TheCrew07

I've stayed out of both of these threads recently but I feel compelled to post now after catching on this thread over the last couple of days. The disconnect here I believe is as Menace posted, there is a vast difference between knowing a sport on paper vs running a program and being able to teach a game/develop young men. The former is the domain of anyone with internet access, the latter is the domain of a select few special men who will put everything they have into developing young men beyond immediate family. The worst part of coaching in this era is far and away the parents, for too many reasons to go into in thread. In the same way for someone like Coachsm32 the worst part of posting on a forum like ours is people who immediately assume he's biased or think they know about baseball than they really do. It doesn't matter the sport, it's true across all sports, it's very difficult to appreciate the complexity and beauty of any sport until you try to coach others to play it. I didn't truly understand that fact until I got into coaching myself. Coach's track record of success building a program in an area otherwise not known for baseball, and the players that have come out of that program should have given him enough "street credit" that posters would just listen to what the man has to say. You don't have to agree with it, but just listen and consider the source. As a coach you can't help but love the kids a little bit who grow into young men on your watch so coaches will always have bias towards their own players on some level, but the good ones are keenly aware of that bias and generally try to be as objective as possible. Take football for example, when colleges come knocking on your door to recruit your kids it's imperative that you understand the entire situation, as in the coach who's recruiting your player his job rests entirely on the performance of your athlete. If you promote a kid that doesn't make it, or a couple of kids that don't make it, you no longer have any credibility in a the profession and you could impact the future of a truly deserving young man down the road. I was at the all-conference meeting a couple of years ago and a coach of a team that had lost 2 games in conference actually nominated 21 of 22 starters for all-conference and his place kicker. If you had 22 of the top 23 players in the conference, how the hell did you lose 1 game, let alone 2? Coach32sm hasn't doesn't anything like that with Angel on this forum, he's stuck to his opinion that Angel has Pudge upside which I personally believe is not far from Angel's ceiling. When we asked him about Salome's struggles throwing out runners he's been open about what he thought the problems were, and he's admitted he doesn't like Salome's unorthodox approach plate either, but it works. Futhermore he hasn't said anything about Lucroy that isn't true, I believe Lucroy is the more polished player today, but with him it's going to be what you see is what you get, he absolutely has the lower upside of the two. Potential has nothing to do with who will ultimately be the better player, Lucroy could very well end up being the better MLB player, but I'm thrilled to have both. Salome has been lightening rod of criticism because of his size, health, unorthodox style at the plate, and his CS percentage over the years and I think Coach has always handled it pretty well given how close he is to the situation. It's not a stretch at all for me personally to understand how Angel might have changed his stride to favor his ankle thus costing himself some foot speed. Major injuries often lead to other issues as the athlete unintentionally or intentionally compensates by favoring the injured area. So for example in baseball, and specifically a guy like Ben Sheets... it seems much more likely to me that tearing his shoulder muscle could have directly led to his elbow problem, or even just general wear and tear from pitching his whole life ultimately wearing down the elbow, than some arbitrary number of pitches in his age 29 season. Yet there are posters on this forum that will try and sell us on PAP or some metric being the ultimate reason for his demise, not his conditioning being a factor in regards to his injury history, or any of the dozens of other explanations there could have possibly been... For most of us there is a disconnect between what we think we know and what we actually do "know" to be true. I'm as guilty of it as anyone, I'm always trying to guess my way to the root issue without the benefit of any first hand information. The vast majority of us are actually just guessing about what happens with player Y or player X, injuries to players, treatment of players, etc.... and personally I appreciate the limited insights the few insiders we have on the forum provide.

The Lee and Sabathia trades would indicate that's not necessarily the case.When you're trading a rental player you'll take the best deal available at that time. If you are moving a player with more than 1 year of service time left before FA you can afford to sit on said player until you get exactly the deal you want. Take the going rate for a rental pitcher and then go +1 on the prospect list. If the team has SP depth they may be looking for just hitting prospects, but that's only 2 or 3 organizations in all of baseball. The vast majority of teams trading established pitching are going to want young pitching coming back in a deal.

Last Friday I was driving out to the cities to hook up with my college buddies for the weekend, it's a semi annual event. I'm driving down highway 29 and the vehicle behind me is acting some what curiously. It was on my bumper and sort of weaving to the right and left sides of the lane constantly. I purposely drive and at an odd speed so I'm never exactly keeping pace with the rest of traffic, and this trip I was driving 69 because the cops were out in full force, I went through at least 15 different speed traps in the 200+ miles. After about 15 minutes I got annoyed and forced the issue, I slowed down to 60 (in a 65) just to see what would happen as I needed to pull off for gas in a mile anyway. I was pretty happy when the vehicle pulled out to pass me finally and while usually I don't look at who's passing me, this time I did. I noticed it was a mini van, and I noticed the dome light was on (something I couldn't tell when the van was behind me), and then I noticed the driver was actually reading a book! He had the book open and over the steering wheel and was trying to read a book while he drove. I thought he was maybe reading an atlas or something, until he flipped the page and I got a good look... it was the only time I ever felt like reporting a fellow motorist. What a clown.

Wow, thankfully Darren is okay. I've been thinking about this since Mass posted it last week, but is anyone else surprised that Inman hasn't found a way to wiggle onto SD's 40 man yet? Even as a reliever? He doesn't have great stuff, but it's all averagish and he has good control or has seemed to when I've watched him pitch. Scouting reports say he works mostly in the upper 80s topping out around 92 but the fastball does have good movement. He didn't pitch all that well in 2008 as his walk rate did spike some but he's been solid in that department otherwise through out his career including last year. I always liked Garrison as well, but if you would have told me he'd beat Inman to the 40 man and it wasn't injury related on Inman's part I wouldn't have believed you.

Wow, thankfully Darren is okay. I've been thinking about this since Mass posted it last week, but is anyone else surprised that Inman hasn't found a way to wiggle onto SD's 40 man yet? Even as a reliever? He doesn't have great stuff, but it's all averagish and he has good control or has seemed to when I've watched him pitch. Scouting reports say he works mostly in the upper 80s topping out around 92 but the fastball does have good movement. He didn't pitch all that well in 2008 as his walk rate did spike some but he's been solid in that department otherwise through out his career including last year. I always liked Garrison as well, but if you would have told me he'd beat Inman to the 40 man and it wasn't injury related on Inman's part I wouldn't have believed you.

I know that, but I'm asking where those numbers come from. Is it just an automatic tie in to the stadium guns, or is there someone sitting there entering velocity data? My guess is that it's all taken from the stadium guns and as such in my experience the stadium guns can be as much as 4 MPH off from a stalker gun. My ultimate goal is to determine the reliability of the information. I've always been into Pitch F/X, but after seeing the difference between the stadium gun and the stalkers this last season in Wi I've been curious how reliable the data really is. Not just the velocity but movement as well. Also will it be different by park then? Are some pitchers getting a more accurate assessment than others? My mind goes off on all kind of tangents when I start thinking about this stuff.

I've been wondering how these velocities are done... with the stadium gun or with someone on a stalker? At any rate I'm pretty comfortable with all of the starting pitchers working 90+.

The poiint that you continually will not acknowledge in any thread or any discussion about the economics of baseball is the economy of scale. The market size matters because the Rockies aren't confined to an 80 million dollar payroll, they choose not to spend more money. Milwaukee is absolutely stretched as far as the market will allow, we are confined to payroll somewhere around 80 million if the team wants to break even. Furthermore 3 million fans in Milwaukee doesn't generate the same revenue as 3 million fans in places like Boston. So the draw isn't as relevant as the actual revenue the team is bringing in... and the larger the market the more opportunities for different revenue streams a team can have. Finally, there is speculation that the new stadium for teams like the Yankees will actually lower their luxury tax, thus reducing the extra income smaller teams like Milwaukee will receive from the league. A team like Colorado who's a mid market can afford to have an obscene contract because even at an 80 million payroll, they still have the flexibility to go higher if they choose as their younger core moves towards FA. It's not that Milwaukee can afford it, the real question is should they afford it? Again, Milwaukee already signed Braun to a long deal., While Braun doesn't start to get expensive until 2011, that's precisely when the other contracts are coming off the books. There is a risk that Fielder will break down the older he gets, players of his body type don't tend to have very long careers. If he's healthy that 20+ million is probably well spent, but if for any reason it becomes dead money for multiple years, then the franchise is sunk for the time being. It's unreasonable to assume the best case scenario for Prince's health, at some point he'll suffer a significant injury and miss time, the key becomes how much time he'll actually miss or if it's a career threatening injury. There's no replacing production when you're 20+ million in the hole for a small market like Milwaukee, mid to large markets can probably absorb a contract of that magnitude and move on, I'm not sure that's the case for Milwaukee. The Yankees easily ate Pavano's contract, I don't see Milwaukee being able to absorb a contract like that, much less a contract Prince would sign, and still remain competitive on the field.

I'm not familiar with that at all monty57. Some pitchers actually gain a tick or two on their fastball that they will gradually lose again over time as the UCL begins to degrade. While velocity loss with TJ surgery isn't common, there are cases when it happens like with Pedro Liriano (I'm sure there are others, he's the only one I recall off the top of my head). However, velocity loss is more commonly associated with shoulder surgery like with Mark Rogers and Mike Jones. If I recall correctly TJ surgery has a full recovery rate in something like high the 80s to low 90s percent. In this case though we aren't talking about a single TJ surgery, this is Cappy's 2nd. I went out and did a google search for multiple tommy john surgeries and found this article. In those 1100 surgeries Dr Andrews performed only 12 pitchers had multiple surgeries, and Andreews estimates that a pitcher coming back in for a second surgery has a 1 in 5 chance of it being a success. It would seem that the odds are stacked pretty firmly against Cappy regaining any velocity and even making it back to MLB. I'll never say never, but as I said, he's likely done as a starting pitcher. He'll have success as he works his way back up through minors because many of those players won't make good contact with his breaking stuff but I'm not sure that any of that success will translate to MLB, especially as a SP where you have to get through the order multiple times.

Pointing to 1 team who signed 1 player is completely superficial analysis of the situation. There's more to contracts than payroll and attendance. Denver has the 16th largest market, Milwaukee the 35th and is the smallest media market in MLB. I think it's pretty safe to say the Rockies have been making money hand over fist, they aren't confined by an $80,0000,000 payroll threshold like the Brewers, they just choose not to spend money, and haven't had to spend money to make the playoffs. There is no way the Brewers get Fielder for less 20 million per year, so we're also discussing a significantly larger contract... Fielder will make close to $11 mil next year with incentives and probably $16-17 in his final year of arbitration. To get Fielder to give up FA the Brewers would have to overpay and make it worth his while to bypass his first chance at FA, and he'll easily get $20+ per on the open market with Boston/LAA needing to keep pace with the Yankees. It wouldn't shock me if Prince got similar money to Helton's $140 million but he'll be signed for 4-6 years instead of 9 and unlike Helton who's not likely to be paid $23 mil that final season, Prince has a realistic opportunity to play out the final year of his first contract. The Rockies went young and started rebuilding around some core players, Holliday and Lopez were the only other playesr that made even 4 million dollars that season. It's easy to carry a single large contract when the rest of your team is still pre arby or arby eligible. The Brewers almost owe as much to Hall as those 2 players were making, not to mention instead of Fuentes we have Riske for similar money, Suppan for 12+, Braun is already signed long term, Hoffman is signed for 2 years, and so on. We have money falling off the books in the next 2 years, but what if DM signs more FA pitchers... then what? This all gets back into the same arguments many of us have made all along about how/when/why to spend money on players. Colorado put their money into their core producing players, much like many of us pointed out what Tampa had done.... Milwaukee has not done the same and if we sign more FA pitchers we'll perpetually be in the same boat until we can get out from underneath those contracts or DM/MA are gone. Signing Braun was a good start, extending Fielder isn't a bad idea if he'll do it, I'm down with extending Yo as well.... however spending money on FA pitching, especially bullpen types but starting pitching as well ties significant sums of money into players who are in the bottom half of the team's overall talent pool on the 25 man roster, it's not money well spent. Spending money doesn't make a franchise successful, but spending money wisely can. The Rockies had/have good young players and payroll flexibility though the payroll has climbing since they bottomed out in 2006... we have our share of good young players as well, unfortunately they are approaching FA and mixed in with a bunch of high priced veterans so we have very little payroll flexibility. It also unfortunate that we bottomed out in 2004 payroll wise and have much less to show for the money we've spent than the Rockie's over that same time period. The 2 situations are completely dissimilar in just about every way possible.

Cappy is likely done as a SP, he lost a ton of velocity on his FB, he was down around 80 MPH in Helena. Hes a great guy who hopefully can have a BP role down the road. Halama is another soft tosser... minor league deals are basically a no brainer but if either guy sees time in the rotation we're in trouble.

When I become concerned about developing players for another organization then I'll want players stacked up at a position without any versatility or flexibility. Until then Weeks is already stud, Lawrie has the potential to be a stud, Iribarren is a better hitter and very good defender, and Dykstra has more power than Farris. I realize you're infatuated with him, but when Escobar and Iribarren have outhit him at higher levels it's very difficult for me to believe Farris would be anything more than a stop gap 2B for Milwaukee. Offensively Farris' only stand out tool is his base stealing, and he doesn't have the foot speed to maintain those numbers as he moves up.

I fail to see how Denver and Milwaukee are comparable markets in any way.

I'm at work now, but I believe it was actually a .786 and I just typo'd it originally, but thanks for the correction, I usually make it a point to have my stats dead on. I didn't mean to suggest Cutter is a non prospect, I hope that's not the gist people took from my post, it's just I have never believed he was a top 10 prospect in the organization. We sort of have a bunch of these guys who are difficult to pigeon hole with any accuracy, and I do like Dykstra's upside more so than a Farris for example, who plays the same position. Part of that though is that I view Farris as a utility player without the utility, I'd feel better about him if they'd start moving him around the diamond some so he had some positional versatility as he moves up. As long as Lawrie is in the organization and is a 2B, with Escobar at SS,none of the other 2B in the system really have chance to play the middle IF as starters so their best bet is some kind of utility role. Right now the players with the most versatility in the organization are Heether, Sanchez (I believe he's a minor league FA), and Brownstein... I would really like to see players like Farris get some time around the diamond, I'd rather not end up with another Iribarren who seems like he could help the big club but doesn't have enough versatility at this point to be a true utility player. Dykstra is in that same boat, will he ever hit enough to be an every day player? I really don't know, he has more pop in his bat than both Farris and Iribarren, but he's been so bad defensively that he doesn't seem to be much of an asset up the middle at all. I really wish I would have gone to any T-Rat games before Dykstra got demoted last year as I'm largely going off of other people's opinions and what Chris and Steve have had to say about him on the broadcasts, I don't have any first hand observation to base my opinion off of. Typically I'll feel better about a player once I see him play if I'm having trouble with the hype.

By mediocre do you mean one of the best offensive seasons a Brewers HS draft pick has had in the Pioneer League? True, but Heckathorn was a much more effective pitcher in college, and doesn't have nearly the severe mechanical issues Frederickson has. The player that I'm suprised isn't in the top 10 is Mark Rogers. Theres still so much upside there, and its attainable. X I respect your opinions as much as anyone on the forums but I just don't get the hype for Dykstra. A .768 OPS isn't impressive for the PL, high school player or not, in fact anything less than high .700s/low 800s is going to give me pause for a high round pick. Dykstra was supposed to be relatively polished offensively, but he's without a defensive position.... and in fact, he doesn't play competent defense anywhere on the diamond. I actually like Garfield more than Dykstra even though he had that horrible slump. He was also pushed aggressively, struggled at the plate and a some in the field, but we knew he very raw coming out of the draft and many were surprised by his aggressive placement to Helena. Also, Lenny got bye mostly on his determination and PEDs, and I just don't see the best part of Lenny's game, the attitude, transferring to the son and making him a success. I've coached plenty of young men in a similar situation where the father wasn't the most talented player but was a beast because of his attitude, and I don't recall a single instance where the son became a similar player, it doesn't work that way. We just raise children differently now but that's a much larger topic which will hijack the thread, so I just wanted to mention it in passing and not focus on it. I've just always been uncomfortable with the Lenny to Cutter comparisons because I haven't personally seen it work that way... I'm not saying it's impossible for Cutter to be successful, I've just never saw Cutter being successful in the same manner that his father was. I guess the best examples I can think of are Bonds and Griffey, both had successful fathers come before them, but both were better players than their fathers with a different approach, they weren't the same players their fathers were. I see Dykstra more along the lines of a Rose... both had fathers that made a name for themselves on the intangibles, but it's very difficult to duplicate that sort of success. I see Dykstra as a Brent Brewer lite.... Brent plays a tougher position defensively (poorly), isn't as polished at the plate, but has greater upside tools wise, Brewer is just a better natural athlete than Dykstra. Coming into the 2009 season where did Dykstra fit in the OF that he was worthy of being in the top 10? Does he have more upside than Cain for an example who's outhit him at the same point in their careers thus far? Like I said I realize I'm biased against the pick because I've disliked the selection from Day 1, at the time I didn't realize how toolsy Cutter was, but he is a much better athlete than I gave him credit for initially. However just because a player is toolsy and has a name doesn't mean he deserves to be rated the 7th best prospect in the system after his first short season. He wasn't so outstanding at the plate like Lawrie that he has the potential to be an impact player, he's just not on that same level. By the same token I think Davis should have been a bit lower out of the gate as well, generally I don't split hairs on a couple of placements here and there, but I'd rather a guy performs in some capacity before getting into the top 10. Cutter didn't even make Tom's top 30 this year... if he was properly placed in the top 10 last season there's simply no way he wouldn't have been a top 30 player this year, regardless of how messed up his life outside of baseball is right now. As far as Heckathorn goes, I like the selection, but I stand by my opinion that he's not our 4th best pitching prospect today. It's not that I don't think he's a top 10 prospect down the road, but like you I wonder how Braddock can make the list and Rogers doesn't? I see that Rogers came in at 11 on the blog, but he has a similar arm to Heckathorn, more polish, and will pitch next season at AA. If Braddock is deserving of a top 10 then so is Rogers, Arnett and Heckathorn are much farther away and aren't necessarily more projectable, nor have they had success above R+ yet.

I'll happily be wrong about Prince never signing here long term if it actually happens. Until then I prefer to believe that he'll seek the biggest money he can find like most other FAs, he really has no incentive to sign a deal now. He got paid decently last season, gets paid even better next year, and the year after that is his final year in Milwaukee where he could make ManRam money in the right situation.

I don't see how TH has the ability to conduct a chat on the system's prospects when many people who post on this site are much more qualified to make a list and discuss the players at length. Anyone can sit down with Seid and say, "who do you like and why?" but it doesn't mean they are knowledgeable enough to conduct a decent chat about the prospects. BA's top 10 lists lost quite a bit of luster with me personally when I realized the beat writers like TH are largely responsible for them. It used to be one of my favorite features, I'm not sure exactly where I'd put it now. BA has never, ever, liked Salome, I'm not surprised he's not on the list. Heckathorn and Davis.... based on what exactly? Both were fine picks, but I have a hard time with players being given instant top 10 status because of where they were drafted, it's not like this is 2001 and the system is devoid of prospects.. I'm probably not giving Davis enough credit but he hasn't done anything outside of college yet... if being toolsy and being drafted high means that much then why not slide Richardson into the list ahead of Cain? He's just as toolsy and every single report about him is glowing with praise. Heckathorn has great upside, but so does Frederickson, and in the grand scheme of Brewer pitching prospects there is no way I would agree he's our 4th best pitching prospect today, I wouldn't even agree that Arnett is the best pitching prospect in the system. I would like some solid justification or even a solid thought process as to why he rates the players the way he does, but I doubt we'll get it out of his chat either, never mind his blog. Throwing Dykstra (yes I know I've been biased against him from the start) into the top 10 last year after a pretty mediocre campaign in Helena was laughable in my opinion, I see Dykstra as a poor man's Brent Brewer. I really like Lo Cain, but this last season gave me pause, it will be interesting to see how things turn out.

Err what? Are you confusing Rivas with someone else? He was the organization's minor league pitcher of the year, tops out in the mid 90s but consistently works in the low 90s, has good movement on his fastball, and BA rated him as having the best change in the FSL this last season. He has a respectable frame at 6' 2" and projectable stuff, he also had the stats to backup his projection unlike prospects who are still rated higher simply on name recognition. I moaned about all that stuff already in the top prospects by league thread and won't repeat it here. Year Age Tm Lg Lev Aff W L W-L% ERA G GS GF CG SHO SV IP H R ER HR BB IBB SO HBP BK WP BF WHIP H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9 SO/BB 2005 19 AZL Brewers ARIZ Rook MIL 2 3 .400 6.91 14 6 1 0 0 0 41.2 56 36 32 1 16 1 34 6 3 197 1.728 12.1 0.2 3.5 7.3 2.13 2006 20 2 Teams 2 Lgs Rook MIL 6 4 .600 3.72 14 12 0 0 0 0 67.2 65 40 28 7 19 48 1 2 288 1.241 8.6 0.9 2.5 6.4 2.53 2006 20 Helena PION Rook MIL 5 4 .556 3.02 10 10 0 0 0 0 53.2 48 28 18 6 16 36 1 1 226 1.193 8.0 1.0 2.7 6.0 2.25 2006 20 Brewers ARIZ Rook MIL 1 0 1.000 6.43 4 2 0 0 0 0 14.0 17 12 10 1 3 12 0 1 62 1.429 10.9 0.6 1.9 7.7 4.00 2007 21 Brewers ARIZ Rook MIL 0 0 3.12 6 6 0 0 0 0 8.2 3 4 3 1 4 0 10 0 0 32 0.808 3.1 1.0 4.2 10.4 2.50 2008 22 2 Teams 2 Lgs A-A_adv MIL 9 5 .643 3.68 26 21 2 0 0 0 120.0 118 57 49 13 43 1 90 1 11 514 1.342 8.8 1.0 3.2 6.8 2.09 2008 22 Brevard County FLOR A_adv MIL 1 2 .333 4.20 7 6 0 0 0 0 30.0 35 16 14 2 11 1 20 0 2 130 1.533 10.5 0.6 3.3 6.0 1.82 2008 22 West Virginia SALL A MIL 8 3 .727 3.50 19 15 2 0 0 0 90.0 83 41 35 11 32 0 70 1 9 384 1.278 8.3 1.1 3.2 7.0 2.19 2009 23 Brevard County FLOR A_adv MIL 13 7 .650 2.98 26 23 0 0 0 0 133.0 109 55 44 11 43 1 123 4 0 3 548 1.143 7.4 0.7 2.9 8.3 2.86 I couldn't get the table to display properly so if Casey or someone else could help me out I'd greatly appreciate it, but what's not to like about Rivas other than he's already had TJ surgery? He would have absolutely been taken by someone and if he continues to improve his command and 3rd pitch he could be a guy who makes the jump from AA as an injury replacement and never goes back down as soon as next season.

If you look around quite a few of the top of the better pitching prospects in the league are getting torched, it's not unique to our guys. I'd feel better if they were giving up less runs but pretty much every pitcher is putting too many runners on base. I'm not thrilled, but I'm not exactly unhappy either.

No we aren't up to 25 million to spend, you must also figure in the raises to everyone currently under contract

In the immortal words of the anti drug campaign in the 80s... "just say no" to Zito. Whatever the price tag, no, nada, and finally BOO! The transaction forum is a frustrating place for me personally these days, there just doesn't seem to be much hope of acquiring someone who has the potential to be a difference maker. We've continually moved our best assets without addressing the organization's biggest long-term flaw, the pitching. I look at all the names people are suggesting and mostly I just want no part of those players. I could get behind a Jackson or Vazquez of the names being mentioned and that's about it. We need 1 pitcher who can pitch into the 7th inning on a regular basis and Yo just isn't there yet, he's just never been very economical with his pitches. I'm hoping he will improve, but who knows by how much from last year to the upcoming season he'll progress? The less innings we need the bullpen for, the better off the entire pitching staff will be.

Well I must say MW2 is the coolest first person shooter I've ever played. I thought the original Halo set a new bench mark, then the original Gears of War but this game is the most customizable and most fun I've had playing in Multiplayer. In fact the online play has been so fun I haven't even touched the campaign yet.

Let's not spread glaring misinformation. From my home, to my work, to my friends & family, I'm surrounded by a very large sample of Windows machines that have never needed reformatting, let alone "one every few months". Sounsd like Mac kool-aid.Every couple of months might be extreme however it hasn't been uncommon for me to find it necessary to reformat and reinstall my computer every 2 years or so because I ran into multiple registry problems that I just could not fix. I also do computer support for a rather large corporation and I see on a daily basis how flakey Windows is. 2 users with the exact same hardware and exact same software will get different performance out of their machines. Windows just isn't the most stable and reliable platform but unfortunately Microsoft dominates the market and industry as a whole. If you don't use your computer for much other than web browsing I could see it lasting a long time with good virus/spyware/malware protection coupled with good common sense surfing and email use. Generally speaking though Windows will degrade itself over time. I will say that after 3 or 4 months now of Windows 7 I'm actually pretty happy with the product on the whole, but I still have to upgrade to a full version here at some point in the next couple of months which will be a head ache in it's own right.

DA took right around 50 hours for me, a little bit over, the ending was the longest ending I've ever seen in a game, my goodness. I ended up back tracking quite a bit trying to figure out some quests that are apparently bugged as it turns out, which ate up a significant amount of time, and I hate destroying loot so I'd always leave an encounter to go sell stuff and come back. I highly recommend paying attention to merchants early and investing in backpacks. I'm not worried about MW2 at all, if worse to comes to worse I'll just spend extra money and get the night vision, there has to be a use for them some place in civilian life. I've never had an issue picking up a copy of the game without a pre-order here in Green Bay.

Dragon Age was fantastic.... I just finished it up tonight. Some of the fights were epic, and not in a Doom superboss kind of way, but where you truly needed tactics to win. I love that you can customize tactics for each character and I spent a great deal of time tweaking, though I the Healing needs to be tweaked some to have an NPC do the healing, there's not a good way to handle a group heal through the tactics menu. I started out playing a hack and slash character but in the middle found myself playing a made to heal just to last through fights, and then by the end i was playing hack and slash again except in the epic encounters, then I played the healer character. I haven't been that frustrated taking on dragons since the early Everquest days. It's rare that a video game gets me to display emotion but BW did a fantastic job with this game, I can't wait for Mass Effect 2 in Jan. Now onto Modern Warfare 2, some of my friends got to Best Buy at 7:30 to stand in line, I'll pickup my copy tomorrow though, that's a little bit excessive for me.