Soxbadger

Wisconsin at Nebraska for their Big 10 opener. All reports indicate Nebraska is better than youd expect.

Rodgers was supposed to be a top 5 pick and was rated either 1 or 2 in his class at QB. He went in the 20s. If Barkley grades out as #3 or if some team considers Landry Jones above him and he grades as #4 Qb, he definitely could fall.

Zen, Barkley may not have only dropped from the top 10, he may have ended up lower than 20.

QUOTE (PolishPrince34 @ Dec 21, 2011 -> 09:33 PM) No one ever said he's an expert on voting. Law's knowledge comes from knowing and analyzing the farm systems. I think Law is very good at that and ESPN would agree. Law just needs to lighten up on his sarcasm. Simply because most people with jobs dont have the time to watch minor league players and actually rate them, so there is very little way to know if he actually has a clue. When it comes to things that a normal person can actually watch and compare, Keith Law really is not beuno.

Chw42, If he went by FIP Carpenter was 2.78 and Wainwright was 3.11. 2 other NL pitchers had better FIP than Wainwright (Kershaw and Johnson). He stated it was because Carpenter threw 27 less innings. There is just no other statistical explanation (advanced or not).

If the Sox rebuild for 2 years, Danks would still have 3 left. I just cant imagine the Sox ever planned to rebuild for longer than 3 years.

Jenks, I dont believe Hitler's son was succeeding him, so you really dont need to send condolences. A similar example would have to be another King or Queen who died and their heir takes over. Furthermore, Carter is not part of the current administration. At the end of the day, regardless of how terrible a person Il-Jong may have been, I hope that his son is better. And I personally give his son a blank slate, I do not think we should start antagonistically and push him. Hes in his 20s and loves MJ, maybe he wants to change NK. You never know what can happen, so in my opinion you always start with hope and work from there. SS2k, Maybe its hard to tell. Ex-Presidents are a strange thing, but my guess is Carter did it on his own.

There is always a chance after the Lakers tried to trade him Gasol told them that next year hell be taking his talents elsewhere.

Yep. Law only started working for Blue Jays in 2002, and stopped in 2006. Obviously it was all of the success those Blue Jays teams had that caused him to resign.

Chw42, No Law really doesnt know baseball. In 2009 he voted the NL Cy Young as follows: My NL Cy Young ballot was 1. Tim Lincecum 2. Javier Vazquez 3. Adam Wainwright Chris Carpenter had an era+ of 182, Javy 143. His argument was that Carpenter pitched 3 less games and therefore that made up for half a run era difference. Hes literally baseball stupid.

There are some reasons to believe that Santos may not truly be a closer. The biggest would be his problem with left handed batters. 723 ops v lefty as compared to 427 v righty. If he cant fix that issue, hes more of a righty specialist than a closer. Because in the last inning your going to pinch hit 3 lefties if possible.

Law is not considered very knowledgeable in baseball. When he first applied to the Baseball Writers Association of America they rejected him.

I agree with Balta. Not to mention Carter isnt the President and doesnt have any actual "power" so what possible negative could there be from this. The hope is that Jong-un is not his father and that maybe Carter could act as an intermediary in bringing NK back from isolation. Jong-un could be worse than Il-Jong,he could be better. But nothing wrong with hoping for the best. If you notice, Carter made no reference to Il-Jong's legacy, so Im not sure how you can extrapolate that he was supporting anything Il-Jong did. If anything I believe hes trying to tell Jong-un that he can be different and that the rest of the world is waiting for NK to come out of the dark.

Its KW's alter ego. He just wants to break news stories.

Here is my guess as to what the Sox are doing: Ticket sales are drastically down. After running the numbers Sox front office has determined that rebuilding for more than 1 year is not economical, therefore they are getting ready for next year. After watching insane contracts get thrown around this season, they decided that they would get Danks locked up today instead of worry tomorrow. While its a 5 year deal, 1 of those years was an arb year. So the contract actually is a 4 year extension starting next year. Based on the FA dollars this year, Danks 4 year extension may have cost the Sox over $60mil therefore signing him this year makes the most sense.

Kalapse, Id guess a 3-4 year deal, not a 5. Basically this year Danks gets a lot more than he would in arbitration, the next 3-4 years he gets slightly less than market value. The only possible reason for this would be Danks talked with a guy like Mark who is telling him that money isnt everything and if your happy with the Sox $50mil is better than $70mil. (To everyone else) The Sox didnt offer Mark a contract out of respect to Mark. By not offering him a contract no Sox fan can turn on him because Mark never had the choice to stay in Chicago.

Its his contract extension.

At the end of the day, no matter if the US was right or wrong, I hope that the people of Iraq have a better future than the one that they may have had under Saddam.

I agree, I thought you were suggesting that Smith and Dilfer would be equal if they played in the others era. And I was trying to show that is unlikely, that Smith would still be better.

The stats support that QB play has increased. According to the stats, Dilfer was a bottom half QB, Smith is a top half QB. That is how they match up to their peers. Furthermore, you cant just say its "rule changes", the game has also considerably changed. 10 years ago I cant remember many teams running no huddle hurry up offense throughout the entire game, I dont recall as many receiving TE"s, I dont recall teams using as many 5 wr sets. More offenses were built on a traditional run game, with less teams airing out the ball. Im going to guess that there were significantly less passes thrown in 2000 than in 2011. (goes to check) In 2000 there were 16322 passes attempted (32.9 per game) compared to 13677 rushes (27.6). In 2011 (through 15 games) there have been 15195 passes attempted (33.9 per game) to 12212 rushes (27.3) So based on that, Id say it may not be statistically significant the attempts. Lets look at QB rating by year: 2000- league average was 76.2 2011- league average is 82.4 So all things being considered it appears that there has been roughly a 6 point bump in QB rating since 2000 (this compares favorably to the previous stats of how many Qbs had over 90 rating and over 100.) Which still supports Smith is better this season than Dilfer. That being said, there also has been an increase in Qb rating, while there has not been a drastic increase in passing attempts. Suggests that there are more completions/tds.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 20, 2011 -> 06:33 PM) The rule changes have really helped the passing attacks as well. I wonder how much the performances we're seeing out of a guy like Alex Smith would be similar to how a quarterback "managing the game" would be performing under this rule structure? Well lets put it in comparison with other QB stats of the day. In 2000 Dilfer had a Qb rating of 76.6 which was 20th overall. 7 Qbs had a rating above 90, 2 of those 7 had ratings above 100. In 2011 Smith had a Qb rating of 91.1 which was 9th overall. 10 Qbs have a rating above 90, 4 of those 10 had ratings above 100. Trent Dilfer would rate as the 25th overall QB by rating in 2011. So while QB play has gotten better, Smith is still significantly better than Dilfer when compared to his peers.

One of the most important rule changes has actually hurt the passing attack, defensive backs can now push a receiver out of bounds and it does not count as a catch. Once again, some one stated that over the last 10 years the league has drastically changed, all I did was go back the last 5 years and see if that turned out to be true. When I looked at the winners, it was not true, offense has not dominated. I havent looked at the numbers, but my guess is that in the 90's (Dallas dynasty, Packers and 49ers) more teams who had top 5 offenses won Super Bowls than in the last 5 years. That being said, lets look at the original comment, and I will bold the important: Now lets break down the tape. 1) Dilfer won a Super Bowl (Fact) 2) Alex Smith isnt as bad as Dilfer. 3) Alex Smith actually has a top 10 QB rating this year. Therefore its possible Alex Smith could win a Super Bowl. Its not about whether Dilfer could win in todays game, its about whether Smith can win. And right now Smith is putting up a top 10 Qb rating his first year in Harbaugh's system with young receivers. There is a chance he can get better. So to say the 49ers wont win because of Alex Smith, is kind of silly. You are aware Trent Dilfer had a 76.6 QB rating that year, 15 points below Alex Smith. His TD/INT was 12/11 (in 12 games) and averaged 136.5 yards per game (Smith is at 197). Its just not comparable as Smith is putting up significantly better numbers. Even Eli Manning only had a 76 Qb rating the year the Giants won the Super Bowl (23 td to 20 ints)

I dont think the league is that different, lets look at the last 5 Super Bowl Champions: 2011- Green Bay Packers (not in top 5 total yards, not in top 5 scoring), Green Bay was actually 10th in total points, #1 was New England. 2010- New Orleans Saints #1 in total offensive points, #1 in total yards 2009- Pittsburgh Steelers 20 in total offensive points, 22 in total yards. 2008- New York Giants, 14 in total offensive points, 16 in total yards 2007- Indianapolis Colts, 3 in total offensive points, 3 in total yards. So in the last 5 years only 2 teams that have won the Super Bowl have been in the top 5 in offense and only 1 time int he last 5 years has the "best" offense, won the Super Bowl. So I dont really see a major difference in the last 5 years.

Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl. Alex Smith isnt that bad, and if you have watched him play this season he has done considerably better. His Qb rating is 91.1 and his TD to INT is 16:5.

Kenny Williams kid making an impact, wth!?