Precious Roy

CONTROLLED FRENZY!

wtf was that

That's not Orton's wife

I just got MLB 09 for PS3, it's the first "The Show" game I've played and I could use a little help with the pitching meter. It's kind of frustrating because they don't explain it in the manual or anywhere onscreen in the game far as I can tell. Best I can tell so far is hit X once to initiate the windup, then hit it at the peak of the meter, then one more time before the ball moves out of the hot zone. Is that the general idea? Doing that seems to get me the best speed on my pitches, but not a whole lot of accuracy as far as where I'm trying to place the ball. Everything seems to be going high up in the zone, so I must not be doing it right...

David Wright was a consensus top 5 pick this year before A-Rod got hurt, this just increases his value. ESPN has dropped A-Rod to 31 in their rankings. I did a live draft last night just out of curiosity. 10 team 5X5 roto. I had the third pick, Hanley and Pujols went 1-2, I took David Wright, took Berkman in rd. 2, Ichiro in rd. 3, then A-Rod 38th overall in rd. 4. Personally I think that's great value for a 4th rd pick that you can stash on your IR for a couple of months. Mileage varies the deeper the league gets, but in a 10 team there's enough good players out there in the draft and then free agency over the course of the year that you can afford to pick A-Rod in the 3rd or 4th and not suffer too much for it. I certainly wouldn't expect him to last to the 5th. I also think there's enough depth at 3rd where you can get a decent player to keep the spot warm for him in the middle rounds of the draft. In addition to Wright I also got 3B/1B eligible Chris Davis 83rd overall, so at some point I may have the "problem" of having Wright, A-Rod and Davis and will be able to trade from a position of strength.

WINNER

TO in New England is crazy enough that it just might work. Not that I actually want or expect it to happen, but I can buy into the theory that he'll be on good behavior the first year, wherever he may end up. Moss has worked out so well, it might be worth a shot to try Owens. Any team that can sign him to a 1 year incentive based contract has to consider it. I do have to say though that there is really no comparing the personalities of Moss and TO. Moss has done some stupid shit in his career and he's got a big ego, and yeah he may have dogged it a bit in Oakland, but he was never a guy who actively fed into the negativity of the media, whereas TO seemingly lives for that attention.

In retrospect it seems they were wise to trade Mulder and Hudson when they did, and to let Zito go when he hit free agency. He was already in decline in Oakland, it's still amazing to me how much money he was able to get from San Fran. The Haren trade I question a bit, but it remains to be seen how all the prospects they got will pan out. Moving Harden when they did was obviously a good move given his injury history. Oakland is a team that has a clear philosophy of staying within a budget and restocking with prospects whenever possible. So far it hasn't resulted in success on a grand scale, but for a team that is consistently in the lower half of payrolls I'm always impressed by what they're able to accomplish. For as much hype and praise as he gets Billy Beane really is one of the better GMs in the league. I don't think they ever really had a realistic shot at keeping Giambi or Damon. Their biggest mistake may have been signing Chavez to a big contract over Tejada, but in the long run keeping Tejada wouldn't have been that great of a plan either.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3957971

God this sucks. He should probably just bite the bullet and get the surgery done now rather than have it be a lingering thing that could get worse and end up with him getting shut down for the rest of the season. I have no idea what they'd do to replace him for 3 or 4 months. I don't think putting Angel Beroa or Cody Ransom out there every day is a viable option. Neither is moving Tex across the diamond and playing Swish at first, it would be great if they could do that and have it go off without a hitch, but it's not going to happen. The best veteran IF options in free agency are Mark Grudzielanek and Ray Durham, neither of whom is a third baseman. Worst case scenario and A-Rod is out for months they pretty much have to make a trade. Chad Tracy maybe?

Sean Gallagher, SP, Oakland

The only time I watch ESPN is when there's a game on. I haven't watched Sportscenter in years except for when it's on at someone else's house or at a pub. With the internet you can pretty much pick and choose your own media, It's really not that hard to avoid the hype machine.

Ugeth Urbina and of course all the steroid cases. The NBA has had a surprisingly low number of drug suspensions in recent years, to the point where I have to believe their weed testing is an absolute joke.

Stern hasn't been all bad, I didn't really mean to insinuate that, but I think some of his accomplishments are way overrated and he seems to get a free pass a lot of the time based on that, not so much from fans but from a lot of the writers who cover the NBA. There was a time when he was on the cutting edge and very innovative in a lot of ways, but his best days are well behind him and the sport has suffered due to his pursuit of the $ over what's best for the game and the fans. And ya know, international success is all well and good, but the games are played in the USA in American cities, that's the core of fanbase and the business and that's what's most important.

There's a lot of things wrong with how the NBA markets itself and that probably won't change until Stern and his disciples are out of power. You would think the owners as a collective entity would be at least somewhat unhappy with the guy given the way the league has managed to fuck themselves out of high ratings on network TV and really failed to capitalize on the potential of the league considering how popular the sport of basketball is. The NBA underperforms relative to the NFL and MLB, and it's pretty inexplicable.

The Athletics have really put together quite the improved offense on paper. Even with the questions about the health of Nomar and Chavez and how much they'll get out of Jason Giambi at his age and leaving the short porch at Yankee stadium they're still sure to see a huge improvement over last year when the offense was absolutely terrible. Kurt Suzuki led the team with a .279 average and no other regular even broke .240! And they still manged to win like 75 games. The Angels are obviously still the favorites in the division and appear to have a much better pitching staff, but I don't think they're going to approach 100 wins again, and if the Athletics can get some consistency out of some of their young pitchers the West could get interesting again.

I'll go with Clint Barmes, 2B/SS/3B, Rockies and... Fred Lewis, OF, Giants

Ummm, what numbers from the second half? He went down on July 2nd and then was out for the rest of the year with the exception of two games in september. In 299 at bats last year he had a .391 OBP. His career number is .428. The ONLY thing I'm sure of when it comes to Helton is when he's playing he gets on base. As far as PEDs go, there's no "proof" on Sosa either. There's no "proof" on a lot of guys. So what? The anecdotal evidence is all there in black and white, and I don't get why Helton is above suspicion. He's obviously a very talented hitter with a great eye with or without enhancement, but look at his numbers in say 2000/2001 and look at his numbers before and after. Remember when one of the guys who did Rockies radio got quoted in reference to a conversation he had had with Don Baylor about Helton 'cycling' and when it hit ESPN everyone rushed to cover up and deny it and Baylor claimed he told Helton to stop cycling creatine, not steroids? Yeah. So maybe in the late 90's/early 2000's he was doing andro and all those then legal but since banned substances and not HGH and designer steroids like other guys, but it's obvious he was on something, just like hundreds and hundreds of other ballplayers were

Haha, yeah he does. He kind of reminds me of a young Billy Gunn the way he bumps and feeds, which is a compliment. I like what little we've seen of him so far. He must not be very good in extended matches though the way they've limited him on tv.

There was also a Michaels/Cena v. Undertaker/Batista tag match main event at No Way Out that year. Michaels/Undertaker is the one real marquee match they have this year, there's really no doubt that it would generate the most buys of any individual match and get the best response in the arena. Plus, if this is supposed to be a historic Wrestlemania they need a historic match like that to sell it on. I don't believe they'd be stupid enough to ruin the appeal of that match by adding other wrestlers to it. Punk/Morrison/Miz, I bet that Punk's winning and Miz/Morrison are unifying the belts at Mania. Which is kind of cool, but also too bad because Morrison is amazing in ladder matches.

Looking back I've definitely made some mistakes in this draft. I wanted a guy who could both play first and back up Chipper at 3rd if/when he sits out some games, and after my first choice (Carlos Guillen) was gone I should have jumped on Casey Blake or Hank Blalock. But I don't really like either guy and I'm convinced that Blalock is a total steroid washout who isn't going to contribute meaningfully in any one category, so I decided to go for the risk/reward of Todd Helton. Helton is another steroid washout, but at least he still gets on base at a ridiculously high rate. With his health concerns though I really just should have taken Blake. I probably should have passed on the upside of Milton Bradley as well and gone with a safer bet like Damon or Hunter. Anyway, who the fuck is Chris B Young?!?! Christ.... Dioner Navarro, C, Rays and, because SOMEONE *coughAJBurnettAndyPettittecough* is bound to get hurt this year, and because I still believe! Phil Hughes, SP, Yankees

The Celtics were 9-2 without Garnett last year, I wouldn't write them off just yet.

I don't know how much validity there was to that rumour, but it worries me a little that the Knicks might be thinking they can't keep both Lee and Robinson after the season. It would be a PR disaster to let Nate go, he has to be the most popular guy on the team right now and our most exciting player. He's definitely a guy who sells tickets and jerseys, and as my favorite Knicks player personally I would hate to see him leave New York. I like the trades Walsh made today. Definitely makes us stronger for a playoff run and it's a wash as far as cap space goes come 2010. Wilcox if he's in run and gun shape should be a good fit and gives the team some needed size. Hughes I'm not as sure about as I haven't really seen him play in a couple years and don't know how much he has left, and he's a streaky shooter which worries me a little since he'll always have a green light, but if he's on he's a decent playmaker and slasher who'll get some steals playing the passing lanes, and all of that are things that this team can use out of the 2 spot.

Todd Helton, 1B

This was probably for Kozlov to look like a legitimate threat before facing, and (hopefully) losing to HBK. Undertaker always works matches against WWE's big man flavor of the month, where Undertaker gets "beaten like we have NEVER seen Undertaker get beaten before". Time and time again, and he always wins the blowoff. Well yeah, like I said I get what the story is, but Kozlov just has so little going for him, and you'd think they would have learned their lesson on him by now after months of stinking it up with HHH. He's just not ready for the kind of spot they're forcing him into. They could have done the exact same booking with Big Show in Kozlov's place, it actually makes more sense given what happened between the two in the Rumble and the feud they've had over the past year, and it would be so much stronger. I guess the only strike against that idea would be having to job Show to Michaels, and I can understand why they'd be reluctant to do that. Then again, I don't know what they plan on doing with Show at Mania, but it would be pretty easy to have JBL interfere in an HBK-Show match to try and keep Michaels from getting the big headline match at Mania that he wanted, inadvertently cause Show to lose, and it sets up an undercard deal for those two in the process. A bit contrived maybe, but anything would be better than continuing to push Kozlov way over his head.