Cheech Tremendous

Jeremy Bonderman, SP

You're insane. The Orioles are the worst team in baseball. If they win 70 games it'll be a miracle. They just took a 69 win team and traded their two best players for one good prospect who's ready to contribute. Please don't delude yourself into thinking that they have a shot to do anything other than finish 5th in their division this year. The Rays are better at every position on the diamond, except for right field and second base (if they don't trade Roberts). The starting pitching is better. The bullpen is better. Management is more competent and they have a plethora of talent in the minors that can help. Why would you possibly think that O's have a chance of finishing ahead of them?

Jeremy Hermida, OF

Is there a reason you feel that the Rays won't be competitive this year or are you sticking with the "Dude, they suck" routine.

The only thing the NBA has done wrong is the continual pushing of their ridiculous salary cap and trade rules. It shouldn't be this hard for teams to make a deal that they both want to do. I know some people like to focus on image as the main obstacle in the NBA regaining its national relevance, but I tend to think it's their salary cap mess.

The issue will ultimately be what they do with their 4th and 5th starters and the middle relief. A few of their everyday players need to stay healthy and continue to develop as well. But with the right mix of players, this team will be in meaningful games in September. The ultimate wild card is how their top prospects contribue this year. Evan Longoria, David Price and Reid Brignac could all offer something this year depending on how they come along and where the team feels that it is in the pecking order of the AL East. Hell, there is still a chance that Guzman, Aybar, Sonnastine and E. Jackson realize some of their untapped potential. In the Questions thread I compared this team to the 1991 Braves, which I still feel is a very apt comparison.

Looks like there could be one final snag in the Kidd to Dallas deal. The league is going to actually make Keith Van Horn sign with Dallas, report with the team, take a physical and play out the year with New Jersey. It was previously expected that KVH would sign in name only and sit at home to collect his paychecks. Seems like the league has been extremely ornery with Dallas on this deal. I guess this Cuban's punishment for being at odds with Stern all the time.

I think that the Thome deal was okay, if unnecessary. It was the Vazquez trade that hurt them the most. Think about how much better this team would look with Chris Young roaming centerfield over Brian Anderson, Jerry Owens or Nick Swisher. That's been a black hole for them ever since that trade.

Kenny Williams also has a way of making himself look worse just by the sheer number of deals that he does. You start to get a reputation based on relative success of the most recent transactions. A good number of the deals he engineers are ones that work in the present at the cost of the future. In the spring of 2006, Williams looks good (wins the World Series and acquires Thome, Vazquez), but those kind of deals come back to haunt you later on. On the flip side, look at the guy at number one: Theo Epstein. There were a large contingent of people who thought he was one of the worst heading into last season. According to the print media and fan reaction, the 2004 team was largely in place when he got there and most of the subsequent deals he engineered were failures. It's hard to examine the larger picture in place, which makes lists like these very difficult.

It's an okay list with nothing too controversial. I'd have Epstein, Towers, Shapiro and Dombrowski in some order as my top four, with Cashman, Beane, Byrnes and Melvin right behind them. I don't necessarily agree with O'Dowd, Williams or Minaya being in the top 10. Thoughts? Minaya is a checkbook general manager. The rest of it is okaWAIT WHO THE FUCK IS TIED AT 10 DID YOU PUT THAT IN AS A JOKE Nope, not my idea of a joke. The guy did win a World Series... I'd have him in my bottom 5 no doubt, but that sort of thing tends to make you bulletproof when it comes to ranking GMs. I mean, if you're lining up Williams and say, Jon Daniels, what's going to stand out on their respective resumes?

Caught this earlier today and thought it was interesting. Jon Heyman from SI.com lists the ten best general managers in baseball. It's an okay list with nothing too controversial. I'd have Epstein, Towers, Shapiro and Dombrowski in some order as my top four, with Cashman, Beane, Byrnes and Melvin right behind them. I don't necessarily agree with O'Dowd, Williams or Minaya being in the top 10. Thoughts?

They gave up eighth inning runs in both games, but they never led either. Correct. I should also point out that despite the Cards 98 win season, the Sox were 20-7 favorites in the championship series. Their loss was mostly due to questionable managing decisions down the stretch.

Kind of interesting how his career developed. He hit very well in the minors and had a good enough upside as a hitter to be an everyday major leaguer. However, he could never really handle the catcher position defensively, mostly because he was way too fat. The stat guys were right about the ability, but the scouts correctly figured out that the body wouldn't play. Interestingly enough, this was a problem with many of the Moneyball-era drafts from the A's and it's a big reason why they took the rebuilding process so seriously this offseason. The stats guys knew who could hit, but they weren't correctly balancing with scouting to find the right players. In the end, however, I don't think Brown's career tells us much about the A's or their organization circa Moneyball vis a vis the rest of the baseball.

Not really a collapse of any great degree, but the 1946 Red Sox were probably the best Boston team of all time and they blew eighth inning leads in games 6 and 7 of the World Series to the Cards. They also had a losing skid in September that cost them the chance at the 110 wins record set by the '27 Yankees.

Considering that the Phillies had a better record than the Mets in every month outside of April, I hardly consider it much of a collapse. Take away the Mets hot start, and they played like a 2nd place team all season.

Weren't the '91 Braves very comparable to this year's version of the Rays? Annual bottom-dweller who finally had the pieces of talent come together at the right time?

Actually, the pitching looks like a strength for the Cubs with their current projections. Citing won/loss from PECOTA is almost useless because there is so much regression on the margins that just about every starting pitcher ends up with 10-15 wins. Zambrano, Lilly and Hill are all projected with above average ERAs, 180+ innings and solid K/BB ratios. If Lieber and Marshall win out, that's a strong 1-5 unit.

LOLs Everyone is laughing now, but watch the 2008 Rays win 80+ games. Referring to Baseball America's Jim Callis "We've seen a few teams with this much young talent at the major league level and a few with this much at the minor league level, but never have we seen one with this much at both." They're a wild card, no doubt, but as a Red Sox fan they scare the shit out of me.

Seems like the last time HHH had a sustained run of dominance at the top of the card was 2002-03. Even when he won the belt in '04 and '05 it was just as a transition to their next babyface champ. Even counting that, it's been 3 years since he's had the world title, which has definitely made so many of the HHH cliches seem forced. It's time to drop that schtick, IMO.

They are expected to have the worst offense in the AL and it's not particularly close (bad lineup + pitcher's park). While their RA looks good due to quality pitching, it's not enough to make up the troubles of a horrific team OBP and poor slugging.

Has nothing to do with the quality of the folder per se, but I have hard time wrapping my head around the fact that people want Jeff Hardy to win the world title at Mania. The last time I was watching he was the skinny drug addict with a weird look and questionable sexual preference who blew his trademark spots 90% of the time. Funny how things change.

For the three major sports: 2004 ALCS - Yankees blow 3-0 lead to Red Sox 2000 Western Conference Finals - Blazers blow 15 point fourth quarter lead against Lakers Oilers blow 32-3 lead in playoff game against the Bills Let the question continue.

Baseball Prospectus released the first edition of their projected standings today using updated depth charts and 2008 PECOTA data. I don't want to recreated the entire table here because the results are premium content. I'll do a little summary. In the AL, nothing major outside of the Mariners projected to finish last (the 2008 version of last year's White Sox) and the Rays having an outside shot at a playoff berth. Looks like it will be the Red Sox, Yanks, Angels, Indians and Tigers ruling the league again. In the NL, the Mets are projected to probably be the best team in baseball and the Phillies are looking at some heavy regression. The top four teams in the NL West are separated by only a handful of games, so it looks like that will come down to wire again in that division. The central looks to be a wasteland again, with only the Reds looking like they can make some noise against the top two.

How does it give Acie Law more consistent minutes? Wouldn't this essentially cause him to get no minutes? If he had trouble getting the game with Tyronn Lue around, how would the acquisition of a good point guard make things any better?

Czech??