EVIL~! alkeiper

1. Soriano is a flat out overrated player. He had a career year last year. Otherwise he's got poor plate discipline and a .325 career OBP. There are a few things about his numbers I find suspect. One, his career high in walks came with 16 intentionals. Second, his 46 home runs resulted in just 95 RBIs. When I see those numbers, I get the impression that he didn't see anything to hit in important situations, and he was challenged when the game wasn't on the line. I don't think he can replicate his 2006 numbers. Pat Burrell produced just about as well as Soriano last season. Replacing Burrell with Soriano would not make the team noticeably better. And you would still have holes at right field and third base. If there is one player this team should throw money at, it is Aramis Ramirez. 2. It's the way that Burrell strikes out, either looking or flailing away at pitches low and away. Soriano flat out swings at bad pitches. 4. What did Kenny Lofton cost the team in terms of personality? That 2005 club with Lofton hitting .333 did better than the 2006 club with Rowand running into walls and hitting .262.

Try like 99 percent. People have only seen him via highlights. I still remember that Hideki Irabu was supposed to be the Japanese Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens. He ended up turning into the Fat Toad who drank a 2 liter bottle of soda per day. You forget about the World Baseball Classic. Edit: Let me add this. Here are their Japanese statistics. Hideki Irabu: 59-59, 3.41 ERA Matsuzaka: 108-60, 2.94 ERA

Andre Dawson did it too.

1. I don't want Soriano, period. If people bitch about Burrell striking out, then what'll they think of Soriano? At least Burrell walks almost 100 times a year. I would rather see the Phils persue Dave Roberts if they think they need another outfielder. 2. Trading Burrell for Estrada at any price seems like an ungodly stupid move. Estrada's OBPs the last two years were .303 and .328. It's nice that he wants to come back to Philly, but what does he do that Carlos Ruiz can't replicate at 1/10th the price? 3. I don't give a damn what personality meshes. The 1976-83 Phillies had some terrible personality issues. Gary Sheffield can mash the ball and provides legitimate right handed protection between Utley and Howard. Goodbye situational lefties.

You called him an idiot first. Grow up.

The Yankees only had two above-average starters last year. I'd rather have Jeff Suppan every fifth day than trotting out Sidney Ponson, Shawn Chacon or Kris Wilson and seeing if they don't suck today.

I'd deal one of those extra pitchers first. Why deal Willis if you can get something big in return for Scott Olsen or Josh Johnson? Willis's comp list isn't encouraging, but most of those guys played in better pitchers' eras. It is a very tough decision though. And while looking at the 2006 Marlins, I couldn't help but notice Miguel Olivo's batting line. 103 strikeouts and 9 walks? And I thought Ronny Cedeno was hacktastic.

Yeah, I really don't see how you can blame Aramis Ramirez for exercising his option. He'd be stupid to turn down an opportunity to enter this market.

Oh absolutely. And even if it were legitimate, all but the 6th game were uncompetitive.

This one's pretty close, but the 1989 World Series has to take the cake. A one-sided series interrupted for ten days in the middle. What about '44? The Browns were only there because the other teams in the AL lost several star players to the war effort. The Browns lost some players too. Besides, that World Series was actually pretty good from most accounts.

The Cardinals actually weren't a wild card team. They won their (weak) division.

This one's pretty close, but the 1989 World Series has to take the cake. A one-sided series interrupted for ten days in the middle.

The World Series is over, the Cardinals defeating the Tigers in five games. And in a way, I am glad the Series is over. Yes, it means no more Major League Baseball until March. But this Series was one of the more excruciating baseball experiences of my life. There were times I did not want to even watch the games, but felt obligated. Neither the Cardinals or Tigers really set the world afire. This is one of the problems with parity. Yes, you have a greater number of teams competing for the postseason. The problem is that the more parity you add, the closer the league as a whole finishes to .500. It isn't necessarily a lack of overall quality, it could be balance. And when you get to the postseason, you no longer have those strong teams that everyone wants to watch. When you combine that with a eight team postseason, you get a system where the World Series combatants are two seemingly random teams instead of the two best teams in the league. Of course, that shouldn't be an issue to a hardcore fanatic like myself. The problem, and it pains me to say this, was that the games were boring. With a capital B. Game One saw the Cards score the game-winning run in the third inning. The Tigers got the game-winning run in the first inning of game two. The Cards scored the game winning run in the fourth innings of game three and five. Only the fourth game was of any quality whatsoever. Compare that with last year's sweep, in which three of four were decided in the eighth inning or later. I don't know what you do about that quite honestly. Sometimes you get classics and sometimes you get stinkers. I guess the big issue is when you combine it with all of Fox's crap. God Bless America during the stretch, endless crowd shots, quick camera work, and those awful, awful commercials. All I know is that for the next four months, all I have are my dvds. Commercial free, classic baseball. Beats the hell out of watching Fox.

Essentially the Cubs wanted to streamline their organization. Instead os steady managers at each level, they would rotate coaches so that their players would receive consistant instruction coming up through the system. As a coaching system, it certainly had its merits. The problem came when it came time to choose a manager. They rotated several managers in the 1961/62 season. It continued for a few years until they hired Leo Durocher, who put a stop to the carosel. There's an excellent article about it in the 2006 issue of The National Pasttime. It was the Cubs of this era who gave Buck O'Neil a job coaching in the Majors.

It's all about perspective.

As opposed to the successes that followed the college of coaches? This era sucks but it hasn't done long term damage. Look at the attendance. The Cubs have topped three million the last three seasons. In 1962, they drew 609,802 fans the entire SEASON (7528 a game). The Cubs' AAA affiliate does better than that.

Nah. The worst time was 1948-64 or so. The Cubs had their infamous "college of coaches" idea in '61, and in '62 lost more games than the expansion Houston Colt .45s.

They're cutting Marcus Giles? That would be unbelieveably dumb.

I don't think this is a tremendous shock. The Cardinals had won 105 and 100 games the previous two seasons. They lost David Eckstein and Jim Edmonds for a good chunk of time during the season, and they had poor performances from players not on the postseason roster. Fundamentally, I think they were better than their 2006 record would indicate. Similarly, the Tigers hadn't finished above .500 in over a decade. They probably weren't as good as their record would indicate. The Tigers' offense wasn't even that good before the series. Great win for the Cardinals.

A couple thoughts here... 1. One of the most annoying things about postgame celebrations are official hats and t-shirts handed out on the field (or ice). It destoys the spontaneity. 2. Considering the flak Tony LaRussa's gotten for his postseason failures, this has to rank as his most impressive managerial job in his career. He deserves a ton of credit for this.

Here's a fun random stat. Joe Niekro's statistically most similar player at 38 was Phil Niekro. Joe was 177-155 at that point, Phil was 178-153.

Niekro pitched one of the greatest single game postseason performances of all time, 10 scoreless innings in game three of the 1980 NLCS to lead the Astros to a 1-0, 11 inning victory over the Phillies. On top of that, he was actually a customer of my dad's alarm company for a time. He'll be missed.

Thanks to XM, I've got the Cardinals' radio feed for this. And congrats to the Cardinals for finding a worse left fielder than Greg Luzinski. I never thought it could be done.

That's flawed reasoning. Look at the last inning- Tigers made another stupid error It wasn't a stupid error. If Inge doesn't get Eckstein at first, a run scores. Eckstein advanced to second on the error, but didn't score himself. The error did not cost the Tigers a run.

Leadoff hit, clearly another Tiger mistake.