ZoomSlowik

QUOTE(thedoctor @ Feb 9, 2006 -> 02:51 PM) the big ten has just been a bloodbath for road teams this year. (outside of psu at illinois :banghead ) The only road wins of note in the entire conference are MSU at Indiana, Illinois at Wisconsin, and PSU at Illinois. That's pretty scary for a conference that supposedly has 7 tournament worthy teams.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Feb 9, 2006 -> 02:28 AM) It looks like New York should definitely be favorites for that #1 pick right now. The Hawks are actually starting to play some good ball, Joe Johnson's getting more consistent at the point, and once the Cats get the likes of Okafor back, they'll get better too. So let the Morrison vs. Aldrige discussions begin. I wouldn't touch Morrison. He's strictly a small forward, and we already have two of those that are pretty decent. Top 3 is probably too high for Morrison anyways. He can score, but he's slow and doesn't pass a whole lot. He's too similar to Wally Sczerbiak: great college player, decent NBA player at best. I really hope we don't take Morrison or Shelden Williams (I don't think he can stay out of foul trouble in the pros, plus he has no offensive moves). I'd take Gay long before Morrison. He is exponentially better as an athlete and has a decent mid-range jumper. He has a few weaknesses (outside shot comes and goes, not the greatest passer, sometimes too passive), but he has a much higher ceiling. Aldridge would be ideal. Ronnie Brewer might be another interesting pick. He's got the body of a small forward but has the athleticism to play 2 guard, and is even a good enough ballhandler to occasionally play PG. His shooting is a major question mark though. I wouldn't be entirely aversed to Tiago Splitter with our own pick either, although you never know with those foreigners (and his buyout is probably an issue). Randy Foye and Maurice Ager (and maybe Shannon Brown) are other options if we want to take a bigger shooting guard. In terms of other big men, the pickings are slim. Al Horford from Florida is an option, but he's pretty raw. Paul Davis is another, but he's probably too small for center, too slow for PF, and probably too soft in general, but he's a fairly skilled big man that might help. Josh McRoberts might be the only other real big man. Not only is he too raw, he probably isn't in a hurry to leave Duke. Basically it doesn't look like we're going to get a whole lot of help unless we get the #1 pick and take Aldridge.

QUOTE(sayitaintso @ Feb 9, 2006 -> 02:17 PM) ZoomSlowik is starting up a new keeper league if anyone is interested in it. Leave me out of this. This is another league that has been going for longer. I think Chisoxfn was the commish, but I'm not sure. I'm kind of staying out of this since they should have most of their players.

I still can't believe that NU actually won a game. Both teams were awful. They both had 17 turnovers and Iowa shot like 35%, as did NU minus Vedran. Doyle was the only other guy that really did anything on NU with 8 points, but I can't really say he had a good game. Iowa just couldn't get any kind of shots, even 3's. I couldn't believe how bad they looked. Even as poorly as they played, it took a couple of 3's from NU scrubs (you know you suck when you can't get playing time for NU ) Seacat and Jenkins to put NU in front. I will say this for the Cats, they play pretty good defense. If they had anyone that could score other than Vedran, they'd be dangerous. As for the Big Ten race, I think MSU has a real edge because of their schedule. They get most of their tough games at home (Illini, Michigan, OSU, Wisconsin) and have manageable games on the road (Minnesota, Indiana, Iowa is fairly tough). I think they should definitely go at least 4-3 with that stretch, and there is definitely a possibility that they can do better than that given their homecourt advantage. Iowa also has a good shot if they can beat MSU at home or Indiana on the road. At Illinois looks like the only probable loss, and @Minnesota, home against PSU and Wisconsin looks winnable. If they win one of the first group, that's 11-5. I think both of these teams do it. Michigan also has a good shot, but they have some tough games left. They still have to go to MSU and OSU (and Purdue, but who cares about that one). However, they get Illinois, OSU, Indiana, and Minnesota at home. If they can defend home court, that puts them at the 11-5 mark too. Illinois can do it also, but they're in a somewhat tough spot. They have 3 pretty tough road games left (OSU, MSU, Michigan), and they have to take at least one of them (we all know that can't be counted on in the Big Ten). Their home games are pretty favorable, with Indiana, Iowa, NU, and Minnesota coming to Champaign. I think one of these teams also goes 11-5, with a lot of that depending on who wins when they play again. I'd lean towards Michigan because of the home court in that matchup. OSU has kind of a mixed bag left with their schedule. They get 2 dogs at home (NU and Purdue) and one on the road (NU), which looks like 3 wins. Their other 5 games are tough though, with Illinois and Michigan at home and MSU, Michigan, and Wisconsin on the road. They have to win three of those to get to 11-5. They might be able to do it, but they're a really tough team to guage since they have had an easier schedule than most. Given that homecourt advantage seems to dictate what happens in this conference, that would make a tie at 11-5 between MSU and Michigan. OSU, Illinois and Iowa have to win at least one road game to get there (Illinois would probably knock one of those 3 down to 10-6 if they did), with Iowa having the best shot (Indiana). Who knows what happens though, since we had two of the contenders fall to PSU and NU recently.

QUOTE(The Bones @ Feb 8, 2006 -> 04:05 AM) I'll be in League 1 again. And if anyone wants to know what league they were in last year just go to http://fantasysports.yahoo.com/ and click on fantasy profile at the top of the page. It has a history of all of your fantasy teams. That's such a cool feature, I'm glad they added it. It's kind of neat to go back and see how you placed in all the leagues and see the little trophy icons if you placed in the top 3.

Another note for fantasy leaguers: I'm seriously considering starting a new keeper league if I get enough interest. It would be a 3 year-5 keeper setup with the possibility of extending it if the league stays together and is active. PM me if interested in playing. Please, only dedicated players that can commit to at least 3 years of participation and won't quit on the league (I've had 2 keeper leagues die on me). Also, participants would eventually need to give me their E-Mail so I can still track them down if for some reason they should become inactive on soxtalk.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 6, 2006 -> 02:14 PM) Favorite Fantasy Football team name ever: Blood Bath and Beyond That also happens to be the name of the gun shop in the Simpsons' episode in which Homer joins the NRA, unless I am mistaken (I rarely am when it comes to Simpsons' references).

I see them playing the role of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays this year. They have a few players that will make lives miserable for the top three teams, maybe even having a winning record against one of them. However, they still only win somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 games, maybe pushing 80 if a few things break their way. They are no real threat to win the division or the wildcard though. They don't really have a top of the rotation starter unless Bonderman steps up, and they don't really have a dangerous middle of the order unless Guillen and Maggs stay healthy. That makes it tough when you have two legit contenders in the league, plus the Twins still have more than Detroit.

QUOTE(sayitaintso @ Feb 6, 2006 -> 11:33 PM) When do you guys think you will know when all the leagues are sorted out? Just curious. At least Friday. We still need a lot of people to fill up the various leagues, plus I still need to contact people who participated in the various leagues last year to see if they want their spot again (which I will probably do sometime Wed., maybe Thur.). Even that seems a little soon since games don't start until April, but I do want to get things moving. Edit- On further analysis, I'll start trying to finalize league rosters on Friday and send out info to the commishioners on Monday (I still need a few by the way if anyone is willing to do it). That seems to make sense to me, although I could be the only one .

QUOTE(Palehosefan @ Feb 6, 2006 -> 02:03 PM) I see him red-shirting and playing his senior year with his long-time friend Jason Fraser. Near as I can tell Fraser is out of years. He played at least 24 games in 3 previous seasons and has already played 19 this year. Kind of a sad turn of events, that guy used to be a budding star. Now apparently he's had so many injuries that he can't even dunk at 6'9".

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Feb 6, 2006 -> 01:55 PM) Speaking of nova, I'll throw out an interesting topic: Curtis Sumpter. What do you guys think he's going to do and what do you think he should do? It's all going to depend on his health. If he's at around 80% toward the end of the regular season, I'd go for it if I were him. That team would have a very good shot to win it all with a legit big man that can help out on the boards and be a real matchup problem. I'm not all that sure how good his NBA chances are either, which limits the potential harm of re-injuring it. Even if he did re-injure the knee, he might still be able to have a lucrative career in Europe if he took about 2 years off to try to get the injuries behind him. However, all indications seem to be that he's probably not going to be ready and that he'll redshirt. If he has the whole summer off to rehab, they could still have a fairly good team next year with him, Lowry, Nardi, and Cunningham developing a bit more.

I'm pretty sure that many of us use SouthSide Hitmen as a team name. Every once in a while for baseball I'll use Chico's Bail Bonds (Bad News Bears reference), and one of my favorites for football is Mean Machine ( The Longest Yard). After that, I'm not very creative. I had Save the Expos as a team name when they were still around.

What the hell, did I miss "bash your team" weekend or something? At least none of you have it as bad as us NU people. This is going to sound weird since I've been bashing them all year, but I'm starting to warm up to the Illini a bit more. I used to whole-heartedly agree with Chisoxfn, but their defense has been better than I expected in Big Ten play, and McBride and Randle are starting to become bigger offensive threats. They definitely rely way too much on the 3, but they've started playing a bit better even if Dee shoots like crap. That said, they still have some tough teams left to go. They've still got a shot to win the conference, but they're going to have to win a tough one to compensate for that Penn State loss. They look like a #3 seed that'll make the Sweet 16, but I wouldn't count on them beating someone good. If they get a tough #6 seed they could go down though. Indiana and Wisconsin also really seem to be slipping right now. I expected a drop-off from Wisconsin, but I didn't expect a loss to Purdue. Neither of them are in sync now, and that is really dangerous in the Big Ten. I think Indiana can still come up with a tough win somewhere with a good shooting night, but Wisconsin has been brutal. That unexpected Illinois loss really seemed to open up the conference a lot. Now that Iowa has a one game lead on everyone their chances got a lot better, although they have to shoot more like they did the last few games than they did early. As I said last time, Illinois, MSU, and Michigan are right in the thick of it, and one of those teams will probably win the conference. I don't want to rule out OSU though because they have a balanced team that is fairly deep. They have a lot of tough games left though, and their best win to this point by far is Wisconsin at home.

I don't even need to read this to come up with an easy response: not enough pitching.

Couple comments on today... I was at the MSU-NU game, and despite the somewhat close score, I was very impressed with MSU. They are extremely athletic, and the Ager/Brown/Davis trio is really hard to stop. Even the role guys like Gray and Trannon were making some big plays. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how NU hung around. They seem to be playing a lot better than they were early in the year. I was very surprised by the Iowa-Michigan result for several reasons. First, I didn't think there was any way Iowa would put up that many points. Obviously they shot a ridiculous percentage inside and outside. Looking at the box score it doesn't seem that Michigan was that bad, they just ran into a really good night in Iowa. The Hawkeyes really got a leg up in the Big Ten race today, but they still got some big games against MSU and at Champaign. Another team that I didn't think played that poorly was Illinois. Their offense was pretty good tonight, although they were relying very heavily on the outside shot like they usually do. They didn't shoot all that well from outside to go with their numerous attempts. Penn State just played a pretty good game offensively, and they shot well from outside. One major plus for them is that McBride seems to be stepping up as a major offensive threat.

QUOTE(hammerhead johnson @ Feb 4, 2006 -> 01:21 AM) Here are the dudes from league 3: Whitesoxfan56789 Flash Tizzle KipWellsFan Ishmookie Soxfanforever Soxfan1 El Caballo 45 mmmmmbeeer hammerhead johnson Jackie hayes Winning Ugly and....... Dougly!!! I don't think that we'll be seeing Doug again this year. Call it a hunch. Does Ishmookie even post here anymore? We'll probably need two new guys this season. Invite Sleepy. No, seriously. That's pretty much my list from the league also. Don't worry, I'll get you some new players.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 11:47 PM) Yes, there was another, it didn't really bother me so much that Latino Heat was upset. It was more that the other guy felt the need to put his two cents in when it didn't even affect him. Damn I know how to hold a grudge. Like I said, I don't even remember who it was, so unless you have a problem I'll probably let it slide. I'll see how things develop.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 11:11 PM) To send a message, I request that I be put in league 5. This way if people have a problem with me they can request to be put in another league and avoid me and my cheating ways. I really don't think that will be necessary. I'm not even sure the guy is still around. I think there was another dissenter, but I can't remember who it was.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 05:27 PM) This basically sums up a lot of the saber-metric type debates in my eyes. A lot of the new generation stat guys say that wins are a very useless stat...but right there you just gave the best reason why they're not useless. Sometimes a win comes because you see you're pitching against Santana and you throw a near-no-hitter, sometimes a win comes because you're pitching against the Royals and you figure you've got some room to work with. Wins aren't a perfect stat, but because of that reason, I don't think they're a worthless one either. If you're comparing two similarly talented pitchers, like say Roy Oswalt and Carlos Zambrano, then the difference in win totals could have some value, although I still think the difference in teams can explain a couple of them. If you're using that as an argument to try to explain why Bartolo Colon is better than or as good as Johan Santana, that's another story. You can't really use any one stat to compare pitchers. I'd say that ERA and WHIP are still better indicators of a pitcher's success.

Wow, Kalapse's pic is really giving me a headache. That one really looks like it's moving, or at least faster than the first one.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 10:38 PM) NVM, I was in league 5 last year. I don't remember what place I finished in, but it was probably towards the top You were in my league? I don't remember that. 1 and 2 were Latino Heat and Kalapse, so you didn't do THAT well. You beat me, but that wasn't saying much in that league. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle our league yet. We only had a 10 man league, and there was some turmoil towards the end of the year. I get the feeling we're going to disband it and fill in the other leagues as necessary. I suppose we could just fill in the spots for those that had issues with our league too though. We'll see.

QUOTE(farmteam @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 05:05 PM) I'll go into any league with Live Draft and Head to Head (though I think most leagues have that). You're right, most of the leagues will be a Head 2 Head, live draft format. However, We'll probably have at least one Roto league. Auto draft is highly unlikely, but if we get enough people interested in it I'll set one up. Also, let me know if any of you want to be in a keeper league. There may be some openings in our two pre-existing keepers, and we could certainly run another one if necessary.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 02:10 PM) It wasn't your league it was League #5. Yeah, what he said. I ran that league. League #4 was cool, and that was a pretty good group, so I'd do it again. On another note, I went back through the old threads and found decent lists for most of the leagues. Let me know if you want to know where you were, I have solid lists for most of the leagues. Also, let me know if you've had a name change, since I don't recognize a bunch of them.

Since it seems I'm basically running the league assignments now, please don't bother posting your league info unless you really want to be back in the same league (I'll get pretty damn confused otherwise ). I know some of these have been going for a while and some of the others were just thrown together last year, so I can't really promise anything. I'll do my best to put you guys in the league you want. Any new players, please let me know what type of experience you have with fantasy baseball so I don't inadvertently end up throwing you to the wolves. Eventually I'll set up threads for the individual leagues (or ask the commisioners to do that) and go about filling in any open spots. I'll try to add new leagues when we get a decent amount of interest. PM me with any questions (please no E-Mail). I assume we're going to need a lot of people willing to run leagues, so as SS2k5 said, let me know if you're interested in that.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 12:28 PM) I wonder why? :rolly Personally, I don't blame you, and I don't know why that was such a big deal. You guys were just lucky I had so many injured/underacheiving starters on that team. I thought I was going to dominate when my first three picks were A-Rod, Cabrera, and Texeira.