Cheech Tremendous

Ryan Howard put up a .339 OBP in over 600 at bats last year. Somewhat out of line with his career average, but for a 28-year-old first baseman with old player skills, I wouldn't count out that his best days are already behind him. I wouldn't go so far to say that Philadelphia should trade Howard, but if you can move him in the right deal I say go for it. He's due for some outrageous arbitration claims the next couple of seasons, and really, the production isn't quite where it should be for that kind of money.

Things are a little slow at the office today, so I'll give this a shot. Sabathia - Brewers: Milwaukee makes a big pitch on a short deal (say 4 years, $100 million) and Sabathia resigns. It's a discount over better offers, but he takes it knowing he can go back on the market in a few. Teixeira - Yankees: NY misses out on Sabathia and goes all in on the 1B. Contract ends up around 8 years, $160 million. Holliday - Phillies: Not sure where Holliday ends up. I'll take a guess that Philly loses Burrell in free agency and makes a big pitch to bring Holliday on board. Perhaps a package built around Victorino is the answer. Peavy - Braves: Atlanta nuts up and parts with their big prospects to get something done. Burnett - Yankees: After Sabathia goes, bidding gets out of control for Burnett. Red Sox and Orioles make a big push, but NY goes five years, $90 million and gets it done. Manny - Dodgers: Ramirez finds the contract offers to be a little less than what he was expecting. LA seals the deal with a two year offer for $55 million. Sheets - Braves: After securing Peavy through a trade, Atlanta turns their eye to free agency and uses their cash reserves to get Sheets on a short term deal. Three years, $51 million gets it done. K-Rod - Mets: New York intends to stay out of it, but the market gets crazy for Fuentes and Minaya decides that Rodriguez is the better deal. It takes five years, $65 million to get it done. Burrell - Rays: Tampa Bay uses the extra playoff revenue to secure that big middle of the order bat. Dunn - Nationals: Adam Dunn becomes the bargain basement power hitter on the market, getting pursued heavily by the Royals, Nats and Mariners. Washington signs him to a four year, $60 million deal.

Curious as to why you'd see him fitting in Orlando. Howard likes to play low, Lewis is a slasher and AI is a slasher. Just seems like you run the risk of putting too many defenders in the paint. Orlando would be better served with a guy who is an efficient passer and good spot-up shooter.

Is there an actual lever? I just thought that was a figure of speech.

So it sounds like polling booths are still fairly common around the country. Here in Oregon we actually mail our votes or drop them off at the county office. For whatever reason, I figured the rest of the country was starting to go this route as well.

So, I'm conducting a little research on the posters that frequent TSM. Perhaps we can use this information to keep the board from dying a slow, painful death. Answer the questions to the best of your ability. 1. How often do you visit TSM? How long are you here on a typical visit? How many minutes, or hours, do you spend here daily? 2. Which folders do you spend the most time in? Why? Which ones do you skip over? 3. Who are your favorite posters? What makes a poster "good"? 4. Who are your least favorite? Why? 5. Who is your favorite mod? Can you actually name the mods we have? 6. What brought you to TSM in the first place? Do you still come for the same reasons? Do you still watch wrestling? 7. When was the board at its best? 8. What is the one thing, above all else, that keeps you coming back here? 9. If you could change one thing about TSM, what would it be? 10. How much longer will TSM be around?

The nominations period is now over. Agent, Milky, Kinetic and Czech have secured four of the spots. Bob Barron, Incandenza and Slayer tied for the final spot. I'll go ahead and throw them all onto the final ballot. How do we want to do the final round? One thread for all the finalists, or an individual for each? I'm thinking just one, seeing as no one really takes thing even remotely seriously.

The Booker run was well over five years ago.

Looks like the death of Obama's grandmother has given him the spark to pull ahead of La Parka.

I just hope that he looks worse than JaMarcus Russell. I thought the Raiders were insane when they picked him first two years ago, and nothing that I've seen since has changed my mind.

Various entities are now saying that Oregon State hero Derek Anderson is out, classy gay icon Brady Quinn is in.

McDyess has already indicated that he's not going to play for Denver. I think this is one of those "buyout/fake free agent/return to trading team" deals that make the NBA's salary cap system so embarrassing.

I went and saw this over the weekend. It's a fun movie with a quite a few laughs, but I'd still put it a notch below Kevin Smith's other movies, and way behind Apatow's stuff. Smith tried to go for the comedy with a heart movie, but the characters weren't quite deep enough to connect on that level. The porno scenes were really funny though. Loved Jay as Lester the Molester. It was only about five minutes after the movie ended before I started asking Mrs. Tremendous for a "Dutch Rudder."

The thing about John McCain is he's Republican Party 4 life.

There were some rumors over the weekend that Dumars was really high on Zach Randolph and that he'd consider making a move for him before the All-Star break. Wasn't a whole lot of meat to the story, but the Iverson trade could be the first piece in a Detroit shakeup. As for this trade itself, it doesn't make them any worse, and given that Detroit doesn't have much of a shot of winning the conference, it's a trade you can afford to make. Maybe there is enough energy left in Iverson to push them over the top. But most likely they just freed up $21 million when his contract expires this offseason.

As we move into late October, the sports world is at a crossroads. Baseball has ended for everyone not in Philly or Tampa Bay. The NFL is in full gear, but we've all figured out who the contenders and pretenders are. The NBA just started last night, but there are only five or six teams with a legitimate shot at actually winning the title with their current roster. So, TSM, what does your favorite team need to do improve? Does your team require a certain something to get over the hump, or is a complete overhaul necessary? Put on your GM hat for a moment and discuss what your team needs to do. This could go from simple to extremely complex. Perhaps it's just a player that will represent the final piece, but maybe the entire front office needs to be overhauled. Is a new stadium the fix? Ownership change? Let your voice be heard.

So this idea came to me about a week ago and I've been trying to decide if it's good or tremendously stupid (probably the latter). Kinetic's video depiction of the males of TSM pushed me over the edge to give it a try. Here's how it will work. If you are interested in participating, PM a list of 5-10 facts about yourself that you think are unknown to the board. Each day I'll post a new list of facts and we'll take turns trying to guess which poster it is. Winning guesses will get nothing. Losing guesses get openly mocked.

Czech would rather go out and mod with 10 posters and just get spammed all the way until he had to do something else than mod with 11 when he knew that right now that poster is not a part of the mod team.

That is done by John Dewan and ACTA Sports. The numbers are available on the Bill James website for a small fee. Otherwise, you'll have to wait until they put out the next Fielding Bible book next Spring.

Fielding Bible awards are out. http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2008/...new_testame.php Full voting results can be found here: http://www.billjamesonline.net/fieldingbib...e-votetally.asp

According to Keith Law, the Marlins were probably going to non-tender Mike Jacobs. The Royals could have actually had him for nothing. Looks like Dayton Moore got Mike Singletary'd on this one.

You also told Smues to leave the staff folder for the last fifteen minutes of the meeting, right?

I don't watch or follow TNA. Is Sting a heel?

Re: the board's impending death Some people can't read sarcasm on the internet.

I'm willing to give this a go again if people are interested. I'll need new facts from everyone.