Cheech Tremendous

This is something that needs to be carefully handled by the mod staff, to ensure that Thread #100,000 is a celebration of Rantsylvania Delphi/Rantsylvania EZBoard/The Smarks EZBoard/The Smarks Invision Board/The Smart Marks/TSM. Slayer might be the only poster that makes me occasionally laugh out loud.

It would be really fun to do a Steroids Pool like we do the Death Pool. I sure as hell don't want to keep track of it all though.

Unfortunately, no. Then you got yourself a shitty gig.

Pretty much. According to a couple of other sites, he mouthed the word "Mo" and got a look of shock. Totally possible he said whoa. That would certainly be a shocker, but so would ARod or Jeter. As for Pettitte, he was named in the Grimsley affidavit. His agent shot down the report, but there's some smoke there. Like Jose Canseco, Ken Caminiti, Mo Vaughn, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, and Sammy Sosa? Even guys like Bagwell, Clemens and Tejada fit the bill.

I can't think of who might show up from the current team, but there are a lot of suspects from '04 team. Damon, Nixon and Millar all seem like decent bets. As for current and former Yankees, Giambi, Sheffield, Clemens and Pettitte will most likely be there.

They are all old news. These were names confirmed from the US government. According to the article printed on ESPN yesterday, most of the names in the Mitchell Report came from secondary sources, the most prominent being the US government. If those are 24 of the rumored 60 names, this will be disappointing. Then again, I could be way wrong here and the document could exceed all expectations.

I believe it's already been stated that there are players from all 30 teams in the report. Just to get the juices flowing, here are 24 names that will appear in the report. These names were submitted from the federal government as part of their probe into PEDs. Rumor has it there are only 60-80 names in the report. If that's true, it hardly even seems worth getting worked up about.

Any songs that will remind you of Ike Turner? I nominate Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up"

Baseball Propspectus's defensive metrics are pretty miserable, and they've slowly come around to admitting as such in some of their recent work. I don't know what they do exactly, but it takes a player's outs and factors them into some sort of historical model. They're extemely inaccurate and prone to massive fluctuations from one year to the next. A more reliable system, such as Dewans +/- or The Hardball Times RZR + OOZ is more preferable for defensive evaluations. There isn't much to learn from BPro system's (which also hurts the credibility of their WARP stats). You know I like BP. But I won't use their defensive statistics anymore if you all have a problem with them and their reliability. It's not really controversial to say that Rajai Davis is a very good defensive center fielder though, or that Miguel Tejada is brutal at shortstop. I use a flawed metric to point it out whereas others might just state it as fact. I try to provide at least a little evidence. I've been a big fan of BP for a long time (read the book annually and was a long-time subscriber to their website), but many of their metrics are flawed due to questionable underlying assumptions built into their methodology. It's not so much that they are wrong, but you have to be aware of the potential pitfalls, defensive metrics being a prime example. I don't care if you use their stuff or not, but cherry picking stats can sometimes give a false sense of a player's abilities.

Baseball Propspectus's defensive metrics are pretty miserable, and they've slowly come around to admitting as such in some of their recent work. I don't know what they do exactly, but it takes a player's outs and factors them into some sort of historical model. They're extemely inaccurate and prone to massive fluctuations from one year to the next. A more reliable system, such as Dewans +/- or The Hardball Times RZR + OOZ is more preferable for defensive evaluations. There isn't much to learn from BPro system's (which also hurts the credibility of their WARP stats).

You want to know the funniest part about the whole Kyle Boller thing? My cousin went to high school with him and stayed in touch throughout college. As the draft approached, I asked him how good of a pro Boller might be. He remarked that was going to be awesome because he had seen him throw the ball 60 yards from his knees. I wasn't sure what that had to do with anything, but kept my mouth shut to be nice. I've never been able to confirm if my cousin is Brian Billick or not.

How exactly does one hold a baseball bat backwards? You hold the thick end and swing with the thin end. Wouldn't that be upside down?

Somehow, I've avoided ever hearing the Soulja Boy song.

That's actually a tremendous idea that would add a whole extra layer of depth to the match.

How exactly does one hold a baseball bat backwards?

He's very happy with Jerry Owens' .312 SLG in 356 AB last year. I played Little League baseball with Jerry Owens (and Kyle Boller). He wasn't very good then. Good to see he carried that onto the majors. I still think the White Sox are one more piece away from contending with Royals for fourth place.

"Running into a wall got me 3 years and $30 million more than I deserved."

Now that I've had a few seconds to process the news, what the hell are the Giants doing? Seriously, how does Aaron Rowand solve any of your problems? They didn't need a centerfielder with Roberts and Rajai Davis and he's not going to do much for them offensively. Rowand's the type that can be a last piece on a contending team, but you don't build around him. I am confident in saying that Brian Sabean has no clue what he's doing. Worst GM in baseball by a country mile.

Rajai Davis to the bench I guess. Kind of a shame, he's a beast defensively. Career 118 Rate2 in center. If you normalize his batting numbers from last season, he hit .291/.371/.397. Miserable SLG, but the others are quite respectable. Oh well. C Bengie Molina 1B Dan Ortmeier (Travis Ishikawa?) 2B Ray Durham 3B Rich Aurilia SS Omar Vizquel LF Dave Roberts CF Aaron Rowand RF Randy Winn Meh. If it weren't for the fact that they have Lincecum and Cain as their top two, I'd be confident in saying the Giants will lose 100+ games next year. That's just a brutal lineup.

Wigginton and Tejada will be one of the worst left sides of the infield in the majors next year. The amount of runs they'll give up from the defensive downgrade will offset most of what they are getting by adding Tejada's bat.

Cliff Floyd signs with the Rays.

A quick reminder of why the Orioles are doomed to perpeutually suck. Talk about not understand the value of your player and trading him when his value is at its lowest. Also, why did the Angels not get in on this? They have the prospects to trump this deal and Tejada at third base and batting cleanup makes too much sense for them.

They should keep Everett. He's a monster defensively. They'd be better off moving Wigginton somewhere for bullpen help. Signing Matsui was a bad move becuase they already had decent 2B options on their roster (Burke and Loretta). Now they have to trade Burke to accomodate a lesser player. From left to right next year: Tejada, Everett, Matsui, Berkman Loretta remains as the super sub for all four positions.

A big group of players, but nothing particularly interesting in the haul. Luke Scott can hit, but at 29 he's a stopgap solution in left field. Troy Patton is the third ranked prospect in the Astros system. He's a lefty with good stuff, but his stock dropped last year. Costanzo came over in the Phillies trade and ranked 6th. He has limited upside but could be an average everyday player. Albers was a former prospect (4th last year) who struggled big-time at the major league level. Probably has a future as a middle reliever but some tweaking could get him on track as a back of the rotation starter. Safarte is just bullpen depth at best. Not really sure what this does for the Astros either. They don't have a chance to compete, even in the weak NL Central, so why pick up an aging, defensively challenged SS with a big contract in his declining years?

According to the Baltimore Sun, Miguel Tejada is now a Houston Astro.