MattZakrowski

Awesome.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 24, 2010 -> 01:00 PM) The Sox, as I remember reading, are the only team in baseball that has met or exceeded the statistically expected win total each year since they've been projecting it, as I recall. That means someone other than the players deserves some credit. Is it KW? Ozzie? Coop? Herm? Some of all of them? I think credit has to go to a medical staff that has done an amazing job keeping players on the field. I'll give Ozzie credit for one thing, he manages the starting pitching well. I do not approve of his lineup construction, and if he really is the reason we didn't get a real dh this off-season, then that's on him too.

QUOTE (Felix @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 08:07 PM) I'm sure no one cares, and this probably doesn't even belong in this thread, but I'm too excited not to mention it. New Futurama episodes begin in June http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastro...ost-presentama/ That is all.

That's a way better group of defensive players, to be fair. Offensively though, ew.

Damn, I thought it was this Sunday. Eh, I've had worse.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Mar 22, 2010 -> 03:23 AM) Decided to make a hitter last week. I made a catcher to see how much fun it would be. It is NOT. I have SS picked as the backup position, and got to enjoy playing 80% of my games there the first month of the season. Now, they put me at catcher every game, and it sucks. I just simulate any game that shows me as catching. I don't want to play for 30 minutes a game, and not even rack up points for doing it. I should get points for strike outs too, or some sort of points. It's just not worth it. I have been put at catcher for like 3 weeks straight, even after asking for a position change. This sucks because I feel like all I am doing is simming my guys career at this point. Yeah, I made C one of my secondary positions at first, it just takes so damn long, and the cool thing about RTTS is that it's fairly quick.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Mar 21, 2010 -> 02:21 AM) Just starting watching Breaking Bad. 1 episode down, like 25 more to go. I got a lot of online watching to do..... New season starts in 25 minutes!

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Mar 21, 2010 -> 02:13 PM) It might sound crazy but it's not confusing. You have 2 divisions, East and West, like before. The #1 seed in each division has a best-of-7 series where the winner goes to the ALCS. 4 other teams go through a single-elimination tournament to decide the second ALCS team, and this tourney takes the same amount of time as the first series, so the playoffs aren't being dragged out. The whole idea of realignment would be to bring more revenue and competition, but especially revenue, to the game of baseball without killing off the good parts. Maybe my plan sucks, but, 1) the old system will never come back because too much money is made off it now, and 2) interleague play will probably stick around for quite some time because too much money is made off it now. It took me a second to grasp it, but I like it. It keeps the regular season important, which I think is the major flaw of the NHL and NBA.

He's not a very good player, so I'm not surprised when he plays poorly, but It's still just spring training.

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Mar 18, 2010 -> 10:36 PM) ^^ That. Who wants to be Tiger Woods and have the SPLOOGE on every damn piece of clothing? Edited for accuracy.

You don't walk at all, huh?

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 01:09 AM) The shoes? The skateboarding in them. I thought that was the hypothetical challenge.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Mar 16, 2010 -> 12:24 AM) This sounds like a challenge. vidz or it didn't happen

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Mar 15, 2010 -> 10:20 PM) I thought they had white, navy, and gray...? They do, but don't the Tigers use navy as well? Side note: The Rockies win for utilizing purple.

QUOTE (daggins @ Mar 14, 2010 -> 10:54 PM) Weren't they going to get him some time at C this spring, or will that be during the season. If he could catch we could in theory keep him and Nix, and just cut Castro.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 14, 2010 -> 06:51 PM) Ryan Howard for Albert Pujols trade talks? What's with the slight-moderate upgrade at the same position trades from Philly? A Beckham-Utley swap can't be far off.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 13, 2010 -> 04:38 PM) Twins sign Span to extension. 5 years, $16 million, $9 million option for 2015. That's a really good deal for Minny.

QUOTE (MHizzle85 @ Mar 12, 2010 -> 06:00 PM) Let's just post our keepers in here. As for who has what team... J4L - Sonic22 MattZakrowski - SS Hitmen I believe joeynach is taking over lobo Gordon Beckham Ryan Howard Ichiro Suzuki Tim Lincecum Andrew Bailey

QUOTE (Reddy @ Mar 12, 2010 -> 11:24 PM) you know a tibia is a bone right, and cannot be torn. It's very serious...

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Mar 12, 2010 -> 06:25 PM) I have simmed a couple of times. What I've noticed. I can't hit a weak slider or changeup, but if a slider has some serious bite, I can knock it out of the park, opposite field almost every time. After ending my first year in AA(which I got called up to AAA, back down to AA, then back up to AAA) the only team to offer me a contract was my current team, the Tigers for a 1 year 80,000 deal. That's wack! Now, I'm just barely meeting my goals, and then dumping all my resources into contact and power. Quick question, why is it that my team wants me to work on hitting lefties more than righties even though my contact and power are 8 points higher(and counting) than hitting righties. Also, it sucks that I put 1B as my second position because now the Tigers are keeping me there at the AAA level even though I'm a better fielder at 3B. Also I still can't keep up for the most part with AAA pitching. If you make a right handed hitter, it makes you boost the vs LHP stats more. Also enjoy 1B, you get absurd amounts of training points from all of the putouts.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Mar 12, 2010 -> 03:34 PM) oh, and lets not forget how this would effect the draft. Teams could effectively "tank" a season to land a great prospect all in the name of "rebuilding" They can do that now.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Mar 11, 2010 -> 02:15 PM) RTTS is really starting to frustrate me. For no apparent reason, my guy seems to be regressing. It's become impossible to avoid the big innings and if I give up another double under the 1B/3B glove I'm going to flip s***. I know what you mean, my second season has been way worse than the first. On a positive note, dumping all of my spare training hours into Power vs RHP is finally paying dividends.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Mar 11, 2010 -> 02:54 AM) I really don't like the two bolded parts. 1) Shortening ST doesn't help anyone. It just makes the players have to work harder when they're there, and it gives them less time to work on things while also providing less time for the players on roster bubbles to prove themselves. The players would just have to get ready earlier. Besides, cold weather cities are just going to have more problems if the season starts earlier. What MLB needs to do is find a way to make ST more lucrative for all clubs in baseball. Perhaps a couple prospect showcase games, maybe some All-Star break type festivities, something like that. MLB needs to get more people to ST. 2) Shortening the season is a terrible idea. Baseball is supposed to have 162 games per season and shortening it just makes records harder to achieve. I don't see any reason why there would need to be fewer games. Realignment and stuff is all way, way down the list of priorites anyway, or at least it should be. The biggest problems in MLB right now have to deal with the arbitration process, the comp pick process, the Rule-4 draft, the lack of ability to trade draft picks, the fact that MLB just looks the other way when teams completely ignore slot recommendations, the problems in foreign baseball academies, the Japanese posting process, etc. The international signing system is probably the most scrutinized of all, but it also might be the most fair system of all because at least all teams have an equal shot at a player if they can afford him. But even this system is bad because dealings are shady, undeserving players get big money, etc. and it's also begging to be exploited by American players in the future. I also think there needs to be a draft lottery so that way teams like the Nationals and Pirates don't automatically benefit from tanking all the time. But there are a ton of issues that need to be addressed before realignment is considered. And really, there's no perfectly fair system. A salary cap would be bad for baseball, and you can't make small-market teams put all their money into on-field talent just to chase .500 when what they really need is superstar prospects down on the farm. There will always be teams like the Rays, A's, Twins, etc. that have to find ways to compete with other higher payroll teams (although Target Field is going to help the Twins for a bit). Maybe an idea would be for MLB to redistribute revenue sharing money in a way where, for example, 20-30% of funds from the top-10 teams in the league go toward subsidizing farm system costs for the bottom-10 teams in the league, and maybe this would help an organization turn over a bit quicker and at the same time help out with the idea of parity. But then there's the issue of s***ty management just pissing away money and teams still not ending up profitable. I imagine as long as baseball is around these issues will be around. Agreed, but I think a system where the teams can spend money on overpaying draft picks or signing international prospects and count it towards the cap would work.

QUOTE (knightni @ Mar 10, 2010 -> 09:21 PM) I still have Triple Play 99. Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right...

QUOTE (knightni @ Mar 10, 2010 -> 07:07 PM) I'm not trying to segue this into an NFL discussion, but, did you know that he's never lead the NFL in tackles and has only been in the top 10 three times? 2009 Injured 2008 49th with 15 MLB's with more tackles. 2007 10th with 5 MLB's with more tackles. 2006 6th with 3 MLB's with more tackles. 2005 13th with 7 MLB's with more tackles. 2004 Injured 2003 22nd with 6 MLB's with more tackles. 2002 2nd with 1 MLB with more tackles. 2001 11th with 8 MLB's with more tackles. He's a very good LB but is getting "white guy" fan attention. How has Briggs done in comparison? Tackles Urlacher 2009 3 2008 79 2007 92 2006 92 2005 97 2004 52 2003 87 2002 115 2001 89 Briggs 2009 93 2008 90 2007 83 2006 109 2005 83 2004 102 2003 65 Looks to me to be pretty even. Why are there no "Briggs to the Hall" articles? Urlacher's prime years were with a very good defense. Players on good defensive teams get less tackles because they get more 3 and outs and turnovers.