Kenny Hates Prospects

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 12, 2010 -> 07:54 PM) Unlesss Thome is going to sit all season, the Twins are also rotating DH's. Do they suck? That's called having depth, and if you're really penciling in Delmon Young as an everyday outfielder in Minnesota then I think you're getting a bit ahead of yourself. I don't think anyone would be shocked if the Twins had Kubel in LF, Span in CF, Cuddyer in RF with Thome as the fulltime DH by the time it all ended. And I think you're missing the point anyway. The idea of the traditional DH isn't so much about one player starting 150 games in that spot as it is about putting highly-productive offensive players into a spot where their lack of defensive skills cannot hurt the team. There will always be platoon situations, especially in the cases of players like Thome, Vlad, Dye, etc. who are at the ends of the careers. Ozzie however is planning on turning the DH role into a spot geared toward versatility instead of trying to maximize offensive and defensive value. Huge difference. The Twins are rolling with the traditional DH while the Sox aren't planning on doing that.

One other thing too: I do agree that baseball is moving more towards pitching + defense in the AL, and I think it will continue to do so in the future. I personally love that. However there is a huge difference between building around pitching + defense and neglecting an offense. If the game does move more towards pitching + defense in the AL, that is even *more* of a reason to keep with a traditional DH and look to maximize offensive production out of that spot. Ozzie however has this idea that pitching + defense means s***ty fast guys and versatility. f*** that.

QUOTE (shakes @ Feb 12, 2010 -> 04:58 PM) White Sox, Royals, Tigers, A's, Blue Jays, O's, Mariners are all going to use multiple players to DH. The Angels will if Matsui is healthy, and the Red Sox acquired Hermida to do exactly the same if Ortiz slumps. The Rays will do the same if Burrell is bad or can be moved. You don't think that's trending away from the traditional DH? The A's, O's, Blue Jays, and Royals are all rebuilding. And they all suck. The Tigers are up to their necks in DHs on bad contracts. They don't have much of a choice but to play these guys. The Rays will do the same if Burrell is bad or moved??? Oh, I get it. So because they signed a DH to be a DH but then that DH turned out to be a bad contract it means they're now on Ozzie's rotating DH bandwagon? The Mariners are making a poor choice and are again running Jr. out there. The M's offense is really, really bad. The Mariners are getting too much love, way too much love actually. They are going to suck on the road when they don't have the 2-headed monster out there, and even when they do have their aces on the mound, it's not like the Sox, Red Sox, Yankees, and Tigers especially don't have guys who can take the mound and out-pitch Lee/Felix on any given day. The Mariners are a lot better, but they're not a playoff team IMO. Furthermore I can pretty much guarantee that if/when baseball in the America League gets turned on its head, the franchises leading that charge will *not* be any of the ones you have mentioned. It seems to me that the Sox are just being flat-out stupid. I'll be very happy if Damon decides to take a lowball offer to come play here for a year, but I'm not counting on it. PS the Red Sox acquired Hermida to DH? The Red Sox already pushed Lowell out of the 3B job and ATM are realistically looking at a Lowell/Ortiz platoon with Hermida as a 4th OF. And BTW, putting under-performing veterans into your discussion doesn't help your argument. Lots of teams have s***ty players on s***ty contracts right now and these teams have no choice but to either play these guys or release them and eat their entire contracts. Just because you bring in an insurance option doesn't mean you're moving away from the traditional DH role. If that were the case you could have argued that we moved away from the traditional DH role in 2005 because we had Everett as insurance. And what happened in 2006? We got Thome, a traditional DH. Unless AL teams reduce the active roster maximum to 24, I'll be absolutely shocked if teams by and large decide to exchange extra offense for more versatility.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Feb 11, 2010 -> 03:50 PM) Yeup and having Damon in front of Becks compared to Pierre in front of Gordo will make a HUGE difference. Like that's going to happen anytime soon. Pierre is the lead-off hitter for 150+ games this season. And Vizquel is the #2 for many of those. Still, Damon makes our lineup a whole lot better no matter where you pencil him in at. Too bad the Sox aren't going to match Detroit.

QUOTE (Mattchoo @ Feb 7, 2010 -> 08:33 AM) I agree with what you are saying, but I didn't state my point clearly after rereading it today. I feel that we need to add more value to some of the packages we are proposing the last 4-5 pages. I think we should hang on to Hudson and include Floyd for two reasons. 1) It would make our offering a heck of a lot more enticing, and 2) we could hold onto one of our top three prospects, and it would be the pitcher since we would be sending Floyd in the deal. Also in my Floyd, Flowers, Mitchell, Morel, and a prospect for Gonzalez and Young, we are helping out the Padres pocket books while giving them a better SP Everyone always says the Red Sox are the favorites because of the past working relationship they had and that Padres GM knows the Boston prospects. But I challenge anyone to consider that the Padres GM knows those players so well that he feels they are overrated. I can't stand "ratings" most of the time because it is generally just opinion based on judgment and use of statistical progressions. After all, some moron ranked the Sox prospects as DEAD LAST in all of MLB. Yet, didn't our entire farm system have one of the better W-L records last year? Also, we have players that are performing. Anyway, my whole point for this paragraph of my post is that the Sox prospects are more likely not as "low" in value as the general population (posters from all teams) think. The problem with dealing Floyd is that he's cheap now and he's proven himself. If you deal proven players to hold onto unproven players then that's not a win-now mentality. Yes, the offer would be more enticing to the Padres, but now we've just weakened our greatest strength, so while we might be a bit better going from Floyd + Konerko at 1B + Jones/Kotsay at DH to Hudson + Gonzalez at 1B + Konerko at DH, the amount of talent we'd have to give up to make us that little bit better probably hurts us in the long run. If you take all that talent and offer it to someone else while keeping Floyd, you might not be able to get Gonzalez, but you'd be able to get a damn fine player or two that when added to the picture could make us better than we'd be with Hudson + Gonzalez. IMO, the Padres can have anyone in the organization not named Buehre, Peavy, Danks, Floyd, Beckham, or Quentin.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Feb 7, 2010 -> 07:26 AM) Duane Shaffer really sucked. Just look at the past 3 #1's compared to Shaffers. Shaffers: Ruffcorn, Pearson, Christman, Johnson, Liefer, Seay, Dellaero, Wells, Stumm, Ginter, Borchard, Ring, Anderson, Fields, Broadway, McCulloch. Brian Anderson is the most productive of all those picks. Then Fields. Post Shaffer: Poreda, Beckham, Mitchell There's 3 guys that all project to be worlds better than the monstrosity of our 1991-2006 drafts. That's hell of a lot of talent you mentioned while s***ting on the job Schaffer did. The Sox have had poor results, but this "project to be better" stuff is nonsense. Anybody can project anything, doesn't mean it's going to happen. Borchard alone was at one point rated far higher than Mitchell will likely ever be rated because Borchard's ceiling was far higher than that of Mitchell. Mitchell is garnering Crawford comparisons all over the place and now he's so special? You'd laugh if you knew who it was Borchard was being compared to when he was drafted. Mitchell is a very nice prospect, but he's raw and he's far away, and if you go back in time without the benefit of foresight, every single person on this board would have taken Borchard over Mitchell. I also hated the Poreda pick, and the only reason it looks good now is because we used it to get Peavy. Only a few off that list of players you mentioned had arguably lower ceilings than Poreda given how much Poreda had to add to his game and the likeliness of that. He was always closer to setup man/possible future closer than the future #1 starter some talked him up as. Beckham IIRC is also the highest Sox draft pick since Harold Baines. So your point on Schaffer holds no water, and if anything, the worst part of Schaffer's tenure came during the "safe picks" era which was under Kenny's watch and under Kenny's control, and all these bad first round draft picks Kenny had allowed to happen. Beckham looking as awesome combined with Hudson actually looking like a very good homegrown starter for the first time in forever is making people overrate the s*** out of our current prospects and underrate the s*** out of our of past prospects. We've had lots of guys come through our system with high ceilings and with the ability to do some pretty nice things at the MLB level one day, but the vast majority of these guys don't end up doing anything worthwhile. We do have some very good prospects, but 5-10 years from now we'll probably look back on the 2010 farm system as mostly a bunch of crap, some of which we were fortunate enough to trade for good players.

^The hope you had for Coleman is the same hope I had for Trigg. Both guys are done, well done actually. It's kind of sad, but they really need to hang it up. I hope the UFC keeps them around in some capacity. Trigg can definitely help out in the broadcast booth, and maybe help out hosting new programs like the Pride series and whatnot. Coleman meanwhile would be a great PR person and meet and greet guy. BTW, WTF happened to Mike Swick? His standup blows and he has no confidence. Nothing against Paulo Thiago, but I never expected Swick to be scared of exchanging with him. That was his shot at winning. Swick probably needs a change of scenery at this point, and I don't mean he needs to leave the UFC, I mean he needs to get out of AKA and go train elsewhere. Nothing against AKA either, but it's clearly not working for him anymore. Paulo Thiago was definitely impressive though. He looks like he's only a fight away from a title shot, and he's definitely more deserving than Dan Hardy right now. And my God Chael Sonnen! Where did this aggressiveness come from? Get this guy a Deathclutch t-shirt! I thought Marquardt was going to absolutely embarrass Chael. And I know about his wrestling, but his performances against Paulo Filho (especially the 2nd fight where Filho was hallucinating and talking to invisible people while gassed out and Chael still couldn't finish him) and his 15-minute dry humping of Dan Miller had me thinking he was nothing more than a boring LnP gatekeeper. Last night he was awesome. Also impressed with Maia, Miller and Guillard. Rolles Gracie : The Gracie Family :: Jason Guida : The Guida Family X10000.

Given what it would cost the Sox in terms of salary eaten to send Konerko *anywhere* it would not be advantageous to move him. If we did get Gonzalez it would be great to have Paulie because then he'd be the backup at 1B, meaning we could trade/release/waive one of Jones or Kotsay, which we'd need to do anyway in order to have a spot for Nix or whoever else is the secondary backup IF.

QUOTE (zenryan @ Feb 5, 2010 -> 09:22 PM) I care if you take me! haha, congrats. I'll be betting on Coleman tomorrow. I took him at +300 vs Bonnar and cant pass up these odds again. Hoping the odds increase toward the +350 range before pulling the trigger. It's +320 at my book right now. Also taking Thiago too. Right now he's sitting at +190 so I'm waiting for it to creep over 200. Hague at +150 is tempting me but dont know if I will do it though. Ha, if there was an event anywhere around here anytime soon I'd definitely be cool with taking a fellow SoxTalker. I'm planning on giving them to my nephew for a graduation present though, he's not too far away from Vegas and the UFC is always there. Hopefully you win on Coleman. Do you think he's going to out-power Randy early or catch him good or something? I don't know how he'll be able to handle Randy's conditioning after about 5 minutes in there. I'm rooting for him though. If it were me I'd probably go with a parlay on Marquardt, Maia, and Trigg. I don't even know why Trigg is the underdog in this fight, and Maia and Nate have wins in the bag IMO, they're both absolutely terrible matchups for Miller and Sonnen. Hague could be a great bet though, and betus has him at +160. I could definitely see Thiago winning against Swick by sub or decision, but that fight seems pretty dangerous for Thiago if he stands up for a little while. I still think Swick is a lot better than he showed against Hardy. Ronys Torres could also be a pretty good bet against Guillard. He trains at Nova Uniao with Aldo, Fabiano, Leites, etc., is 14-1, and only 2 of his wins have been decisions with the rest of his wins being finishes on the ground. His one loss is via KO though, but if he can get the fight down to the ground he should be able to finish Melvin. Betus has him at +105.

I just won UFC tickets from Dana for making fun of him in photoshops, lol. Not that anyone cares, but I have to say I love Dana White. He's so awesome. UFC rules. BTW, taking Randy but rooting for Coleman tomorrow. This is one that could end up being pretty damn exciting despite all the criticism. It may sound like a s***ty main event, but as soon as the fight starts I'll definitely be into it.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Feb 4, 2010 -> 07:21 PM) So anytime a team makes an offer, it's a done deal now? :\ Pretty much. Would YOU want to go play for the Nationals??? "Well, we offered him a steak on one plate and a bag of dog s*** on the other. We know he's hungry, and we think he's taking the steak, but we can't be positive since it's not a done deal yet." -douchebag on twitter

Realistically Hudson can't be expected to contribute as an everyday starter until 2011. Hudson can't be expected to come into his own until at least at some point in 2012. Flowers can't be expected to be an everyday starter until 2011 either, and by the time he's really good (if he's going to be) it's probably not going to be until 2012 at least as well. During this period the Sox will have to deal with the growing pains of these players and in some cases take hits because of it, especially with Flowers. And also, only allowing one year of learning time is very optimistic, and then expecting these guys to be really good thereafter is even more so (although I'm very confident in Hudson). Meanwhile, Buehrle's deal is up after 2011. Floyd's deal goes up and will increase pretty rapidly, but he's not expensive now. Danks, with another strong year, is due a pretty large salary in 2011. By the time 2012 rolls around, where we could be looking for strong years from Hudson and Flowers, we're possibly looking at Buehrle being gone, Danks and Floyd being very expensive, and Peavy still making huge bank. If we don't do some pretty serious winning in the meantime it's going to be very hard to keep our rotation together. And of course there's the issue with Quentin being arb-eligible only through 2012 also, and then he's up for free agency too. Picking up Adrian right now would give us the best opportunity to win during the window we have, and the effects of that could do wonders for the Sox financial state in 2011-2012. They've already spent what Konerko is going to free up on Pierre and Teahen, so we shouldn't expect there to be a lot of room to work in the near future if we don't do very well this season. Even if we ended up letting Adrian walk, as long as he helped us win while he was here it should at the very least help us hang onto players we already have.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Feb 4, 2010 -> 07:11 PM) yea, cant see prospects holding kenny back. agone adds a whole new dimension to the lineup. imagine agone and cq in the middle of that linuep? wow. L Pierre LF R Rios CF R Quentin RF L Gonzalez 1B R Konerko DH L Pierzynski C R Beckham 2B L Teahen 3B R Ramirez SS I'd be on board with that.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Feb 4, 2010 -> 06:30 PM) do u think thats true? i sort of dont because as much as we think theyre ligit, (i think so), gonzalez is too good to pass up because of 3 prospects. i can see why sd might not want to, but from the sox standpoint, they should jump on it. to me, the only reason i just dont see the sox maybe not wanting or getting him is that because when he becomes a fa, hes easily going to want 5+ years and they simply just dont like to hand out long term deals Agree. Two years of Adrian plus Type-A compensation afterwards is more than worth that price IMO. It's about championships, and Adrian is the kind of player that could take our rotation deep into the playoffs where they have a chance to win one. BTW I have no idea why fans here would care about giving up any of these prospects. Every big trade it's the same thing: everyone loves a player, and then as soon as he's gone it's time to talk about that player's faults and how he's probably never going to do anything major. Sox fans turned on Reed, DLS, Young, etc. in a heartbeat. Even the hatred for the BMac trade only seemed to last a couple of days, and he was a big part of our title win in '05. Trust me, if SoxTalk users log in tomorrow and see "Sox Acquire Adrian Gonzalez" sitting there as the top thread in the Palehose Talk section, and then they see we just gave up Hudson, Flowers, Danks, and maybe some filler, everybody is going to go f***ing nuts with joy and start thinking about the ALCS vs. the Red Sox or Yankees. I don't put any stock in that reported offer, but if it's true, the Sox are crazy for passing that up.

QUOTE (jphat007 @ Feb 4, 2010 -> 05:23 PM) THey are far and away the team to beat. Their lineup is just incredible. They could go out and just run away from everyone like we did in 05. f*** I don't think they're going to run away with it, but if they got off to a strong start and it's apparent early on that Ozzie's strategies are not working as planned, then Kenny needs to get something done fast so we don't get too far back.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Feb 4, 2010 -> 06:08 PM) i thought pitching is the most important thing? no way are they far and away the best team. they have a lot of question marks with their rotation imo. pavano is avg at best. not a guarantee to stay healthy either, liriano is a big question mark, 4 and a half era for baker last yr, slowley had an era torwards 5, blackburn is their best pitcher and has won 11 games back to back years with an era of 4. our pitching is way better. their rotation may have potential but its far from being able to say that its very good. ill take a well above pitching staff and ave. linueup over a well above lineup with (at the moment) avg. pitching rotation That defense is going to really help out the Twins pitching staff though. Sox vs. Twins IMO: Offense: Twins Starting rotation: Sox Bullpen: toss up given how uncertain they are, but taking the Sox Bench: Twins Defense: Twins Manager: Twins

I have no idea how you could watch Hudson and not see anything to write home about. I saw a plus FB, a borderline plus change that should become a plus change, a slider with potential that had been considered a plus pitch by others in the past, along with a developing curve, and the type of fearlessness a pitcher needs to have success in the major leagues. He's not an ace, but his ceiling is definitely in the #2-#3 range IMO, and that's as an AL pitcher. I'm also put off by his Freddy Garcia comments. There comes a time when you just have to watch a guy pitch and see how he uses what he has to his advantage. It's funny how he talked about the 2006 Freddy as the last healthy version of Freddy and then goes on to rip him for his diminished FB velocity now. Well, that 2006 Freddy had the same stuff that the 2010 Freddy should be expected to have, and statistically the 2006 Freddy had a very good season: good enough to pitch 3rd in most rotations and head several poor ones, and good enough to get Floyd and Gio in trade. Beyond that, the 2010 Freddy might even be healthier considering he's recovered from his surgery. Whether Freddy will hold up or not is anyone's guess, but if the end of 2009 Freddy and the 2006 Freddy are both garbage, then roughly 50-60% of starting pitchers in baseball are worse than garbage, and those guys are getting paid a hell of a lot more than Freddy will make this upcoming season. Also on Freddy, he made 9 starts last season for us, and while still building up strength and working on the command of his breaking stuff, and yet he still threw 7 quality starts. Of the two that weren't, the first was his first start back with the Sox, and the second time he had actually thrown a quality start, but Ozzie sent him out there for the 7th anyway even though it was apparent that Freddy didn't have anything left that game. Freddy then put some guys on, Ozzie left Freddy in until the Tigers scored twice that inning, and then he brought in the gas can Tony Pena to finish the job. So really it should have been 8 QS in 9 starts with Ozzie to blame for that one.

Taveras for Linebrink and $1.5M in 2011 IMO. Then cut Taveras again and give Hudson Linebrink's pen slot. Get out of Linebrink's 2011 commitment at all costs!

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Feb 2, 2010 -> 12:18 PM) More on Hudson by Mr. Law: http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index...;name=law_keith I understand why people are so down on D2, but his thoughts on Hudson are just f***ing retarded.

QUOTE (The Baconator @ Jan 31, 2010 -> 10:55 AM) I agree that the Rangers ownership likely won't make a splash in terms of shelling out a bunch of money right now. But I do think that if they are in the mix in July (due to what I see as a parity in the West), they will likely go out and try to fill the gaps (which will most likely come from their pitchers). If Liney has a good/great first half like he's done before, I could see the Rangers eating his contract to improve their chances. And yes, making a move like this in the middle of our own divisional race seems stupid, but this is contingent on having other strong performers in our pen throughout the season and the seemingly likely chances that we'll be stuck with a broken Linebrink in the second half. I'm sure like any other team the Rangers are going to look for pieces around the break if they're in contention, but not Linebrink. Even if the Sox ate all of the money owed to him in 2010, he's still making $5.5M in 2011. Mike Gonzalez got $6M per to close, just $500K more than Linebrink will make. Wagner and Valverde each got $7M to close, $1.5M more than Linebrink. Soriano got $7.5M to close, so just $2M more there. Middle relievers and setup men are getting way, way less than that. Linebrink could be awesome this year for both halves and if we wanted to move him we'd still have to eat salary or take on another bad contract. Linebrink's deal is one of the worst deals for a reliever in baseball right now since he's not a closer and is only good for the first half. As far as Kenny shopping Linebrink though, that's in no way a bad move at all. Even if Linebrink has an ERA and WHIP under 1.00 with a nasty GB rate and a K/9 at 9 or above at the All-star break, it would make a mountain of sense to eat some cash and dump him off on some poor sucker as soon as we could.

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Jan 31, 2010 -> 11:57 AM) they tried a few opponents, but the AC was real strict about who they would OK a fight with. Yes, he is in tremendous shape for a 48 year old, but I agree with what Jay Glazer twittered, basically he said that he loves when people give the sport a try, but the sport is getting to big for spectacles like that. I agree, I don't begrudge Walker in any way, but it kind of makes the sport look bad when that fight and the Lashley fights are shown on a big card. Agree, but I'm not putting Lashley anywhere near the Herschel debacle because at least Lashley belongs in the cage. I know some people are saying Walker looked good, and did great for his age, etc. but all that's lost on me. He wasn't skilled enough to be in there and he didn't perform well enough to deserve a second shot. That Nagy guy shouldn't have even had a pro record. There's no reason someone that poorly skilled should be allowed to compete as a professional; it's dangerous and it makes the sport look bad. And for Walker to take 2 1/2 rounds to finish an opponent that horrible - with armpit punches mind you - that's enough of a reason to close the door permanently. The Walker-Nagy fight made the Kimbo-Thompson fight look good.

QUOTE (MHizzle85 @ Jan 31, 2010 -> 04:00 PM) So they're gonna maybe throw King Mo to the wolves eh? Fine by me. I'm taking Mousasi too, but of those 3 fights Mo-Mousasi is the closest IMO.

QUOTE (zenryan @ Jan 31, 2010 -> 02:43 PM) StrikeForce isnt big enough yet to have 40% of their card filled with new guys fighting bums. And then throw in the women's fight and that makes it 60% crap. One fight on a card is tolerable I guess. When is Roger Gracie going to be used? I guess he's dropping to 205 but lets get him out there already. Atleast the CBS show in April will be good. Fedor-Werdum Henderson-Shields Mousasi-Lawal rumoured. Agreed on the 60% crap part, that's exactly what I thought going into it. The worst part is listening to Mauro talk about it while it's happening. The guy isn't even calling the fights, he's pleading with the viewer not to change the channel. Mauro Ranallo is MMA's version of the desperate used car salesman who needs to get that rusty old Cavalier with the broken seatbelts off the lot or his family's going hungry. IIRC Roger Gracie got hurt and/or had a baby, or something like that. There's a reason he's out though and I'm pretty sure it doesn't have to do with Strikeforce. That CBS card looks pretty sick, even though I'm expecting washouts in 2 of those.

That Nagy guy Walker fought was the worst fighter I've ever seen. Last night was the first time I watched an MMA event on television and saw a guy that I could beat myself. I have no idea how that guy was even sanctioned. WTF? And Herschel looked just as terrible as expected. I too could not give a f*** about women's MMA. I used that fight as an opportunity to take a s***. Lashley looked slow out there. He's got talent but he needs to give up this pro wrestling crap because there are way too many holes in his game and he's at the point now where he needs to be facing opponents that will force him to stand and trade, at least for a period. Sims is about as done as it gets. The 2 fights I wanted to see though were awesome. Damn, Nick Diaz just keeps on getting better and his punches are gaining power. His accuracy definitely seems to be improving as well. Frank Shamrock is a f***ing tool for sitting there talking about how Nick's punches don't hurt, they're just "confusing." Oh really? He always says that s***, meanwhile Nick is laying people out. I wish Strikeforce would dump that guy. Manhoef looked awesome once again and Robbie's KO should stick as one of the more memorable KO's of the year by the time December rolls around again. I'm glad Melvin is in the US and a future Lawler-Hendo fight will be fun. Since it's Strikeforce and weight classes don't mean a whole lot, maybe Diaz will go back to MW for a rematch with Robbie since Robbie lost to Shields not too long ago.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Jan 31, 2010 -> 01:41 AM) The issue being that the back of their rotation is awful. Having Ian Snell and Yusmeiro Petit as your 3 and potential 5 may have seemed awesome 5 years ago, but it's certainly isn't now. Snell definitely has upside and I loved that move from Seattle's end, but that said, you're right on in that there's a lot of uncertainty behind the big 2. Think of it this way: it's all about winning games. While having a couple studs at the front of the rotation may be extremely helpful in the playoffs, especially in a short series, you don't necessarily win in the regular season because of that. Seattle's defense should really help them win in their own ballpark, and they're going to be very tough with Lee and King Felix on the mound, but when you put that team into a smaller park and throw some mediocre pitcher out there, that offense is going to look pretty bad. By contrast, maybe the Angels don't have the defense the M's have, and maybe they don't have the sexy names at the front of their rotation, but they're a very solid team with a lot of talent and on any given day IMO they are more capable of beating a solid team than anyone else in that division.