Cheech Tremendous

Louisiana Hot Sauce. I have Tapatio myself. Although I think a peppery hot sauce like Tabasco is better for eggs. Hot Sauce is like, my favorite thing ever, though. Try the Louisiana, it's like a $1.00 or so and it's a little more vinegary than the tabasco. Though I love me some Tabasco on my eggs too. I find the milder green tabasco to be ideal with eggs, especially scrambled.

Happy birthday to TSM's best poster.

So the Mets and Nationals switch catchers and Washington ends up with Lastings Milledge for their troubles? What a disaster for Omar Minaya.

From Baseball Think Factory: Turns out Keith Law was the other writer denied membership. What a bunch of horse shit.

Are there any special 21er activities planned? You've never struck me as the get drunk and act a fool type.

It's mostly because he gave Vernon Wells that huge contract last year which makes Rios expendable. The only reason he wants to move him is because he knows that it's the only valuable trade commodity that he has to work with. If moving Rios solves your problems in the rotation, then you do it. Of course, he's not going to get Bedard or Lincecum by offering just Rios so it's mostly a non-starter in negotations.

Punishments are usually more harsh for funding and organizing an illegal activity than just participating in it. That's always been the case with these sorts of activities. As another poster mentioned, the failed drug test and lying to prosecutors really hurt his chance for a lighter sentence. He dug himself a deeper hole.

They've made inquiries on Erik Bedard and Tim Lincecum using Alex Rios as the bait. Doesn't sound like they have the parts to make either deal work. They want to move Troy Glaus but are having difficulty finding anyone who'll take the contract. Burnett is most certainly on the block, but it's going to be hard to move him do to his contract. He has an opt out clause after next year. So if he's good, you only get him for a year but if he sucks you are stuck with the contract. That's a hard sell, especially when the Blue Jays would be more interested in keeping him around if they can't get a package that makes them better.

There are plenty of minor league free agents, waiver wire fodder, independent league guys, players in Japan and so forth that can post a marginal level of offense with average defense. There are literally hundreds of ballplayers that can be had for close to the minor league minimum that won't put up an embarrassing level of perfomance at the major league level and are essentially free (won't cost you talent, draft picks or money beyond the minimum). VORP measures the amount of batting runs created by the player over what this theoretical player would likely post given the same batting opportunities. It's not perfect, but at its heart it measures something tangible and represents one of the most basic concepts of baseball. As one moves down the defensive spectrum, there is a certain level of offensive gain that must be met in order to differentiate from the increasing mass of players that can play that position adequately. It's very good for comparing players across positions in terms of actual value.

I came in here with the intention of starting birthday threads for Al and Czech (didn't know about King). Foiled!

I generally agree with this. One of the main problems is that statistics get used errantly to back up false premises. The introduction of a statistic to a discussion should be there to illuminate a point, not create one. They should at the minimum satisfy two requirements. Is it (the statistic) reliable? Does it measure something of substance? I know that I get a little numbers happy from time to time, but I'm just trying to add another level of analysis. For instance, my post on Latroy Hawkins earlier. Everyone knows Hawkins sucks, but his numbers looked good last year. I tried to answer why (he puts a lot of balls in play and those balls put in play turned into outs at a higher rate than they should have). It's perplexing that Czech thinks I'm stumping for FJM. If anything, I think I've been less of a saber nerd lately than in the past. At least I've been attempting to show restraint in trying to make myself look good by killing other posters with numbers they probably wouldn't understand.

Latroy Hawkins only had 29 strikeouts last year in 55 innings of work (sporting a ridiculous .209 BABIP in Colorado). That's insane. But anyways, it's a one year deal for a middle reliever. It's not going to change the balance of power in the East. He'll eat up some low leverage innings or shit the bed and get DFA'd. I don't know why we are even discussing the meaning of the signing. It's for depth and nothing else. Anyone else shocked that Gagne will be getting $10 million plus incentives from the Brewers? That's like 1/7 of their team salary.

Story developing... Courtesy of espn.com and the Associated Press.

Benoit/Angle would probably be my favorite if there was anyting significant about it. It occured a couple of months after their feud had died down and there was nothing at stake. I guess it's historically significant because of the permanent physical damage it caused both men, but that's not exactly a good thing.

How much money do you waste each month on WWE dvds? It seems that you post in here every couple of weeks talking about multiple purchases that you have made. Ever heard of a savings account?

The two best matches I've ever seen on Raw were Bulldog/Owen v. Michaels/Austin and Benoit/Jericho v. Austin/HHH, neither of which is on the list. I guess they didn't want to include the Benoit match, which is fine, but how could they deny the tag title switch from '97? EDIT: They have another Benoit match on there, so it seems odd they'd leave off the match against Two Man Power Trip, the lone bright spot from summer '01.

By the way, has anyone heard the Plant/Krauss album? If so, would you recommend it. I'm a big Plant fan, even like some of his solo stuff, but I just don't know if this would be my cup of tea.

Anyone else find it funny that old sportswriters and media types almost faint at the word OPS, as if it were some devilish concoction of basement-dwelling nerds who think they know everything, but openly embrace the passer rating, which is the most convulated and complex stat known to man?

^Likes him some metal... not so hot on Tool

Other than the fact that he became the best hitter ever in his late 30s, there was nothing unusual about Bonds' career arc. I find it insulting that they refer to Bonds as a "lithe outfielder" and "basestealer." It implies that he was Ichiro out there. In fact, Bonds was a superior power/speed guy. As he got older and lost his speed, he gained a little more patience and power, which is what happens to nearly every other comparable baseball player with a similar skillset. Look, we know that Bonds took steroids. They don't have to frame the article to imply that Bonds trasformed from a wirey speedster into a hulking basher. He was your typical power hitting outfielder that changed his game and frame as he got older. There's nothing particularly outlandish about that.

I'm eagerly awaiting the line of "I'm a man. I'm forty!" gear.

Dennis Green is looking to trademark the phrase "They are who we though they were."

Bonds pleads not guilty While I'm not naive enough to argue that Bonds never used steroids, it seems somewhat disingenuous on the media's part to say that he had a tremendous power surge after his alleged steroid use starting after the 1998 season. He had finished in the top 10 in home runs 9 times before then.

No kidding. I was actually somewhat excited about this release, but the lack of the Kerry title change and some good Freebirds-Von Erichs stuff really kills it for me. Those are the definitive memories I have of the promotion (along with the cage match).

He had writers?