LouisEly

We have no idea how fortunate we are to have one of the best announcers - if not arguably the best overall in terms of entertaining the fans - in the history of baseball. Not quite as special as Easter Sunday 1987, but really, really good.

w00t! and w00t! Curious as to what w00ten's velocity was. TJ has been known to add a couple mph.

Considering that McGwire doesn't even get 25% of the vote I highly doubt that Ramirez gets anywhere near the HOF.

JJ Hardy has trade value?

Get rid of the only LH impact bat in the lineup, much less one of the top 10 impact LH bats in MLB, and they are a better team? Only if his subtraction means the addition of three LH bats who are above-average both offensively and defensively and at least one above-average starting pitcher. What RobDeer said above - his presence in the lineup creates a lot more impact than can be measured in the box scores.

Some questions for the group: 1) Does UCONN winning the Championship legitimize the Big East and their tournament performance? 2) Does Butler going to back-to-back Championship games, VCU making the Final Four, and the performances in recent years of Davidson, George Mason, and others mark the end of the notion of the "power conferences" in basketball?

Anyone else having difficulty pulling up Gameday on MLB.com? I get nothing. Using Firefox 3.6. If anyone is successfully getting Gameday, what browser/settings are you using? Thanks!

Fiers to the bullpen in AA? (Sigh...)

Fixed.

Ah, Nyjer Morgan. IIRC two seasons ago Fangraphs said he had more value than Ryan Braun, and I never looked at Fangraphs again. Yeah, defensive range and UZR is good but not quite as valuable as Fangraphs thinks it is. Let's hope that 2010 was an aberration and Morgan returns to his career average .360 OBP. I had hopes that Dykstra would improve defensively and find a home somewhere on the diamond. Most guys who come out of high school aren't good defensively - it's a skill that has to be learned like hitting, and I thought he was still young enough where he could learn if he worked hard enough at it. I understand the need for a backup OF, but I am a little wary about giving up the guy who led the entire organization in OBP this past year, even if it was in low-A. So of the three 2nd round picks in 2008, it looks like the net ML impact of those picks for the Brewers will be Nyjer Morgan. An example of how draft picks in baseball aren't as valuable as some think they are. Just because you got a Yo Gallardo one year in the 2nd round doesn't mean that's the norm; it's more the exception. If you want to take that a step further, the net impact of the six combined first and second round picks is Shawn Marcum, part of Zack Grienke (Cain and Jeffress were as much a part of the deal as Odorizzi), and Nyjer Morgan.

Inside play is often opened up by outside shooting, and of course vice versa. The lack of outside shooting allowed Butler to double down low. If UW had made some outside shots it would have opened up the low post. When you aren't making either outside or inside shots... that's when you get down big and lose. If UW makes just 4 of their first 16 shots in the 2nd half instead of 1/16 they may have had a legit shot of winning. The silver lining is that Bruser seems to have found his confidence and assertiveness as he's been all over the court the last 2-3 weeks. I think he's going to be a beast next year. Not that it would have made a difference, but some very inconsistent officiating in the Marquette-UNC game. Marquette would still be losing, but it would at least be a close game.

You do realize this means that there is no back up plan if Carlos Gomez continues being Carlos Gomez? Plan A: Logan Schafer when he returns from his broken thumb. Plan B: Trade Plan C: Caleb Gindl I guess I don't see how Gomez could be any worse of a burden on offense than Escobar was last year. I'm more worried about pitching than a backup OF.

DJO... DAGGERS!!!!

Marquette with a great defensive effort today. Hopefully the defense continues on Sunday against 'Cuse. After listening to Jay Bilas whine for two days about how VCU had no business being in the tournament, it's nice to see VCU shut him up even if it came at the expense of a Big East team.

I just don't understand how these college presidents think a football tournament is not going to make as much money as these bowl games. The bowl games are much more profitable than you think. First, there's travel costs; it's one thing to fly 20 people around carrying basketball uniforms and shoes, flying 100 people with football equipment (plus a band and band equipment) is a lot greater cost. It's not just revenue, it's revenue minus costs. The non-D-1 schools do it, but they also aren't spending $1.5M on football scholarships (plus $2M on coaches salaries). Most football programs are in the red already; that's why teams love to play UW in non-conference games - they get more money playing at UW than they get from a home game. Second is fan traveling; most fans have the resources to only go to one event. So think about that - if Wisconsin was one of the teams in the tournament, would you have gone to the Rose Bowl or would you have waited to see if they beat TCU and made it to the 2nd round or championship game? It's a lot harder to fill 75,000 seat stadiums than 18,000 seat arenas, and I've been to NCAA tournament games and the arenas have been half full even though four teams are there. The stands aren't full at the non-D-1 tournament games - there's hardly anyone there. You'd have football games with half-full stadiums at best, and that does not look good on TV and has a significant impact on revenue. Think about that - the Rose Bowl was pretty much full, so you have 90,000 fans paying $150/ticket, or $13.5M in ticket revenue from just one game. The NCAA tourney games I went to I paid $25 for two tickets - not $25 each, $25 for two tickets. Add to that parking, concessions, and souvenirs for 90,000 people and you are talking about well over $20M in revenue from one event. That's not including the TV revenue for that game. Now add in the BCS Championship game, the Fiesta Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Orange Bowl... that's a lot of on-site revenue that a tournament doesn't generate. Plus the economic impact of 50,000 fans traveling to a city and spending money on hotels, restaurants, tourism, etc - that's a tremendous amount of revenue generated for local businesses. That will not happen with a tourney because fans won't go to every game, and if their team loses early in the tourney they won't go to any game at all. I don't think that the TV revenue from a tournament will be much greater than what they already get for the BCS games, and they'd lose a lot of on-site revenue. I think the biggest issue though is how would you divide up the TV money? You can't have a field as broad as the basketball tourney, so if you limit it to 8 teams where does the money go? With the basketball tourney every conference is represented, so each conference gets at least 1/68th of the TV revenue. With a football tourney you won't have every conference represented because if you do the field would be so big it would take way too long. And would you really watch Oregon play Northern Illinois or UCF in the first round? Should the mid-major conferences get a cut even if they aren't represented? If you have more than one team in the tourney, as it is common for the SEC and Big 10 to have two BCS teams, would that conference get 1/4th of the money if they had two teams in? You'd have a situation where the power conferences could get a tremendous amount of money and some conferences potentially zero. With the current bowl system each team and conference gets a cut of the TV revenue from that specific event. Frankly I think the BCS does a better job of determining the national champion than a tournament. You could be the best team, but if you run into a team that can't miss (like OSU shooting 94% from 3 - you can't even do that in practice), if a star player gets hurt (like Brian Butch did), or if you have one bad officiating call in an early round game (like the Big East tournament this year) the best team may not even make it to the championship game. With the tourney it's about who the best (and luckiest) team is over 3 weeks; with the BCS they are more likely to match up the best teams over the course of a season.

Michigan's best wins are sweeping Michigan State and Penn State, beating Illinois in the B-10 tourney, and a non-conference win over Clemson who arguably shouldn't be in the tourney. Marquette has beaten Notre Dame, UConn, Syracuse, and West Virginia twice (plus Bucknell in non-conference, as good a team or better than Clemson). If we want to play the "close loss to ranked team" game, Marquette can run with anybody on that one this year.

Marquette with a very favorable draw - I think they can beat Xavier in the first round, and while I am surprised to see a potential matchup with Syracuse in the 2nd round they beat Syracuse the only time they played them this year (albeit at home). Apparently they are viewing 8/9 seeds as being lower than 10/11 seeds as Michigan and Tennessee are not better than Marquette. Also, when did the Midwest bracket become the Southwest bracket?

It may kick them down to a 5 seed, but in reality the difference between a 4 and 5 seed is probably the smallest of any two seeding spots in the bracket. One gets a 12 seed in the first and a 4 in the second, the other gets a 13 in the first and a 5 in the second. I might almost prefer a 6 seed as I don't think there is much difference between a 3 and 5 seed this year and you avoid the 1 seed in the 3rd round if you get that far. UW's problem will be the 2nd round game because their lack of depth forces their starters to play a lot of minutes. Two games in 3 days - when their starters play 36-38 minutes a game - is not a recipe for success. Marquette is not getting a lot of help - Temple lost in their tourney, giving the A-10 conference another team in the tourney. Washington was probably in already but now are automatic. And if Penn State can pull off the upset - albeit unlikely - that's another non-tourney team that makes it in, although their run to the Big 10 championship might get them in. The one thing helping Marquette is UCONN winning the Big East tourney; since Marquette swept them that increases Marquette's RPI and SOS.

vrbo.com - Vacation Rentals By Owner. Might be cheaper to rent a house than get a hotel, especially if you are going with a group. And if you rent a house you can buy groceries/cook at home and save on having to eat every meal at a restaurant.

Marquette was playing their third game in three days, and this was Louisville's first game of the tourney. You could see Marquette getting tired about 15 minutes into the game. They did a good job of defending the first 15 minutes, but when they got tired they started getting late on switches and kick-outs and then it was over. When Crowder and JD-O got two fouls by the 10 minute mark and had to play sparingly the last 10 minutes of the first half, that didn't help either. But IIRC, Marquette led at least the first 10 minutes of the game.

"I haven't seen [schafer] offensively enough to get a really good feel for him, but defensively, I really like him," Roenicke said. "He's really confident. When the ball is hit, he's moving and he knows exactly where the ball is coming down." I like this. Schafer posted 13 assists in 2009, suggesting he has a decent arm too. Sounds like he's a plus defender, so if he can be average offensively he could be overall an above-average CF.

I dont think they could face Pitt in the second round though could they? I thought conference teams could not meet in round 2 or is that impossible this year with all the Big East teams. They can't meet in the 2nd round. If more than 8 teams from a conference are in the tourney then obviously you can't just place them in the 1 side and 2 side of each region, but they would then in this scenario make Marquette a 12 seed and not play Pitt until the 3rd round. Or they would have one Big East team as a 6 and another as a 10 so they wouldn't meet until round 3. But I'm pretty sure you are right in that they can't have two teams from the same conference meet in the 2nd round. If I had to wager a guess I'd say Pitt a 1, ND a 2 (paired w/either Duke or UNC as the 1), Syracuse & Louisville 3's, St. John's a 4, UCONN a 5, Georgetown a 5, WVU a 7, Cincinnati an 8, and Villanova and Marquette 11's. You could pair Pitt, WVU, & Villanova, ND and Georgetown, Syracuse & Cincy, Louisville & UCONN, and St. John's & Marquette, and none would potentially face each other until the 3rd round.

Looking at the success of Butler, Davidson, and Cornell in the tourney the last few years - even going back to George Mason in 2006 - it would not surprise me to see the selection committee place less emphasis on strength of schedule and more emphasis on winning. Strength of schedule is somewhat arbitrary - doesn't it depend on what teams are ranked in the polls, and isn't that determined by voters perceptions? I'm not saying they are going to entirely discount SOS; I'm just saying less emphasis.

Cassell/Allen/Robinson were all acquired using lottery picks. All depends on the talent that is available when you have the pick. If it's 2003 when you have James, Anthony, Bosh, and Wade it's worthwhile. If it's 2004 where after Howard you have Okafor, Gordon, Livingston, Harris... doesn't do any good if you don't have #1. Same with 2007 where there's nothing after the 3rd overall pick, then you aren't going to get anything in trade value for that player down the road.

He's not going to get any better, and I don't think he's in very good shape. Remember, he had knee surgery last offseason which made it much harder to work out and come into camp in shape. That being said, despite the knee surgery he still played in 157 games last year. What's that old saying, talent doesn't do you any good if it's not available? Casey's a guy who will show up to work everyday and is unlikely to need to be subbed out for a below-replacement-level player for 30-40 games a year because of minor injuries. You can say what you want about RBIs but they aren't a fluke; with runners on base his OPS was .833 (compared to .801 overall) and with runners in scoring position his OPS was .943. He gets RBIs because he doesn't poop down his leg under pressure with runners on base. Compare that to Fielder, whose OPS overall was .873, but with runners on base it was .755 and with RISP it was .752. My only concern with Casey is the defensive ability. I think Casey is grateful for the chance the Brewers gave him and will give the Brewers a "hometown" discount. So as long as the deal isn't too long (4 years max, preferably 3) and very reasonable cost (~$3M/year) I don't see any downside. Cost control and predictable salary also make it easier to trade him. Like others said, if Casey repeats 2010 his market value will be a lot higher than that.