Cheech Tremendous

Celtic Jobber has never heard of Tim Duncan. How is that even possible?

Sacramento may not seem like a huge destination for free agents, but in the NBA's current landscape the players go to the team with most cap room. Boozer in Utah, Lewis in Orlando, Nash to Phoenix and Joe Johnson in Atlanta... they are dozens of examples like this. Granted, the best players usually re-sign with their own squad, but teams with money usually get a good look regardless of where they are located.

For Brent Barry, Francisco Elson and a 2009 1st round pick Guess that takes them out of the Artest sweepstakes.

Give Lebron a real point guard and a shooter on the outside and I think the Cavs have as good a shot as anyone of coming out of the East. I was thinking about the Cavs today. If Carlos Boozer didn't sleaze his way out of his deal and Michael Redd or Ray Allen took the contract they offered Highes, this team could already have a title and be well on their way to a couple more.

According to Chad Ford, the Cavs are close to a deal that would send Mike Miller, Brian Cardinal and Kyle Lowry to Cleveland for Ira Newble, Donyell Marshall, Shannon Brown, Cedric Simmons and Dwayne Jones along with cash and at least one first-round pick from Cleveland. Miller with Lebron... Artest with the Spurs... shit could get a whole lot more interesting if these deals go down.

Because the Rays will likely be in a better condition to make a run in 2009 than the Orioles this season. It made sense for the O's to trade Bedard and boost a depleted farm system. The Rays don't have that problem. Not to mention the fact that Bedard turned down an extension and made it clear that he wasn't going to re-sign when he became a free agent. Baltimore had a player that had a 0% chance of being around when they actually needed him. I don't see how that's comparable to the Rays and Kazmir at all seeing as how Kazmir will be their ace when they make a run at the playoffs in '09 and '10. Also, Bedard's value was higher than what his actual performance suggested. He's never thrown 200 innings and 2007, on the surface, looks like it could be as easily be an outlier than as a predictor of future success. He was much more valuable in a trade than he was to the team going forward.

That's certainly unexpected, but a good move nonetheless. I still think Denver needs him more, and should make the deal if it's only costing them Linas Klieza and Najera's expiring contract.

After reading the comment board at one of my favorite blogs earlier today, I realized that even five years after the fact hardly anyone "got" Moneyball. I don't know if it's that people didn't actually read the book or what, but I've never seen such any easy text be so misunderstood by the majority of people.

That's a nice theory, except for the fact that the East has been awful since MJ's second retirement. In that period of time you'd think that one or two teams would have been able to build themselves up especially when small marginal upgrades could take you from the lottery to a top 4 team. Detroit's been the best team in the east for the past five years and no one has really done much to step up and beat them. It's a hell of a lot easier to build up a squad to beat one team (Detroit) than the nine or so in the West. That's why a team like Sacramento is packing it in already when they could be a top team in the east.

The Cubs need Brian Roberts and Baltimore doesn't. Just make the damn deal already.

Jordan and Bird playing horse was a good one.

Well, here you go.

Hogan v. Flair at Mania? What a story!

OMG... dustinbeaverton's stupid Hogan v. Flair thread got deleted so he re-posted it! Not only that, he was really indignant about it. This guy is on the fast track to Ban City.

I'll never understand paying for expensive sandwiches. Or food, for that matter. I'll go out with friends, and they'll insist on going out to eat somewhere where the cheapest dish is like 16$. What the hell? Pisses me off. Especially when these restaurants are always next to like a Wendy's where with a student discount I can get a full meal for 2.75. (3.00 now, since they raised the price of fries ) Yea, so, I'm' cheap. But there's still no reason why I should be paying the price of say, a couple of DVDs, for just one meal. Fuck Wendy's. Give me a fancy panini with imported meats and pesto on fresh baked bread any day of the week. Cheech = Keepin' it really white since '82

The idea was to bring back Studd as a monster babyface to feud with the heel Andre. The premise being that it would be a recreation of their '85 run but in reversed roles and I believe they had an idea that it would be booked second from the top at Mania. Alas, Studd was a shell at this point and no one really cared.

Take that Enigma! Or is it Mecca? I can't tell the two apart.

I don't know how you did it, but you managed to post this like 1 minute before I did. Good work.

Enthralling argument going on in General Discussion folder regarding the mainstream appeal (or lack thereof) of Floyd Mayweather. It really is quite unusual to see two different sides form and yet both seem wrong because of how poor their arguments are. Apparently, some guy names Celtic Jobber thinks Mayweather has no mainstream appeal because he's never heard of him and well, he had heard of Mike Tyson. In the other corner is EHME who says Mayweather is hip hop or something and that makes him important. Alas, I find it hard to care either way.

I got bored with it really fast, but the truth is I do love most of that stuff. Hell, I have a Kitchen Aid stand mixer and it IS the focal point of my kitchen.

Yes. TJ surgery.

I just thought it was so obvious that it didn't even need to be discussed.

One of the underrated aspects of bullpen success is management and usage patterns. The key to the success of any bullpen is keeping those guys from pitching more than they have to. Baltimore and TB wrecked their bullpens last year because of bad starting pitching and inconsistent middle relief. The very fact that TB should have 3 top-notch pitchers at the start of the rotation and three more at the back end of the bullpen should stabilize things and make it less likely that they have to rely on the flotsam that inhabits most team's bullpens. With Baltimore, I still see these things as a problem, but then again the inconsistency of relievers could make the bullpen a strength.

Jay Payton's also a huge douche. He should just go away.

I don't see how citing last year's numbers means anything in this conversation. The Rays totally revamped their awful bullpen. Percival, Reyes and Wheeler are all superior to any option in the O's pen, and they have a couple of guys, including Eduardo Morlan, who could be excellent in the pen if given the opportunity. Ramon Hernandez and Dioner Navarro is a wash, but at least Navarro still has some upside left. Ramon Hernandez is cooked. If Evan Longoria plays a full season he'll put up an .800 OPS, which is something that Mora lost the ability to do somewhere around 5 years ago. Hell, if he only plays 3/4 season I bet his numbers end up trouncing Mora. It's not even fair to compare the two.