Cheech Tremendous

While we are on the subject (sort of) of uniforms, what's up with those wretched blue Phillies uniforms? Hey Al, who's making the sartorial choices over at Citizens?

Holy shit.

Would the Hart/HBK match be remembered differently if it wasn't an Iron Man match? Does it help or hurt the legacy of the match that it went to the sixty minute draw with the questionable overtime? Would it be more fondly remembered if Shawn beat Bret clean after 62 minutes in a straight match?

I think the stadium mock-up is real cool and breaks the monotony of some of the new parks (look at the new Nationals or Yankees parks for great architecture, but an uninspired design). Anything to help them carve out a niche.

Most projection systems build in so much regression that the guys the margins (the stars and scrubs) have really conservative estimates. It usually nails most of the guys in the middle of the pack, but hell I could do that with a standard 3-2-1 estimate. It's not so much a "prediction" of performance, but rather a mean estimate of possible performances. I'm also not sure if we are talking individual player projections or team projections either. Bauer seems to be asking for team projections (which I won't post because it's subscriber info), but Al is mentioning player projections (several are available from fangraphs.com).

The story is now on the main page of espn.com (ironically they get more mainstream coverage for a drug suspension than for Mayweather's involvement). Unfortunately for Jeff his fuck-up is getting the most pub. I don't think this bodes well for his future.

Which projections? I posted some of the PECOTA projections a few weeks ago (which spawned several pages of Rays bantering).

Take away Haren's ungodly first half last year (and his .234 BABIP) and his numbers have been fairly pedestrian over the past few seasons. He throws a ton of innings at a slightly above average ERA, but he's not a dominant #1 starter. Take away cavernous Oakland Stadium with the A's great defense and he might start to look very average. I would love to have him as a starter on my team, especially with that contract, but Oakland sold high on him.

No way. You cannot position Hardy in an upper card position now that he has failed two tests. He will either be fired or jobbed down the card until he regains trust within the organization.

So the Yankees signed Billy Crystal to a contract? Seems like more of a Brian Sabean move to me.

Best wishes, Rip.

Start sending PMs. We can do this!

General Discussion is a good idea in theory, but it gets cluttered because no one has the same idea of what warrants a thread and what doesn't. You just have to take it away at this point because it's such a crutch for people. Like right now there could be threads for Wrestlemania XXIV, Observer Notes, WWE.com Industry News and Floyd Mayweather. There's been enough discussion on each of those in the past few days that they could have been broken out and survived, perhaps with more lively discussion.

Jericho doesn't really hate Jeff Hardy. You see, what they are doing on television is...nevermind, I don't want to ruin your breakfast. I think he was referencing the fact that HHH wanted to push Hardy over Jericho when Jericho returned with the whole Save Us thing late last year. Stephanie was the one who pushed hard to get Jericho back and the whole thing was buried in favor in Hardy. So in some ways, they might feel justified today.

Marvin's escapades have never bothered me to the extent that many others claim. He has his flaws and the stuff in Current Events is borderline ban-worthy, but he still just comes off as a sad sack who's mostly harmless. I don't care to read his stuff, but I'm not offended by it either. Guess I'm in the minority here. But MVP/Deon/Douchebag is just 100 different kinds of awful. I almost don't like to open threads that he's posted in because I don't want to waste my time reading and thinking about what he's written. It's all just utter crap with no redeeming qualities and to me, that makes him the worst poster on the board.

I was unaware that Shawn/Bret had obtained legendary status. I thought most people remembered it as a boring, drawn out affair with a crappy ending. I haven't seen either match in ages, but I remember liking the HHH/Rock match much better. Overall, I've never been a huge fan of Iron Man matches. As a concept, they seem like a great idea, but I don't think that the actual delivery ever matches up with expectations. I think it's too difficult to get the pacing and suspense right in a match that's set to go 60 minutes.

Navarro had an .815 OPS over the second half of the season last year. I don't know if that's a fluke or a sign of turning the corner, but it's a good performance for a 23-year-old catcher. Let's see how well he builds on it this season.

But out of the list you just referenced, Lo Duca, Kendall and Pudge are cooked, Varitek and and Posada are a year or two away from joining them and there is very little in the pipeline to replace them. The best catching prospects are Jeff Clement and Jarrod Saltalamacchia and neither of those guys are expected to stick at the position. But then again catchers supposedly develop late. There might be a few more that emerge in the next few years. I still hold some hope for Dioner Navarro, Jesus Flores, Kelly Shoppach and a few others to become league average hitters.

Good point, but they seem to be the exception to the rule. Or maybe this is one of those things that I've been told my whole life even though it has no actual bearing in real life. In hindsight, you might be right. I'm just saying that you often see good catchers failing to have a repoire with their pitchers and it costing them their playing time. I was just thinking that age, questionable catching skills and language barrier could be a reason that he'd fail to catch on in NY.

You know how some kids fear coming home from school one day and realizing that their parents have packed up and moved without telling them? Well we should move the entire site somewhere else and tell everyone except Enigmecca, MVP, Truthiness, edgehead69, jericholic82 and PongKong. Things would get a lot better really fast.

Then close it or let it die its way off the page. I don't understand the people who worry about too many threads. It's a discussion folder! OMG, people are talking about too many different things. This has to stop!

But in all seriousness, I'm down for a WWE Folder reclamation project. As it currently sits, it's a blight on the board. To reiterate what I've said before, I think the CTDWAT threads need to go, and I'm still down for a merging of the WWE/TNA/Indies into one large folder. Established posters taking their time with "TSM Town Hall" and "Let's Talk About" would go along way towards righting the ship as well.

Here are a few: http://forums.thesmartmarks.com/index.php?showtopic=87986

Don't forget that catchers are notorious for being late bloomers as well. I'm not sure what it is about the position, but it seems like many guys don't hit their stride until their mid-to-late 20s. With Montero, even if his defense blossoms in the next few years, it might be hard to crack the major league team. Pitchers often call the shots when it comes to what catchers they will use, and a young kid with sketchy English skills and gamecalling experience could be at a disadvantage.

Maybe put the General Discussion thread on hiatus and see if it opens discussion up a little more? Seems like every story gets buried in that mega-thread. Maybe there would be more discussion if people started topics more often. I like that Dandy took some initiative with the TSM Town Hall thread. Yeah it's just a rip off of "Let's Talk About...", but that's a good thing, not a bad thing.