EVIL~! alkeiper

In the case of the former, it's mainly eliminating the year long holdouts, a welcome development in my view. The compensation picks are generally a good way for small-market teams to rebuild, and they just simplified the process a tad.

One thing though is that the draft will likely only go 35-40 rounds. With no more draft and follows, teams are less inclined to take more players.

If no teams want him at this point, it's him.

Let's say wrestling had a real draft. What five wrestlers would you pick first for your promotion? Rules are simple. You can pick any wrestlers in the active wrestling universe, even retired/inactive grapplers. If they're inactive however, you have to take into account the difficulty of getting them into the ring. Signability, for lack of a better term. Also, assume that you're running a promotion with an American audience in mind.

Either that or getting a no-hitter is just really difficult.

Well that was fun. Now the A's are a swing away from a comeback win.

He's a prime High School pitching prospect. Kind of like Brien Taylor.

A couple of ground-rules I'm working on for the upcoming tournament. 1. DH Rule: The NCAA, along with nearly all baseball leagues apart from the National League, uses the designated hitter. I'm thinking of adopting that for this tournament. Obviously it's bound to create a stir particularly with some regionals that have four non-DH clubs. 2. Home Era: Usually when running tournaments I would have the eras "normalized" for era, meaning if you played at the 1911 Philadelphia Athletics, you were playing in the 1911 American League. This time, ALL games will be played in 2006 terms. Deadball era teams will have to adjust to the modern era. 3. Time Frame: In doing my simulation, I am going to run each regional one at a time. This makes it easier for me since I can focus on just four teams. When that is completed however, games will be posted together. Each regional contains six games with a seventh if necessary. My presentation would run seven days. Each day results of one game from each regional would be posted. Any questions/comments?

This five minutes nonsense is ridiculous.

They're amateur players and they are getting selected because they want to become professionals.

I'll keep a running tab going if you like.

The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees are downright comical. Colter Bean is listed at 255 lbs. The recently called up Chris Britton is 280 lbs. Ron Villone is 245 lbs. Runelvys Hernandez is listed at 250 but is assuredly bigger. When they said the SWB Yankees would be the biggest thing in minor league baseball, I didn't know they were talking about their pitching staff.

Please keep these announcements confined to one thread. Thank you.

Watching him play every day in Scranton will always be a cherished memory. Simply an exciting ballplayer.

Yeah, but there's obvious ease in just putting the Ohio teams in against one another. Cleveland's closest MLB neighbor is Detroit. Sometimes you have to make concessions for the sake of putting everything together. Oddly enough, my original conception had 16 NYC teams. I think my senses got the better of me since.

Just picked up the ladder dvd for $18 at Kmart. It looks all kinds of awesome. How many sets offer around a DOZEN four-star matches (debatable I know). I haven't seen quite a few of these, so it should be fun.

That's typical for mid-updates. I don't know about anyone else, but my system lists the expiration date of each program in the interactive guide.

Clemens is 3-0 in eight World Series starts, with a 2.37 ERA and 49 Ks in 49.3 IP to show for it. He certainly hasn't gotten trashed in a majority of his big games. Most great pitchers are good "big game" pitchers. I wouldn't sweat having prime Clemens on the mound for a game seven.

Drafting a specific position is always a recipe for disaster. The New York Mets once needed a catcher, so they took Steve Chilcott over Reggie Jackson.

One of my favorite draft stories. The Atlanta Braves had the first overall pick in the 1990 pick. Todd Van Poppel was the hot prospect, but his agent asked for more money than the Braves wanted to offer. Worried that they'd be unable to reach a deal the Braves went ahead with their fallback pick, Chipper Jones.

In today's "Where Are They Now?" segment, former Warren Cromartie is set to become a professional wrestler, competing against either Tiger Jeet Singh or Abdullah the Butcher in Japan.

I just did an entry on the 2005 compensation picks in my blog. Good stuff. My favorite tidbit is that CJ Henry was the Yankees' compensation for losing Jon Lieber to the Phillies.

Hill slugged .385 and .386 the last two years. Upton was in AAA before this year. I honestly don't think a player should be an All-Star after 50-60 games, unless they've made a ridiculous case for it.

The draft is entirely done over the phone. Last year a webcast was added with Jimmie Lee Soloman of MLB announcing first round picks from the podium. There's a market for expanded coverage though. And quite honestly, what other television does ESPN typically offer on Thursday afternoons. It's not really in the way of anything, just something new and different.

Like I wrote last year, the voters are aiming for a moving target. Think the All-Star game is all about this season only? A month ago Ian Kinsler would have been the right pick. Now he's hitting .239. Voters looking for the best current talent are split between Pedroia and Brian Roberts (Roberts is better, Sox fans). People get too worked up over All-Star picks. It's better off being a popularity contest, because at least fans get players they want to see.