Cheech Tremendous

He also seemed to benefit from just being new to the league. The same thing happened the first time he showed up in the American League. If you look at this 2006 splits, he was getting hit hard by July which indicates that teams figured him out after the first time through the league. His K/BB rate declined throughout the year, just as it had in 2004-2005. His September/October was very good, but he was aided by a ridiculous .220 BABIP. I'd expect an ERA of 4.00 - 4.50 with a solid 200 innings.

I wish him the best because he seems like a nice guy and he got sort of a bad break near the end in Boston. I worry that last year was more of a fluke season and that the decline he was experiencing in Boston was real. Maybe he's turned the corner. Nonetheless, that $25 million will heal a lot of the bad feelings towards the "hometown discount" contract he got last year.

That's a lot of money for Bronson Arroyo. Interesting that he signed an extension. There was an interview last year around the All-Star break where he said that when his contract ended he'd like to go back to Boston. $25 million will change your mind quickly, I guess.

It's interesting that you mention that because I think the Shango story did come from Scott Keith. It's crazy how many stories that are accepted as fact in internet circles that just seemed to come straight out of Scott's head. I don't know what would propel him to make up a bunch of stories when he was trying to break as a serious writer. I know he was once asked about Meltzer's accusation that he made everything up and he said he found it odd because every story he told came directly from Meltz' old newsletters. I tend to lean on Dave's side of the story but who knows really.

Blow and Sunny, mostly in that order.

I think Ginn would be a waste of Green Bay's draft pick even if he was there.

For those of you who are choosing Vernon Wells as your CFer, you better hope that you play the majority of your games at the Skydome. Wells has a career road OPS of .778, including a .762 last season during his "breakout year."

There are rumors all over that the Green Bay Packers are looking into trading for Randy Moss now that the asking price has dropped significantly. I don't quite understand it. WR is one of the few positions where the Packers don't need any help.

This was from an interview conducted the other day with Scott Boras. Of course everything he says has to be taken with a grain of salt, but this does give an alternative perspective on the famed A-Rod contract (and timeley, as we are now hearing that A-Rod might opt out of this deal at the end of 2007).

WM VI, WM XIV, and WM X-7 could all do really well. WM I, V and VIII probably could as well.

No. 2 ranked class? I didn't see them on anyone's top 5.

Long title reigns were a product of that era of wrestling. The WWF was only running shows about once per month in their major markets, and they could probably get three months of shows off of one main event program. It's a lot easier to keep things fresh when fans are only seeing the major players a couple times year instead of a couple times per week. It behooved the bookers at that point to keep the belt on a familiar face that could draw. There has actually been a lot of crticism towards Vince Sr. that they should have run more title changes. The NWA, the standard for World title booking, seemed to move the belt at least once a year. We've already seen a trend towards longer title reigns. Cena, save for a couple of quick changes, has held the belt for roughly two years. Batista's first reign probably would have been one year plus if he didn't get hurt. The number of title changes isn't the issue though. It's the number of credible challengers that are vying for the title. The WWF ran a lot of title changes in 1999 and 2000 to little criticism. However, the WWF of 2002 passed the belt around like a hot potato, greatly devaluing it in the process. There's no hard and fast rule for title changes.

I'm thinking Memphis might balk at that one.

1) SS Jose Reyes - Ideally, you want some OBP at the top of the lineup. but I still prefer to have a little speed. Reyes gets on base at a decent enough clip. 2) LF Barry Bonds - Still gets on base better than anyone and sees a ton of pitches. This allows Reyes to think about stealing if he wants. 3) 1B Albert Pujols - Not a lot to be said here. Still the most elite hitter in the game. 4) DH Travis Hafner - A better power and on-base option than David Ortiz. 5) RF Vlad Guerrerro - Batters usually excel in the five hole because pitchers have been exhausted from the top of the lineup. A great place for Vlad to hit. 6) CF Carlos Beltran - Still like him a just a hair better than Sizemore, and he should be able to take advantage of cleaning up all the runners left on from the middle of the order. 7) 3B Miguel Cabrera - More upside than Alex Rodriguez. He might also respond better to hitting near the bottom of the lineup than A-Rod would. 8) 2B Chase Utley - Is really the only option for a 2B. Gets on base well. 9) C Joe Mauer - An on base machine at the bottom of the lineup to effectively give a second leadoff hitter after the first time through the order. With the exception of the bottom of the lineup, I tried not to go lefty-lefty to help avoid LOOGY's.

Fans have never cared about how well you work. They want entertainment and that can surely come from a 7' monster.

That took place in 1997, which was a considerable amount of time after his big heel run (which was pretty much contained in fall/winter '94).

Bob Backlund got a face/face title match with Bret Hart during the summer of 1994 when Bret was doing his "fighting champion" gimmick. After the match (which Bret won clean) Backlund attacked him and placed him in a cross-face chicken wing. When he finally relinquished the hold, he kept staring at his hands. The original plan called for it to be revealed that Backlund was under a voodoo spell cast by a returning Papa Shango. However, plans changed when Backlund got himself super over as a heel playing up the crazy old man routine. This culminated with him beating Bret for the belt at Survivor Series '94. Unfortunately the reign ended days later when McMahon decided to put the belt on Diesel in an 8-second squash to establish his new Hogan-type babyface. Backlund never really recovered before being phased out after losing the rubber match to Bret at WM XI.

It could be argued that the only guy on that list who is better than Harang going forward is Zambrano.

Wouldn't the Keaton movie benefit from the Super Bowl? Seems like it would appeal to an audience that would like to get out of the house and away from all the game hype.

They also have a ridiculous amount of premier talent on the team and coming up through the system. This team will have a window where they'll compete in that division. Sustained success will ultimately come down to their willingness to spend and keep said talent.

Unfortunately Marv, this is probably the year that the O's fall into last place, where they will probably reside for the next few seasons. There is just too much talent in Tampa Bay for them to keep throwing up 60-70 win seasons. The Orioles' rotation might be good, but they don't have the talent to compete in that division.

I was overlooking some old Observer stuff today and there was note about Lex Luger signing a new three year contract with the NWA in January 1990 and how that would probably push Flair out of the spotlight and into retirement.

Let us not forget that lineups are essentially meaningless anyways. There was a study done at the SABR convetion a year back or so that showed the difference between a perfectly constructed lineup and one that was completely wrong equated to soemthing like 2 wins a year. Might as well let guys hit where they are comfortable and keep up appearances than do something that might be perceived as crazy. EDIT: As Al was alluding to, just having Izturis in the lienup everyday will cost them more runs over the couse of the year than having Soriano hit first.

I don't know why they are even bothering with Floyd. They could have put Soriano in left and called up Pie. They need to stop worrying about a Corey Patterson Redux.

I wouldn't even consider myself a sabermetrics expert, and I spend at least an hour or two a day screwing around on baseball-reference.com and Baseball Prospectus.