Cheech Tremendous

Flair vs Edge for Edge's title. Edge and Flair have pretty good chemistry and it could be a good enough match. After a few near falls and a figure four thrown in, Edge gets the win. Flair takes off his boots and leaves them in the center of the ring and walks back crying and waves one last time to the fans. After he is gone, Edge who was "recovering" from his match outside the ring, roles in the ring and seeing Flairs boots kicks them out of the ring and grabs the title to celebrate. Cue Jeff Hardy's music - Jeff is cashing in his MITB win from earlier in the night. Jeff goes over and the fans go apeshit. First Matt comes out to celebrate Jeff's win, much like Eddy and Benoit. However then the whole lockerroom empties, to "celebrate Jeff's win", however instead Ric Flair is hoisted up on a couple of guys shoulders. Fade to black. Not to pick on you, but hasn't this exact scenario been mentioned on the board about a dozen times?

fangraphs.com is also free and lists projections from Bill James, CHONE and Marcel. It's a handy tool.

Manny's going to be 36 years old this season. Almost every projection I've seen for him this season shows a continued decline instead of some sort of rebound. Given that Manny is overrated anyways due to his horrific defense and the team might find those $20 million better served somewhere else. At best Manny's a 4 or 5 win player going forward and that's only worth $10 or $15 million. Pass. Now, if Manny hits this year and Dunn/Teixeira get locked up by their teams, those options suddenly become a lot more attractive.

If Manny shows up in shape, puts up a .950-1.000 OPS and does it with a good attitude they'd pick up at least one option. I just don't see him putting up the numbers over the next three years that he needs to offset his horrible defense and justify that ridiculous contract. Teixeira, Sabathia, Dunn and Burrell are all on the market next year and might be attractive options for Red Sox management. It just doesn't seem to fit in with their line of thinking to keep Manny around.

Kelvin Sampson, we hardly knew ye

Interesting word today from Jon Heyman. Apparently Manny Ramirez has dismissed his current agent and signed on with Scott Boras. On the surface, this appears to be bigger news than it actually is. Manny is in final year of his 7 year contract signed with Boston after the 2001 season. However, the Red Sox still have two team option years at $20 million a piece. All the leverage is on the side of Boston. I'd put the chances of Boston picking up Manny's option years at less than 50%. Manny is obviously looking to maximize his value on next year's free agent market by going with one of the best agents out there.

How does one not see the music folder?

Someone break out the EHME to English dictionary please.

How about this following news bit: This deserves its own thread.

The Rockies offered him a $5 million deal earlier this offseason, but he turned them down to seek out multi-year offers. He ends up with $1 million. Looks like he screwed the pooch on that one. Fogg is just a depth sigining until the Cueto/Bailey/Volquez log-jam sorts itself out.

I just think that your judgment may be clouded into thinking that they needed steal someone (Gasol to LA), acquire one big piece (like Kidd) or do a major shakeup (Shaq on the Suns) because those were the big stories in the past week. The Cavs don't need to do anything like that. They just needed some shooters to complement Lebron and depth players that don't make them actively worse when they are in the game (like Hughes and Marshall do). Like I said, it's not a deal that locks them into the Finals. It just gives them a better shot to beat the best teams in the East and since they've done it before, I wouldn't bet against them. Also, that's sort of revisionist to say that Detroit was lazy and overconfident. Lebron made them his bitch for four consecutive games. Detroit was demoralized. You don't beat the hell out a team in a seven game series unless you're the better team.

Is Manu Ginobli the most underrated player in the NBA? I know people know about him, but he seriously might be one of the 10 or 15 best players in the league. You just never here him mentioned as anything other than Tony and Tim's sidekick, and I think he's proving that he's a hell of a lot more than that.

It would never work. You'd have to find two good posters who care about WWE.

Seriously. Now, that's not the most common by far, but every once in a while myself and one of my nerd compadres will actually discuss anthropological topics, like tribal organization, animism, prehistoric hierarchical systems, and such things. Not on a "did you read that article in the Anthropology Journal" but more a "I was watching National Geographic the other day and they did this show about this tribe with [insert interesting and unusual custom or tradition]...wonder how that might work if you plugged that same underlying idea into [fictional, fantastic, futuristic, or postmodern circumstance or environment]?" kind of thing. Nerd alert.

Only 37,000 seats? I know it's all the rage to build these more intimiate stadiums in the smaller markets (Oakland and Tampa Bay are planning the same), but it's a dicey move when you don't know the landscape of the team or baseball over the economic life of the building. You're essentially building in a functional obsolescence from the get-go and cutting off your ability to draw big gates 5 or 10 years down the road.

They beat Detroit last year with a worse team than this one. Why couldn't they do it again?

Lastings Milledge, OF

But it deserves its own thread! Where's dustinbeaverton when you need him?

Well, you did, so that's at least one.

Josh Willingham, OF

59 to 24. Ban him, faggot.

I'd consider the Hornets big winners today, too. Mike James is an overpaid point guard who should never be more than a back-up. Thankfully, that's all he'll be in New Orleans, which should take some pressure off of Paul down the stretch. Wells is a shady character, but the team's competitive and he should find a role as another offensive option. It's easy to write off the Hornets, but with just about 30 games left they still have the best record in the West. It may be time that we have to take them seriously.

Let's all listen to Vampire Weekend and buy some stuff from Threadless while watching old Marlins games.

What exactly did he do to Vince's daughter?

Media reports are selling Ben Wallace as the big acquisition, but he's probably the least value player they acquired. In all honesty, I think he was just the pill the Cavs had to swallow to get Larry Hughes out of town. Lebron needs spot up shooters for his drive and kick move and West and Wally fit that description to a T. West gives them a little depth at guard and Joe Smith will give them 80% of what Drew Gooden did. Wallace doesn't add much, but he will be a defensive presence that allows them to rotate four quality bigs depending on matchups. It's not an OMG deal, but it's an attempt to put the right pieces in place for Lebron to make a post-season run. If it doesn't work, they have $34 million to make a splash next year. Just removing Hughes and Marshall from the roster makes this a win, with the others being slight upgrades that fit well with what they are trying to do.