Gene Honda Civic

Marte did blow saves, but it wasn't really in SAVE OPPORTUNITIES.... He actually blew a HOLD which goes down as a blown SAVE.... They didn't however cost us games, as evidenced by his 4-2 record. The previous year he was 10 of 12.... Jerry cost him a bunch of those saves this year... Coming in to the bases loaded in the 7th or 8th in a 1 run game and allowing a run to score can be a "blown save" even though it doesn't go against his ERA... It does increase the perception that he didn't get the job done... Really you can make the Stats do tricks but, Guardado came in routinely with no one one and nobody out and pitched the ninth... Marte was our go-to-guy, he cleaned up other peoples messes... which is more valuable.?.. Look at the way the Oakland staff is handled... Over the past few years the thier closers don't blow any saves... WHY??? because they are not put in the situation to blow the save... only to earn one.. that's how we got stuck with Billy Kock... our front office didn't understand the importance of this.. Foulke was not put in the save situations, had really only one bad month -- which was almost the same as kock that month-- the only stat foulke was not the same or comparable in was Saves --and he only blew 3 of those..Kock blew 6 Here's there 2002 stats.... Koch Foulke It's right there in the numbers... scroll down to the month by month breakdown... they are eerily similar... yet we chose to get rid of foulke because "he couldn't save games"

I think he is vastly over-rated and will be over-priced... He's going to put up Garland-like numbers in the AL... Don't waste your time KW

I don't see how this addresses a need. This is Marte's spot-- he doesn't cost any thing and is better. Guardado's Splits Marte's Splits Guardado did have a KILLER second half... the only way I see this playing out... is Guardado as the Closer.. and Marte as the #5 starter... he has expressed interest in starting. But he would have had to have been working on starting in the offseason already.

I think it's funny that Beastly is spreading terribly lopsided rumors on the Dodgers Website.... I can feel a surge of trolls registering as we speak.

Yeah at $5 MIL a year.... that sounds steep... Marte is better.

Here's a point to think about.... Why is Kansas State the conference champion?... They lost 2 conference games, Oklahoma lost one. Here's the answer. This all but guarentees the Big 12 of 2 teams in the BCS, thus increasing thier cut of these large paying bowls... all other New Years Day games pay less than $4.5 MIL

At first I thought conference championships were only a bad thing... Read in the BCS and Making a case for Playoffs thread... but after going through all the scenarios in my head, I think EVERY CONFERENCE SHOULD BE REQUIRED TO HAVE A CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME.... The BCS was developed to make sure that in the event of having multiple 0-loss teams the Top 2 would meet to play in a "National Championship"..... But here's the rub... Last year the big ten had two Undefeated teams in conference, it was one bad half of football away from having 2 totally undefeated teams. This leaves the unfair possibility, that by not having to play each other, even though they are the same conference, the Big 10 could have the #1 and #2 ranked teams in the BCS... The Pac-10, even though it would only take a 9 game season to play every team, only plays 8, leaving the possibility of having 2 undefeated teams... Who knows what the Big east will look like in the future, I don't even know if they have the quality of teams to be guarenteed a spot in the BCS. The ACC loks to be expanding to have a schedule where not everyone plays, thus requiring a conference championship...

Jason is right... I can't find a link to back myself up but i remember hearing it was something like 17% of arbitration cases are won... Of course I may have just made that stat up, either way i know it's low, about 1 in 5.... he will make less than all of those other guys

Sugar bowl teams get 14-17 MIL ESPN explain BCS money situation I don't quite know what the difference is between the sugar bowl site and the BCS info... I think that is last years info.... So just increase the Monetary amount... It doesn't matter if you win or lose... Check out the Outback bowl site... it keeps crashing my computer though... it explains the disparity between BCS as non BCS schools..

those people didn't truly understand the BCS.... The SOS component in the middle is so volitile.... here is the SOS component last week... TEAM....Schedule Stregth...........SOS OU..........14.....................0.56 USC.........37.....................1.48 LSU.........54.....................2.16 At this point LSU's Quality Win component was .4 but after playing a top quality team here's what it did to the SOS... its like a bell curve the teams in the middle move around alot because there is so little deciding the difference. notice OU only went up 3 spots while LSU made a jump of 25... USC didn't move at all. TEAM....Schedule Stregth...........SOS OU..........11.....................0.44 LSU.........29.....................1.16 USC.........37.....................1.48 LSU may have lost the quality win component... but that only really helps at the very top of the bell curve.. in the middle where LSU and USC are... just playing the quality team moved them up an entire point... clearly playing them twice benefitted LSU, even losing the QW points.

I have a feeling they could all be donkeys...

KW do you want what's behind door number one, number two, number three.... or whats in this box???

Oklahoma -- even with that debacle last night -- should have the largest margin of victory of anyone in the counrty --- because of the way the raped thier opponent the entire season... There is margin of victory factor-- in the two human polls -- which are largely overeactive.. USC can't complain -- they lost to CAL --Who was crushed by that same Kansas St team...

Everyone is attacking the BCS.... Why not attack the Conference Championship games.. or lack there of If the Pac-10 would have had Conference Championship game, they would have Increased thier stregth-of-schedule, and with a victory would be playing in the Sugar. The SEC champ, LSU, got the benefit of the playing Georgia as a top 6 team twice, this, more than the Syracuse and Hawaii games, pushed thier schedule stregth ahead of USC. I've long held that the pre-season rankings do too much in determining the final #1 and #2.... The only way to include conference championship games in the BCS formula is to have all conferences play a championship game.... This would have meant an Iowa-OSU match-up last year, where i'm sure Iowa would have won , that would have likely resulted in a USC-Miami national championship.. Currently the NCAA doesn't allow a conference with less than 12 teams to play a conference title game. This would have to be changed.... This also artificially, helps or harms, depending on your point of view, the teams involved. I think the true solution is to have a conference championship games incorporated into a playoff system... the big 6 confernce title game winners, plus two at large teams enter a 8 game playoff... this way the conference title games are essentially a playoff game..

I picked the Colts to win the Super Bowl before the season started.... of course I said they would play the Redskins... so i gues that shows what I know

you don't have to win

here is the a link to the Colgate Football team.. They have played 14 games... they have advanced to the semi-finals.... this means they have 1 or 2 more games... by my math that makes 15 or 16... those last games definately fall during finals.. If Div I-AA can handle it why not Div I-A?

I'm going to try and make a case for a plausible Playoff system for NCAA football that would incorporate the Bowls and the current Conference Championship format. Yes I know I'm living in a dream world. First of all here are the bcs standings from before todays/yesterdays games Then here is a projected BCS for tomorrow First off all we see that not one team has dropped from the top 19 (Bowling Green is likely to drop farther, the projection I'm using is only acurate for the top teams). I propose a 16 team playoff. Seeded exclusively by BCS-type ranking. To limit the emphasis on the "BIG6" conferences, and allow those from "mid-majors" to participate, I propose that only 3 teams from a given conference can compete in the tourney. (the current BCS has a limit of 2). That would eliminate Florida and Purdue from the tourney. Eligible teams would have to have 9 wins(like the BCS) Florida would again be eliminated. The top 16 would match-up like this. First Round #1 OU vs. #18 Boise St.................#8 Tennessee vs. #9 Miami(FL) #2 LSU vs. #17 TCU.....................#7 Florida St vs. #10 Kansas St #3 USC vs. #13 Iowa....................#6 Texas vs. #11 Georgia #4 Michigan vs. #16 Washington St......#5 Ohio St vs. #12 Miami(OH) The system would yield 15 games.... 15 bowls would need to buy into this system... The top four(current BCS bowls would get the championship game in rotating years) The current bowl system would still exist... Minus the 15 that are tied in with the playoffs... There are currently 28 bowls... that leaves 13 bowls for those teams that don't qualify for the playoff (NIU, Northwestern, Bowling Green). It is likely, no necsessary to create a few new bowl games to accomodate little travel for the first round games. A Windy-City bowl @ Soldier Field for the Michigan/WSU game for example.. USC plays in Diego or LA.... LSU in Louisaina... etc.... Games would start next weekend... 2 on Friday(12/12)... 6 on Saturday(12/13)... Second round would be more spread out the next week.... 1 game Thursday(12/18)(between the friday winners) 1 game Friday(12/19), and 2 on saturday(12/20). Final Four is where I lose the abilty to really keep bowl traditions. There's 2 options (Option I)Games would be played on Saturday(12/27) with a Championship on (1/3) (Option II)or they could be a little later going with a traditional (1/1) date. I'd prefer the latter. With the rose Bowl always having a new years Day game, Unless it is the Championship game. The Championship would be held on any day from (1/8) to (1/10) In the second scenario this would leave plenty of time, after finals are over and over the Holiday season for those other bowl games to be held between 12/20 and 1/1 Even in my scenario the season is only extended by 6 days at the most. The drawbacks would be travel, I'd try to limit that with regional First round games for Higher seeds. Two teams would end up playing 16 games total. IMHO, the drawbacks of this system do not even come close to outweighing the Benifits. the Champ Is truly decided on the field. Everyone has a chance to participate. Bowl sytem is in-tact, ok Modified, but i think traditions and the all-mighty dollar can be satisfied. 3 Big Ten 3 SEC 3 Big 12 2 Pac 10 1 ACC 1 Big East 1 MAC 1 Conference USA 1 WAC The 2 main obstacles I see is TV and the Individual bowls. One network, or maybe a partership, ABC & ESPN, is going to have to step up with some BIG $$$ to get this thing at all off the ground. Post your Opinions --- any ways that you could make an improvement to my plan--- any major flaws I may have missed --- The current BCS system runs through 2006 so I know this is a ways off, but I couldn't sleep and this seemed like as good of a way as any to harness my insomnia.

I have good and bad memories from that game last year... I had won a party at a bar in Chicago. It just happens to be a well-known Iowa bar. The night the bowls were announced I picked the Iowa game night for my party, Which esentially consisted of Open bar for a couple of hours. Two days before the game I get a call and say that I can't have my party. They have just now realized that it's the same night as the Orange Bowl. So I negociate, and get another date for my party. And get some discounts and reserved seating for all of us the night of the Orange Bowl. So after I tell most people we're not having the party that night, not tooo many show for the game. This leaves me with a space for about 20 people in a prime location, getting free draft beers, and discounted food, with only about 5 other friends. What to do.?? Make friends with the 15 hottest girls in the bar. The opening kickoff was great. After that the game went severly downhill, and yet I had a surprisingly good time. We got a few more parties there, just because we took care of the waitresses and bartenders, although We've only used one and it's been almost a year. Somehow I got separated from the group after the game was over. I ended up taking the train back to the burbs the next morning. and walking home from the train station. That's one night I'll never forget. Oh and as for the party bus, I have a friend who owns one. We call it the Short Bus, even though it's full size. He doesn't even use it for Iowa games though , he's an Illinois Alum.

Florida accepted its bid to the outback bowl a couple of days ago.... From what I've heard The Capitol One Bowl may pull off a coup of sorts, picking Iowa over Purdue, even though Purdue beat Iowa head-to-head and is clearly 3rd place in the conference. Iowa travels as well as any team in the country, as evidenced by them trying, unsucessfully to take the goalposts out of an opposing stadium last year at the metrodome. Only an Iowa fan would think he could get 30-some-foot goal posts out of an enclosed stadium, and I say that as an Iowa fan. Iowa will have a tough new years day bowl either way. In the Outback vs. florida or in the Capitol One. The match-up would likely be Georgia there.

Miami given the current state of teams eligible... WILL be picked for the Orange bowl...the orange picks first between the ACC champ or the Big East champ. Given Miami is the lacation of the Orange bowl, It's highly probable, and money conscience (the bowls are in business to make money), to select the Hurricanes. They have already played both FSU and Tennessee this season.. The Orange bowl is not going to want a rematch. The more intriguing match-up is OSU... The only way Tennesse gets in is if, for some strange reason the orange bowl was to pick FSU over Miami with it's first pick. That hell-freezes-over-scenario would send Miami to Tempe to play Kansas St (I'm sure everyone in Arizona is dying to see that match-up). Tennessee could then be in the Orange with FSU. But the orange might still pick OSU in that unlikley case. They travel well and are the DEFENDING NATIONAL CHAMPS

I voted for OU vs. LSU... not because that's what I want to see, but because that's what I expect to see. What I want to see is A playoff system, with bowls integrated. Here's what I think it's going to look like tomorrow night. Sugar Bowl #1 OU vs. #2 LSU Yes, I still think OU is going to hold on to #1 in the BCS. They will recieve #1 votes in both human polls. I believe that the three teams will split votes, all recieving first place votes. OU will probably be #3 in both polls but, they still have the best computer rankings and stregth-of-schedule. LSU could be #1 in one of the human polls and should move up in all computer polls. they should move ahead of USC. Rose Bowl #3 USC vs. #4 Michigan USC falls to its bowl tie-in.. gonna be a great game Fiesta Bowl #?13 Kansas St vs. #7? Florida St Orange Bowl #5 Ohio St vs. #9 Miami

Almost forgot to enter this week Saints Seahawks Bengals Colts Texans Packers Lions Steelers Eagles Giants 49ers Patriots Chiefs Jets Falcons Rams

for those of you trying to exclude OU from the BCS equation entirely... the BCS has a K-state provision... back from when they were #3 but left out... It states that a team who is in the top #4 and not already guarenteed a spot via conference championship is automatically included. There is no way Oklahoma drops below #4-- that maens the team on the Outside looking in is TEXAS... the Big ten will still get 2 teams in.... and so will the big 12.. texas can look forward to the holiday bowl