Jake

http://espn.go.com/mlb/blog/_/name/stark_j...more-parity-nfl http://espn.go.com/mlb/blog/_/name/stark_jayson/id/7420412/ http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20...lb&c_id=mlb Each progressively gets more out of date, but the good points remain. People just look at salary discrepancy and assume MLB has less parity, when it arguably has more. Especially consider the amount of games played. If the NFL has parity, that means you need lots of games to figure out who is best. They don't play a lot of games, especially in the postseason. Some of their change is likely random variation, where random variation is much less likely to explain playoff position in baseball, given they have 162 games to sort it all out. Then you get into the playoffs and play actual series to determine the best team, rather than one game that again is highly susceptible to flukes. The NFL passes off flukes as parity and still doesn't have the parity of MLB

The treatment of D Rose in that NBA 2K14 highlight is bogus. He shows up for a second, then gets dunked on by Kobe, then they let Anthony Davis dunk on people and look awesome while you never see Rose again. Get your s*** together.

I like Pablo, but yeah, you can't give up long-term pieces to get a guy like that on the last year of his deal.

bleh, my "tough luck" team really earned its loss this week. Lost Foster in the first quarter while DeSean Jackson, Giovani Bernard, Tony Gonzalez, Vincent Brown all played like s***. Rivers was mortal as well. Wasted great games from Gronk, NE defense, Adam Vinatieri

If you want to think of this season as almost lost regardless of a Cutler injury due to the defense, then maybe a Cutler injury would be a blessing in disguise as it should really drive his price down.

It's going to be pretty sweet if Derrick has somehow improved

I don't have much sympathy for teams that have "world series heartbreaks"

It's the fans, not the team. It's a well run team (that can spend with the big boys, by the way)

I guess I hate Cubs fans more, but at least Cubs fans would be correct in acting like they never get to win anything

I think it is undeniable that this defense would be better if Lovie Smith was coordinating. Might not be any good, but even the players have thought that Tucker hasn't maximized his players. Today, the pass rush was much better and we got a lot of penetration on runs. Linebackers aren't great and secondary is really bad. With Briggs and Tillman out at the end, it is no surprise that we lost. That whole drive was helped by a bad officiating call though. Couple big imaginary penalties in this one. McCown is a solid dude. I hope Jay can make it back, though. I think we should be in pretty good shape coming out of the bye so long as Jay isn't out. Get this D healthy!

We're in a shootout with Josh McCown at QB

Josh is a real solid backup. I don't know that he can win it for us, but I don't expect him to lose it either

f*** the Cardinals. Worst fans in baseball

QUOTE (JohnCangelosi @ Oct 19, 2013 -> 11:51 PM) Reading the common fans thoughts is hilarious. I'd say 90% want to bring back MB & AJ no matter what the price Exactly. You read an article about anything White Sox related and the commenters will tell you that the fall of the White Sox can be traced to the loss of Mark Buehrle and the complete collapse is enabled by the loss of AJ

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 01:59 PM) In more important news, 10 days until Cliff Alexander visits/commits to Illinois. I've heard (from a source only a tick more reliable than "random internet person") that Illinois boosters are ponying up for whatever it requires to get him to the 'Paign. QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 18, 2013 -> 09:58 AM) Egwu could be playing himself into the NBA if he keeps developing. He's got the body for it. Sounds like he's worked a ton on his offensive game over the summer. edit: from the highlights, wow is Darius Paul huge. I hope we don't lose another guy to the NBA right before he would get really good. Meyers Leonard would have been in a much better position right now had he stayed for senior year. Illinois could have been a Top 10-15 team and he probably would have been the number one pick (in that draft, at least). Not to say Egwu has the ceiling of Leonard, but it will be irritating if another guy departs before he is done developing and can take us to the promised land

f*** it, I'd be much happier with 16-32 team playoff. Reduce regular season length if necessary. Every other level and sport can do it. Eliminate the stupid bowls. You're 6-6, you don't deserve a postseason

Now they're saying nothing has been decided re:Gronk. Normally I'd say it's a Belichik smoke screen, but who knows with this fiasco

ACLs are fickle, my friend. Besides, you never know when LeBron's bully ball might end up with him bonking his head or something like that and missing time

With all of that said with Cardinals and their fans being tremendous douchebags, the players on the Dodgers are also giant douchebags. Puig, perhaps, is the ringleader which is sad since he's always had questions about his character/conduct.

I don't like people going overboard with celebrations, but I think Gomez's offenses were overstated and the response to it was inappropriate. Even moreso in the Fernandez case.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Oct 10, 2013 -> 03:27 PM) I know you're kidding but what about Kershaw, Scherzer, Grienke, Ryu.... http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/10/tige...his-winter.html Signing him will be problematic QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 10, 2013 -> 04:05 PM) Scherzer, Hunter, and VMart all hit FA that year, the Tigers have $90 million already committed to 2015 just for 4 guys, and Doug pFister and Austin Jackson will be in their 3rd Arb years in 2015 and will probably cost $10 million+ each that year as well. The only way they can stay out of long-term financial trouble is if their owner is willing to continue losing money. Yep. VMart and Hunter will be gone for sure (Torii will retire, I assume). Scherzer is looking like a potential $150-200 million guy and we may see Verlander turn into a complete albatross by this time. Miguel will be in the final year of his deal as well and they'll have to gear up for giving him a Pujols-esque contract. Meanwhile, like you said, those two other guys will be expensive and also a year away from FA. And don't forget that this year they're (potentially) losing Peralta, Infante, Benoit to FA

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Oct 19, 2013 -> 09:52 AM) I hope it's the Bulls' time, but I doubt it. I agree with J4L. You can have a deep team, but you have a better chance of success with at least 2 superstars. You can only put 5 men out there. So in the end, the Bulls can have a better overall bench than Miami, but when it counts, they're going to put LeBron, Wade, Bosh all out there and they're going to score. You can only put Rose out there and they can trap him right away. Also, keep in mind, with a team like the Bulls, you heavily depend on health, because everyone is a bigger contributor than being a role player with Miami. If Hinrich is out, it hurts the Bulls alot more than if Chalmers is injured. If Taj is out, it hurts the Bulls alot more than if Haslem is injured. And I'm comfortable saying the Heat are much worse off with LeBron injured than the Bulls are with Derrick injured. Same with the rest of the Other Two and the next two best Bulls, whoever they may be

Yeah, the Cards really made Pujols look like s*** so their fans would go along with it. They weren't interested in paying anything resembling the market price for him - which, of course, is prudent. Making your franchise's hero look like an asshole is low though

LeBron calls out KG/Pierce for leaving Boston after they criticized Ray Allen for leaving Yes LeBron, KG and Pierce "left" Boston. They really wanted to go. They and their coach were forced out, perhaps because guys like Ray didn't want to stay

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Oct 18, 2013 -> 11:12 PM) He hasn't been with Miami his whole life. And he won last year by himself. LeBron has won 0 titles in playoffs in which Derrick Rose played more than 3+ quarters