably not. I've heard the idea of making the 3rd foul ball after 2 strikes a strikeout to cut down on long at bats but that may be too far outside the box. I do like the rule limiting pitching changes to between innings or after 3 batters.

The price would be steep, it would have to be an top-notch pitcher in return, but DH is a position of strength right now and I think the Sox need to at least find out how big a bounty they could get for Vaughn.

Sign Cespedes for DH, keep Yermin at AAA to be the backup plan, and trade Vaughn for a #2/3 type ST with 3+ years of control.

Why are we trying to get rid of Marshall? Do people really want more innings for Burdi and Cordero?

I know it's Spring Training, but how much longer until we start getting concerned about the hitting?

Why is this guy still getting innings?

Yeah, other than not being guaranteed a roster spot, not eating up millions of guaranteed dollars that could have gone somewhere else, and not being at a position where it would have been really easy to find a better option, it's exactly the same.

So is this going to be the bullpen to start the season: Hendriks Bummer Marshall Crochet Heuer Kopech Foster Lopez/Rodon

Leury is so bad batting lefty that he's essentially a RH hitter, but he is capable at 7 positions so you absolutely need a guy like him on the roster. At the same time, you need to have some depth in the minors so that he doesn't have to become an every day player when a starter goes down.

The 1919 team was probably the best team the Sox ever had.

Trubisky is mobile enough to avoid tons of sacks, but there was absolutely zero space for the running backs to gain yards, and Trubisky had to complete make a bunch of 4 yard throws because that's all the time he had.

The OL looked good against 4 shit teams when the Bears scored 30+ points. When they played the Packers and Saints they didn't look so good.

No, this is where he looks awesome and gets our hopes up before shitting all over himself in May.

I'd love to have Wilson but I'm having a hard time seeing how the Bears can acquire him, and still have the cap space and/or draft resources to get an offensive line that doens't get him killed.