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QUOTE(3E8 @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 01:18 PM) Has this trade officially gone through? I heard the Dodgers were willing to offer Guzman and Billingsley which is > than Ramierez and Sanchez. If they are at all able to back out, they should. I've heard that it's been accepted pending physicals, so I guess technically it hasn't gone through yet.

QUOTE(Sonik22 @ Nov 12, 2005 -> 07:24 PM) hell yea its a freken upgrade. Go to best buy and play call of duty 2 and then try and tell me its not an upgrade. It looks so amazing. The graphics are so great and it like watching saving private ryan or band of brothers in HD. Its amazing. I agree with that entirely. I played it for about 10 minutes and came away pretty impressed. However, for those of us that don't have an HD/Plasma/whatever the hell else million dollar TV (like me), you'll probably lose a bit. The graphics were pretty impressive, but I'm not so sure it's ridiculously better than some of the higher end current games. I personally won't be buying one anytime soon, because the titles are extremely underwhelming. Madden and Project Gotham would work for a while, and after that demo Call of Duty looks like a must buy. Full Auto also looks like a pretty cool game, but I'm not sure when it comes out. After that the only must buys I see anywhere in the near future are Gears of War and HALO 3, which are out in January at the earliest. I plan on waiting until the PS3 comes out to decide which system I will be getting. I already know that there are a few PS3 games I must get that will be available on or near launch, so that gives the XBox 360 a little time to catch up. So far, it looks like XBox is going a little overboard by making an incredibly large number of FPS, which doesn't seem like a smart strategy for a system that has HALO.

The trade is nothing but a salary dump, that is pretty clear. Their goal definitely appears to be to save as much money as possible in this case. If their goal was to cut salary and stay competitive, they would have taken Blalock and the prospect instead. That said, let's not put Boston in the World Series just yet. As big as the names are in their rotation, there are still a lot of "ifs" involved for them to have a quality rotation. Beckett needs to pitch like he did last year, only for a full season. Schilling needs to get somewhere close to his old self, something he showed very few signs of doing. Everytime I watched him pitch, he was throwing everything between 88 and 93 with little movement. That's not going to get him another sub-3.50 ERA and 20 wins. Clement has to actually be a credible pitcher in the second half, something he hasn't really done. He has flashes of being good in the first half, but starts to collapse right around the All-Star break. Wakefield has to keep fooling people with his slow crap, and Arroyo has to show some signs of developing. If everything goes right for them, they'll have a pretty good rotation. If some things break their way but not others, it'll be pretty much like last year. Plus they obviously still need to resolve some issues with their bullpen, which was just abysmal for most of last year. Even assuming that Papelbon is solid and Foulke comes back at 100%, they'll need at least one more solid arm. Their offense is in a position to potentially take a bit of a slide too. There's still the Manny issues to work out. If he's dealt, that's a severe blow to the offense which can't be remedied. However unlikely that is, it could still be something to worry about if he becomes a major pain in the ass. Another serious blow could come if Damon leaves. They simply don't have a replacement leadoff hitter, and those are pretty hard to find. Their offense loses some of its oomph if guys aren't on base when Ortiz and Manny come up. There are also some lesser issues in the offense. Mueller was a guy who consistently got on base and was a pretty solid bottom of the order hitter. Unless Lowell turns it around, they won't have that anymore. They also still have a pretty big hole at 1B, which is going to be difficult to fill. 2B is also somewhat of an issue. Graffanino probably isn't an everyday player, and I'd bet that last year was a fluke. If their 7-8-9 hitters aren't getting on, that hurts their offensive balance a lot. They'd still be one of the top offenses, but it'd be a little tougher for them to win games without at least decent pitching. As good as they are, Manny and Ortiz can't win every game for you. They appear to be a near lock for a mid-90's win total right now, which has pretty much been the case for the last couple of years. As of right now, their offense is still a monster, and they'll still be one of the better lineups unless Manny actually gets his wish. However, there are still question marks in their bullpen and in the rotation. Unless things break right for them or they make another significant addition, that will probably keep them from winning 100, or from advancing past the ALCS.

Interesting note on ESPN Insider. One of their NBA experts (not sure who, don't really care) seems to think that we might trade Luol Deng for some size during the season. While this originally upset me, he then noted that he seems to think we're getting Peja in FA. Now I don't know what to think.

QUOTE(fathom @ Nov 18, 2005 -> 01:28 PM) No, they asked for King Felix! That's pretty ridiculous. Supposedly they also told Cleveland that they want Cliff Lee. Or maybe it was Grady Sizemore. Cleveland asked for one of them for Thome, Florida asked for the other for Delgado. Either way, those demands are going to have to come down if they're going to be dealt.

Man, that sucks that it looks like he's going to Boston now. He's a much bigger threat there than in Texas. If nothing else their top 3 have some pretty good stuff, although Schilling, Beckett, and Clement all have some issues. Here's hoping they produce about as well as the Cubs' group. How the hell did they get a potential ace pitcher and a starting 3B for two god damn prospects?! I know the answer is that they ate Lowell's contract, but damn that sucks. And they call the Yankees the Evil Empire...

Rudy Gay is a pretty impressive player. So far I don't see the lack of agression that people often claim he has, which is especially impressive since Arkansas is pretty big. His ball-handling still needs some work though, he's already got 5 turnovers. Man, UConn is going to be scary once Williams is back. They have a lot of talented players. They're up 10 and Boone isn't doing much tonight.

Maybe if they could actually build a real team around KG he wouldn't be so pissed off. Garnett's salary hampers them a bit, but there's still some work that could be done. Since Garnett became a premier player (for argument's sake I'll say in his second year), he's had one year with Marbury, 3 to 3 1/2 years of Gugliota, and 1 year where Spree and Cassell worked. People use the rings as a reason that Duncan is better than KG, but if you put Garnett on the same team as Parker and Ginobili, would the results be any different? I doubt it. Trading Garnett would be one of the dumbest moves ever, unless the got a superstar player in return. I'd kill to see him on the Bulls, that'd be huge. However, it's highly unlikely, and the costs would be very high. Considering that to get Shaq Miami gave up Odom, an all-star caliber player that year, Butler, an up and coming SF, and Grant, a passable but expensive big man, it'd be pretty rough. Not only would we have to give up a lot of talent, but we'd also have to get close to matching his salary. To make matters worse, Garnett would demand more value because he is younger and less injury prone than Diesel. This means the deal would almost have to include Chandler, and they'd probably want Hinrich or Deng. Gordon might not cut it because not everyone is enamored with his suspect defense and the double whammy of iffy shot selection and frequent ball-hogging tendencies. Even assuming we could build a deal around those two, we'd also probably have to include at least one first round pick. It's conceivable it'd take 3 of the 4 players I mentioned.

QUOTE(qwerty @ Nov 21, 2005 -> 11:48 PM) I know, i made it worse. Ooooooooops i did it again... LOL, that avatar is hilarious! Anyways, here's something to consider. There are situations where Pierre isn't the second hitter in the lineup after Pods gets on to lead off the game. In fact, they make up most of the game. Neither player gets a ton of extra base hits (Pierre's triples would likely drop moving from their park to ours), meaning they're going to be on first a lot needing to steal or bunt them over to get them in scoring position. This is even a bigger issue in RBI situations. If Uribe hits a 2 out double, what are the odds that Pods or Pierre drives him in? Not very high. Neither is very adept at getting a hit when they absolutely need one. This isn't as big a deal in the NL when Pierre typically hit behind the pitcher and their crappy #8 hitter. It's a bigger deal with threats like Crede, Uribe, and possibly Anderson hitting in front of him. That 1-2 punch would make some plays stealing bases and their would probably be a few more successful bunts. However, that also results in at least 15 more caught stealings, and Pierre's average probably wouldn't be around .300 if he's constantly sacrificing for Pods. He's lead off most of his career, meaning he's used to just doing his thing. More importantly, that duo would be virtually useless unless we have a clutch hitter with a high average in the 3-hole like Ivan Rodriguez was during their WS season. Even assuming we re-sign Paulie, we'd still have Dye and Konerko hitting 3rd and 4th. Those are two .270-ish hitters with fairly low OBP that don't go the other way as often as they should. That means we're stranding Pods on second and Pierre on first an awful lot. We'd need to add a guy that's going to hit well into the .300 to maximize the impact of a Pods-Pierre leadoff pair, something we don't have and aren't all that likely to acquire.

QUOTE(danman31 @ Nov 21, 2005 -> 05:13 PM) If only that were true. NU just isn't big enough to compete with Iowa, OSU, and Michigan in terms of drawing, Actually, they're fans do travel pretty well, even to Detroit. They sellout their allotments of tickets rather easily, something that the bigger schools don't necessarily do if they are in a smaller bowl game. The difference is that they don't have the TV ratings of larger schools. I don't think that Iowa does much better than we do, and OSU isn't really an issue since they will probably be in a BCS bowl. The teams that will be bigger factors in us sliding down the bowl list are Wisconsin and Michigan.

Guess I was wrong about Maryland over Gonzaga. I didn't get to see the whole game, but Maryland looked like they've never seen a zone defense before. They looked absolutely brutal for most of the first half. You can't beat good teams if you turn it over more than 20 times (unless you shoot the ball incredibily well). Caner-Medley was brutal, he only had 3 points. He averaged 16 a game last year. While some of that could be attributed to a better all around team, that's still not acceptable. From the looks of it they need to get Jones more playing time, that guy can flat out score. They should probably start him at SF to give their lineup a little more speed and move Caner-Medley to the 4 spot with Gist coming off the bench. I can't imagine that Caner-Medley can stop a real SF. I still like Maryland's team. They're very deep and have a lot of options. They just need to polish up their ball-handling and defense a bit. What's funny is that they might actually be too deep, at least on the wings. McCray, Jones, Gist, and Caner-Medley are all important players, but they can't all get the 30+ minutes a game that they deserve. One of them is going to have to come up the bench. I think Gist makes the most sense, but he is also probably the most likely Terp to create a mismatch. It's a tough job for Gary to maximize the talents of those guys. At least I got Iowa winning right, despite some poor shooting from Horner and Haluska. Also, I just don't see Arkansas beating UConn. Even without a real PG right now, Gay, Boone, Brown, and Anderson are all solid players that form a solid nucleus. Arkansas matches up better against smaller teams, not big teams like UConn, whose bigs also happen to be more athletic. They're a decent but not stellar team, and their only player I'd call well above average is Brewer. Thomas and Modica are pretty good, but I wouldn't call them stellar. They're a borderline ranked team at best.

QUOTE(SnB @ Nov 21, 2005 -> 04:05 PM) probably because they're a made up school that no one has ever heard of before. Don't remember 1983, huh (to be honest I was born that year, but I've heard about it many times)? In 1983, Virginia was 8-0 and ranked #1 in the country. They had already beaten a Ewing-lead Georgetown team and and an early Phi-Slamma-Jamma Houston squad. They agreed to play Chaminade on the way back from a tournament in Tokyo and promtly lost. That remains one of the biggest upsets ever. Plus, they have/had (not sure what the case is) one of the coolest nicknames in sports: the Silver Swords.

It's looking a lot like MSU can't find anyone that can score outside of the Ager/Brown/Davis trio. That's really going to hurt them eventually unless something changes. A bad night by any one of those three could spell trouble against even mediocre major conference teams. I don't think their D is good enough to consistently win if they score less than 70 a game.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan99 @ Nov 21, 2005 -> 12:44 PM) Iowa beating a Kentucky team without Randolph Morris isn't really a bold prediction. UK without Morris is really more like a borderline top 25 team. Tell that to the pollsters and various experts who rank them as a borderline top 10 team. I agree with you, but from what I've seen that isn't a generally held opinion. Frankly I don't know if Kentucky is a top 10 team WITH Morris, but that won't be an issue for a while. It appears the NCAA is taking their dear sweet time as usual.

Bold predictions for today: Iowa upsets Kentucky and Maryland beats Gonzaga. The Zags did not look good in their first game at all. The Terps are deeper, more athletic, and have more guys that can score. Morrison is going to need a monster game, because Ravio will have his hands full trying to score on Strawberry and while he may be stronger than the Terps' bigs Batista is not as long or athletic.

QUOTE(knightni @ Nov 20, 2005 -> 01:32 AM) The Marlins would want a SP back. I don't see your point. The Marlins would be getting a pitching prospect in either proposed deal.

QUOTE(VAfan @ Nov 18, 2005 -> 10:00 PM) The $12-18 million is more than enough because you have to include what they made last year as a baseline figure. How do you figure? With either potential use of the term baseline, their previous salary is not a reliable indicator of what it will take to resign the players, and we have not already paid that portion of their salary or committed to those totals, so there is no reason to neglect those numbers when figuring out what the future cost of retaining their services will be. Both will make more money, and Garland might be making considerably more. We also can't conclude that those totals are included in the future budget. We're talking about raw dollar totals, otherwise with that logic we could argue that Abreu/Giles is only a slight increase in cost over Konerko's $8.75 mil last year (since we are talking about his replacement) instead of being a possible discount from Paulie's coming contract, or we could argue that Konerko would only cost us about $5 mil per year. None of those are the case. In this case, you simply can't use past salaries or past budget totals as any reliable basis for comparison from year to year when discussing player salaries who are about to reach the open market or calculating the cost. The only way that would make sense would be the total dollar cost, which would probably be between $10 and $12 mil over 3 years for A.J. and something like $12 mil for two years of Garland, and the latter might be a little low based on the going price for medicore pitching. Our future cost is not the difference between their salary for the previous year and what they will make in the coming years, it's just what they will make in the coming years.

There are six major differences between Josh Beckett and Kerry Wood that are in Beckett's favor: 1) Beckett has a ring 2) Beckett has won 15 games in a season 3) Beckett pitched extremely well in elimination and playoff games for the Marlins, while Wood laid a giant egg when they needed him most 4) Beckett is 3 years younger 5) Beckett has not had major arm problems or surgeries to the best of my knowledge 6) Beckett is considerably cheaper than Wood You will not find a pitcher that is available with a higher ceiling than Beckett. Combine that with the fact that he has playoff experience and succeeded, he's a very rare pitcher that any team should be willing to kill for, especially when he will be relatively cheap for two years. Someone that is as desperate for pitching as Texas should be thrilled to get a guy like Beckett, although their rotation needs more help than just him.

QUOTE(WHarris1 @ Nov 20, 2005 -> 12:13 AM) I have a question, how does Notre Dame deserve a BCS bid? Personally, I don't know. I've been saying for a while that they haven't done as much as people think, and that their schedule is nowhere near as good as originally thought. They've only beat three teams with a winning record: BYU at 6-5, Michigan at 7-4, and Navy at 6-4. Considering that two of those teams play less than stellar competition, that's pretty weak. Plus there's a loss to the 5-6 Michigan State Spartans. Their best game was a loss to USC. As I've said before, there is no such thing as a moral victory or a good loss in big time college football. Frankly, I don't see why they should get an at large bid over teams like whoever loses out of Va Tech and Miami, Ohio State, the team that doesn't go to the SEC title game out of LSU and Auburn (probably the latter), or Oregon. Hell, Texas Tech has similar results to Notre Dame, but they aren't the Chicago Cubs of college football. They haven't won a bowl game since 1994, but everyone loves them regardless.

That would free up a decent amount of money for the Mets ($8 mil this year plus buyout next), if the rumors are actually true of course. It would be interesting to see what they are getting.

QUOTE(Brian @ Nov 16, 2005 -> 12:14 PM) Michigan has talent in the post this year that is not mentioned in that article. Petway, Hunter, and Sims were bright spots last year. I think 3rd or 4th place finish is reasonable. Frankly, I think Michigan will do well. They had an awful lot of injuries last year, more than any team can handle and still be successful. Lester Abram played about 3 games, Daniel Horton played about 13, and Chris Hunter played maybe half the year. On talent alone, they match up with anyone in the conference. To be honest, the numbers for their guards the last two years look an awful lot like the Brown/Williams/Head trio going into last year (not saying they're gonna do the same thing, just stating facts) However, chemistry could be an issue with all of these guys back, and who knows with Amaker. He's really only had a good team for one year at Seton Hall, and all of his guys were freshmen that year. I could easily see Michigan finishing in the top 5 in the conference and getting a 6 seed or higher.

QUOTE(thedoctor @ Nov 16, 2005 -> 10:58 AM) huge blow to purdue's chances Yikes, considering that Landry is still recovering from an ACL tear, they're in some serious trouble.

QUOTE(fathom @ Nov 16, 2005 -> 12:36 AM) Why would the Marlins take a 5 million dollar extremely injury-prone starting pitcher when they're trying to save money? If KW pulled that trade off, it would be better than anything he did last season. You're still cutting about $6 mil (somewhere around there, too lazy to look up the number right now) for next season, and since he is on a one year deal there is a much lower long term financial committment.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan99 @ Nov 15, 2005 -> 11:15 PM) Where is Elton Brand for that Duke team? But I do think that DePaul team would definitely beat that Duke team if we are talking about their NBA merits, not how they played in college. As for Illinois vs. Georgetown, while I think Georgetown would win at least 7 or 8 out of 10 it would be an interesting matchup because I think that Illinois squad would be able to run on Georgetown all day although they would have a very difficult time stopping Georgetown. That Duke team is a little funky. How can you have basically none of their recent stars like Brand, Battier, or Williams? They're making the squads based on college exploits, otherwise the rosters would be different. Regardless, DePaul has had some really good players. Mikan was a superstar, and Aguirre was a beast in college. It's hard to say though, it's all speculation. I think with the big 3 from the early 90's, Dawkins, Brand, Battier, and Williams, I'd like Duke a little more. This isn't the first time this has been done either. It showed up in one of their magazines a while ago. They had UCLA beating UNC in the final, not 100% sure but I think the others of the Final Four were Kansas and Georgetown. Edit- On further analysis, definitely DePaul. Aguirre and Mikan are among the best college players of all time, and they're bolstered by Corzin, Cummings, Richardson, and Strickland. Pretty good if you ask me.

Figures, one day after beating Charlotte NU is about to lose to UNC Wilmington. As I had said, they could struggle if they don't find a couple of other reliable scorers besides Vukusic. 23 for Vedran, 10 for Hachad, 6 for Doyle. That won't cut it.