Cheech Tremendous

Look at some of the pitchers who are available this offseason: Prior, Wood, Colon, Benson, Wolf, Clement, Jennings... it's a sea of arm injuries. Some team is going to going to hit the jackpot by giving a low end deal to one of these guys and most of the others will end up blowing money on someone who'll pitch 30 innings. Free agency is such a crap shoot.

He was probably referring to the thing that Marvin posted. So how much of this Florida Marlins thing do you think is real? There are several outlets that have reported that the Marlins might make A-Rod an exceptional offer to be the star of the team to try and continue a marketing campaign towards the local Latin population. Some think it could be enough to get them their stadium financing. Loria and Beinfest have independently confirmed their interest.

Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell has removed his name from consideration for the Pittsburgh Pirates managerial opening and will be returning to Boston next season. To an outsider, I can't stress how much Farrell meant to this year's pitching staff. If he had a larger body of work, I'd be willing to call him one of the best in the league. Almost every pitcher on this year's staff outperformed expectations and nearly all of them directly credited that success to adjustments made by Farrell as the reason.

It's not perfect, but it's better than anything I've heard so far. The Suns want to get rid of Marion and his gaudy salary. At least in that scenario they get back two lottery picks with tons of upside. Amare is their only legitimate post presense. Noah and Thomas solve that dilemma going forward.

It's boring to watch the Patriots bitch slap everybody, but I wasn't aware that they were lacking class in their approach. I know Bill Simmons' keeps talking about the "F U" touchdowns, but I've never gotten the impression watching the games that they are trying to embarrass anyone.

Yeah, but comeon, Kevin Martin or not, You aren't telling me that Deng wouldn't get more than 10 per in the open market. And there are some reports that Atlanta would budge off of 45 for 5 years for Josh Smith. They are obviously smoking crack if they think half the league wouldn't offer 10+ for him. Emeka Okafor turned down $13 million a year from the Bobcats. I don't know if it will mean anything in the long run, but I like that teams are attempting to become fiscally responsible. Without market forces to drive these player contracts, every guy wants a little more than what the last comparable player got. It's not healthy for the league. Ultimately, it's just another downside to the NBA's ridiculous salary cap. Oh, and as far as Kobe trade rumors go, Chad Ford had the best proposal: Ben Gordon and Shawn Marion to the Lakers Ty Thomas and Joakim Noah to the Suns Kobe Bryant to the Bulls That makes sense from a salary and talent standpint. Why is it that GMs have to make things so difficult when there are easy solutions out there?

I thought it was because Honky wouldn't job the IC belt to Savage so they pushed Savage to the world title instead. I know that's been long accepted as the reason for Savage getting the belt over Dibiase, but doesn't that seem funny to anyone? I can't really see Vince sitting there thinking that he can't piss Honky off so might as well give Savage the belt and throw out six months worth of main event booking plans. And how much does that suck for Ted Dibiase? Booked to win both the NWA and WWF titles at certain points in his career and loses out both times because of politics.

So we were talking a little about Miguel Cabrera yesterday. Did anyone know that's he gone from 185 lbs. in 2003 to 270 at the end of this season? That's insane. I know the guy had some weight issues that needed to be taken care of, but that's like 17 pounds every year. He'll eat himself out of the league if he keeps this up. Definitely puts a wrinkle in his trade value.

Barry Bonds is now saying that he will boycott the Hall of Fame is they accept the asterisk ball from Mark Ecko. I'm not sure if this is just posturing or not, but I've always kind of liked the fact that Bonds has embraced a don't care attitude. It's not good for the game of baseball, but at least he doesn't put on a phony act to embrace something he's not (cough A-Rod).

Is anyone else getting that feeling that the Patriots might just beat the crap out of the Colts this weekend? If that happens, we may as well consider the season over because no one is beating New England.

Do you honestly think, for one second, that Stephanie has any fucking idea that Jericho's theme was the first track on the Vol. 4 CD? There is no possible way that she even knows that.

Glaus may not be the most athletic guy out there, but he's a converted shortstop who plays the ball well. He's one of the best at getting to balls outside of his zone and converting them to outs.

That's the problem with evaluating defense. Most people assume that the flashy catches shown on Sportscenter equate to a good defender. In most cases the opposite is true. A good defender makes the hard play look routine.

One thing I noticed from the charts, Florida had to have one of the worst defenses of all time. Cabrera, Hanley and Uggla are three of the worst in the league and Mike Jacobs isn't far behind. Ryan Braun was the worst everyday defender in baseball and he only played 3/4 of the season. Imagine what he'd be like with a full year of results

By the way, to expand on the earlier posting of Fielding Bible Awards, he are the Plus/Minus Leaders for the entire league, broken down by position. If you are not familiar with the Plus/Minus system, it is a stat developed by John Dewan and Bill James. A plus is gained for every play that a typical player would not make, a minus for any play they should have made (this is an extremely simplified explanation). Although all defensive metrics have problems, Dewan's is generally considered the best. The results seem to jive with the eyes in most cases. Infielders Outfielders

The Lakers are never going to send Kobe home and make him sit out the rest of his contract. There is a 0% chance of that happening, so stop suggesting it. By the way, I understand the concept of not mortgaging the future for marginal gains today. But it's not like the Lakers are the Blazers or Sonics or some other team that is busting out with young talent and not much else. They have one guy who might be a good center some day and a bunch of filler. You don't hold tight with this roster when you are paying Kobe $20 million a year. It's a total disservice to the player and to the fans. Maye adding O'Neal or Kidd only gets you bounced in the first round but I assure you that it's a hell of a lot closer to a championship than you are right now. What's the point in building for the future when you have no cap room and no A+ prospects to build around?

But doesn't the whole issue stem from the fact that Kobe is annoyed by Bynum being lazy and unmotivated? I was under the impression that it's not necessarily that Bynum is young and inexperienced, but that he does nothing in the way of preparing himself to be a better player and Kobe resents him for that fact. He was concerned that they missed the boat on acquiring a potential Hall of Famer like Kidd because the team was enamored with a player that hasn't really shown anything yet. By the way, this is not my opinion, just my interpretation of what has gone down.

Well, they offered contracts to both guys. They just weren't able to come to terms. Deng turned down 5 years, $50 million.

We all care.

Oh, and Joel Zumaya injured himself moving stuff out of his house during the SD fires (was he moving the Guitar Hero?). Team says he's out until mid-season, but Will Carroll from Baseball Prospectus says that there are no comps for this kind of injury and it could end up being a lot longer.

The Fielding Bible announced their awards today. Unlike the Rawlings Gold Gloves, these awards actually honor the best defensive players in the league. They are voted on by heavy hitters like Bill James, Rob Neyer and John Dewan. C- Yadier Molina, STL 1B- Albert Pujols, STL 2B- Aaron Hill, TOR 3B- Pedro Feliz, SF SS- Troy Tulowitzki, COL LF- Eric Byrnes, ARI CF- Andruw Jones, ATL RF- Alex Rios, TOR P- Johan Santana, MIN

I don't think their releasing any list. It's just that from now on any employee who fails the test will have their name released publicly.

Sort lof lost in all the recent Kobe discussion is the fact that the Bulls failed to sign Luol Deng or Ben Gordon to extensions before the October 31st deadline. Both will be restricted free agents next summer and will cost the Bulls a lot of money.

Maybe things are different now that Joe Torre is in the fold, but I know that Matt Kemp clashed with the manager and the other veterans on the team and that Coletti had decided to use him as a chip to acquire a veteran guy who was a strong clubhouse presence. It almost sounded like it was turning into a Scott Kazmir situation where the talent is obviously there, but the veterans complain so much that the front office starts to get worried.

In the article, Gammons said that he'd expect the Dodgers to part with Kershaw, Elbert, Meloan and LaRoche to acquire Cabrera. I though Kemp was as good as gone this offseason anyways? Hasn't Coletti said that they'd like to deal him for some veteran help?