Cheech Tremendous

He's still decent out there. Do you really think he's gotten that bad? He's not an elite defender in the outfield but he hasn't slipped to the point that he's costing you runs. Torii didn't finish in the top ten of John Dewan's Plus/Minus system, but still placed 6th in Fielding Bible awards. I'd feel confident in saying he's in the top third of all centerfielders.

Percival had a 1.80 ERA with a 36/10 strikeout to walk ratio in 40 innings of work. He was really good for the Cardinals last years.

The Rays could be really good next year. They are reportedly working out a deal with Troy Percival in addition to the Garza/Young trade. So they could have a rotation of Kazmir/Shields/Garza/some combo or Davis, Niemann and Price with Percival, Rincon and Reyes on the back end... with that offense too? The AL East just got a whole lot scarier.

Keep telling yourself that, CW.

It's hardly much of a wrestling board anymore, but whatever.

Trading for Delmon Young isn't exactly a bad move. I know that the rule is to never trade good pitching for hitting, but they have a good balance of young SP. Young had a really rough start to his pro career, but he's still going to be excellent some day. Torii Hunter is overrated. He has a decent glove and some pop in his bat, but he's hardly a star player and he's only getting worse. It was the right move to let him go. Also, they obviously don't have have the resources to pay Santanan and Nathan. Just let them all three of them go and start over. If they play this thing right they could be back in the mix in a short amount of time. We know that they'll get Hughes, Kershaw or Buchholz back in a Santana deal if they trade him. The rotation would still be Liriano/Hughes/Baker/Slowey/Perkins, which is really good. Trade Nathan for another infielder and plug in Neshek as the closer and that team will hang in the Central.

I know the guy likes to party, but how the hell do spill that much shit on your shirt?

Well the spitting was in addition to multiple fines for late hits, a drunk driving charge and threatening a man at gun point. You can start making excuses for him, but that's a string of incidents that show immaturity. When said player gets shot in some sort of apparent home invasion, it doesn't take a huge leap to try and link the two together. Whether that's fair or not isn't really my call, but "troubled past" is part of the narrative of his life.

It would seem insensitive to speculate so shortly after the man's death, but I think it's obvious that there is much more to the story here than a simple robbery. There aren't too many robberies that end with the intruder busting into the master bedroom and unloading shots into the man's groin, especially when a knife on the bed eight days earlier during another break-in.

Says who? Theo Epstein said in an interview yesterday that nobody is untouchable. The Red Sox would surely give up Buchholz in a deal for Santana. Where a potential deal falls down is what else they want to go with him. If it becomes Buchholz, Ellsbury, Lowrie and Anderson, then at that point you are considering a deal that may be cost prohibitive. Honestly, if an extension could be arranged, a fair offer on the Yankees part would be Hughes, Cano and another decent prospect.

Santana allowed a flukey number of HRs this year. He gave up 9 more than ever had in any previou season. By doing so, his ERA, BAA, OBP and SLG all rose. His underlying stats, including K, BB, IP, RA and hits were basically the same as they've always been.

What decline are you talking about? His numbers have been almost exactly the same for the last four years. The HRs were a littly flukey this year, but all the underlying peripherals were exactly the same. He's still the best pitcher in baseball and only 28 years old. The chances that Hughes ever becomes as good as Santana is probably less than 1%. Since when are Tabata and Jackson top tier prospects? Guys with no experience above A ball showing minimal plate discipline and no power are not elite. Every organization has guys just like them. Once again, the ceiling is high, but they are both 2+ years away from even sniffing the major leagues and that's only if they continue to develop at a high level. Those guys are used to sweeten the pot in a trade, not build around.

It's not just Yankees fans. With rising salaries increasing the importance of cost-controlled youth, every team has come to value their prospects highly. Fans have picked up on this, but unless you're reading Baseball America and keeping abreast of developments at the minor league level, it's hard to put into perspective what these guys are worth. Prospects get evaluated relative to the other talent in their organization and are often framed in terms of their upside. Hearing that your top guy could be a number 1 or 2 starter can make you giddy. However, no one is factoring in the reality that the probability of the guy reaching that level is minimal. Yankees fans don't think they are getting Johan for 50 cents on the dollar because they think their guys are going to be better than him in the coming years. Hughes and Chamberlain are excellent young pitchers. But so are Nick Adenhart, Felix Hernandez, Andrew Miller, Adam Miller, Justin Verlander, Matt Garza, Francisco Liriano, Fausto Carmona, Clay Buchholz, Jeff Niemann, Clayton Kershaw, Tim Lincecum, Yovani Gallardo, Homer Bailey, Tom Gorzelanny, Cole Hamels, Deolis Guerra and Josh Johnson. See what happens when you start making comparisons to other organizations? These guys have every bit the potential that the Yankees' guys have and some of them have already done it at the major league level. It's just a lack of perspective when assessing value.

Why exactly? None of those guys are the caliber of player that Johan is.

If the Yankees could get Johan Santana for Hughes, Jackson and Melky, they would have done it yesterday. Are you guys even being serious here? Horne, Tabata, Kennedy? You really think the Twins are going to trade the best pitcher in baseball for the poo-poo platter of low-ceiling guys and unproven minor leaguers? What if I said that I think the Sox should trade Lester, Coco and Lars Anderson for Johan, but Theo should really try to keep Lester. He could use Masterson or Bowden to get it done... do you really how stupid this sounds? That's essentially what you all are saying. You have to part with a blue chip player and two good prospects to get this done. The Dodgers, Mets and Angels can all blow your offer out of the water. Hank Steinbrenner is proving to be every bit the loud blowhard that his father was.

I think compelling arguments could be made for Jim Rice, Lee Smith and Alan Trammell as well.

Tim Raines is an absolute no-brainer in my mind. He probably doesn't have a shot with the writers, especially in his first year on the ballot. Gossage, Dawson, Blyleven and Raines should all be in.

Cubs got a nice little bargain by re-signing Kerry Wood to a one year, $4 million deal. He declined several multi-year offers to return. The Cubs buddies to the south got the opposite of a bargain in Scott Linebrink, who they signed to a four year, $19 million deal. Linebrink had a few nice years as a set-up guy but has shown signs of declining recently and appears to be a product of Petco Park. But when teams start givng three year deals to JC Romero, the market goes out of whack.

The Patriots are 23.5 point favorites against the Eagles this weekend. That's the largest spread for a non-expansion team in NFL history. Yikes. Oh, and Priest Holmes has decided to retire.

Snelling is an interesting character. He has tons of talent (1.005 OPS in 2005 at AAA Tacoma) but has never been able to string together a consistent stretch of baseball, mostly due to his complete inability to stay healthy. In fact, despite making his pro debut in 2002 (for a cup of coffee with the Mariners) he's never had 100 pro at-bats in a season. This will be his 5th team in less than a year. Nice guy to take a flier on, but I wouldn't put the chances of success at more than 10%.

Good thing they gave him an extension after that epic 32 win season last year.

Do you think he can hold out another week? I had December in the pool.

No it's most likely true and it's Knobbs and Saggs. Back at the WrestleFanFest event that took place at the Cow Palace in Oct I overheard Knobbs tell Bischoff he was going back to New York around this time frame. Good for them. The last time Knobbs was on Hogan Knows Best it looked like he could barely even walk. He was grossly overweight and needed the aid of a cane to get around. How the hell could he work a wrestling match in that condition?

What was so unusual about the Toby Keith joke? Keith is the poster boy for that rah-rah post 9/11 patriotism. Peter was sacrificing a goat to him (playing off the Jurassic Park scene with the T. Rex) as if he were some kind of God. It's not that hard.

I love the WWE folder.