Hague isn't good enough to play third base, I think. I do agree that Alvarez should be in the minors working on his hitting. If they can win the Diamondbacks series, I think you'd have to consider the road trip something of a success. You might be able to make a case that Cain and Kershaw are better than Halladay/Lee.
McGhee needs to keep getting at-bats, which is a statement that tells you all you need to know about the offense right now.
Anyone go to the Opeth/Mastodon/Ghost show at Stage AE last night? I made the drive to Pittsburgh for it. North Shore is beautiful, haven't been there for years.
We all remember Anthony Rendon around here, right? Surefire #1 overall pick last year who kept having ankle issues that caused him to slip out of that spot last year...yeah, well, in his 2nd pro game he fractured his ankle.
He will be back at some point this season...but that ankle is basically tissue paper at this point. I'm used to this stuff happening after the Pirates draft a guy instead of before...so we can all be thankful for that, at least.
Tissue-paper Rendon would still represent a huge upgrade over this crap team offensively.
8 RBIs through 7 games...I don't even have words for that.
Anyone go to the Opeth/Mastodon/Ghost show at Stage AE last night? I made the drive to Pittsburgh for it. North Shore is beautiful, haven't been there for years.
I traveled from C-bus for Needtobreathe on Friday.
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"Every game, every point is a necessity." -- Ty Conklin, January 2007
"I'll have a chance to compete for the post of first issue. This is the most important thing." -- Sergei Bobrovsky, June 2012
Can I just say how much it annoys me that the Pirates one real west coast roadtrip of the year is when I'm still in Montana?
I can? Okay. A bit.
Well, at least against the two teams that I'd probably go to games easily against. I'll probably be living within a couple miles of Dodger Stadium soon and one of my best friends lives in Phoenix (~375 miles from LA). There is a series in San Diego in August that I may make the trip down for, which could amazingly be my first game at a baseball stadium outside of Pittsburgh. All of the times I've been in Denver the Rockies have been on the road or it was out of season, so that's never happened.
There is a chance for that to happen earlier, though...I'll be in Seattle for a friend's wedding when the Mariners are hosting, of all teams, the Dodgers.
I think this is the year I finally adopt a secondary team. It'd be nicer if the Dodgers were in the AL instead of the NL...I could root for the Angels, but **** that. Anaheim isn't LA. The odds of this happening will rise depending on how close to Dodger Stadium I wind up living. I've been looking at a few places that would be within walking distance of the stadium.
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“The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile, but that it is indifferent. If we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death, our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.” - Stanley Kubrick
Only Tom Brady has a longer tenure with the same team as a QB.
What happens to Leftwich remains to be seen. The longer he stays available the more likely he is to return, I'd imagine. Pretty hard to imagine the Steelers don't draft a QB at some point of the draft, though. Personally I'm rooting for B.J. Coleman in the 6th round, which should surprise absolutely no one. Ryan Lindley is another one I'd watch out for.
I've been a fan of the Dodgers for a few years, ever since attending a game at Dodger stadium against the Phillies. One of my good friends is a Dodger fan, so it kind of made sense at the time, even though I'm also a fan of a lot of teams that I think Pirates fans tend to root for (Twins, Rays, etc).
The trip to from LA to San Diego isn't too bad, and San Diego is a great beer city (and also, obviously, a really good place to get Mexican food).
Hopefully we can get off to a good start tonight and take this first game. Saunders is solid but if we lose tonight, it will be a big task to face Kennedy tomorrow. A win in this series would be a huge boost coming home to the Cardinals series... not expecting it, but hopefully the offense can continue to build some momentum. Haven't seen the lineup yet but I would expect Pedro might sit again and McGhee will play third.
Mcgehee and Walker actually did something with pitches down the middle in the 1st. Bedard of course has to throw one down the pipe as well for a hr. He has also been pretty wild, consistently missing spots. I'll be surprised if he lasts 5.
Last edited by Fogel: 04-16-2012 at 09:58 PM.
Reason: game stuff
I traveled from C-bus for Needtobreathe on Friday.
Lots of travelers headed to Pittsburgh from Columbus over the weekend then. I know a bunch of people who made the journey on Sunday. Great show.
I love how awesome Stage AE and the LC in Columbus are. Just great venues, and they're basically the same. Both are in beautiful, blooming areas of their respective cities, too.
Oh God, I'll soon be living in a city where bands actually play!
All we get here are Wilco and The Decemberists...not that I'm complaining about those two, but something different will be amazing.
I just did a search for concerts in Missoula and the only band scheduled to perform that isn't stopping over en route to/from Sasquatch (which I'm going to anyway) is, you guessed it, Wilco.
Only Tom Brady has a longer tenure with the same team as a QB.
What happens to Leftwich remains to be seen. The longer he stays available the more likely he is to return, I'd imagine. Pretty hard to imagine the Steelers don't draft a QB at some point of the draft, though. Personally I'm rooting for B.J. Coleman in the 6th round, which should surprise absolutely no one. Ryan Lindley is another one I'd watch out for.
Those guys would both be terrible picks. The #1 best predictor of pro success when looking at college QBs is completion percentage, and both those guys were awful (yes, yes, I know, Tim Couch...but Tim Couch vs. JaMarcus Russell, Kyle Boller, Michael Vick, Ryan Leaf and many others). Neither of them had an impressive career TD/INT ratio either.
Looking for guys who started a lot of games against the best competition and had a good career completion percentage, but who will slide in the draft for some unimportant reason, I like Russell Wilson. He reminds me of Doug Flutie, a comparison I'm not alone in making. Considering that scouts and draft websites almost never make cross-racial comparisons (just look at the media squirm around trying to make a comparison for RGIII: Michael Vick? 67% vs. 56%. Cam Newton? RGIII isn't a damn giant. Randall Cunningham? He played 20 years ago!), I really like my read on this one.
I'd take a young Doug Flutie as my backup over some tall guy who can't hit what he's aiming at. Heck, I'd take Doug Flutie in his prime as my starter over some overpaid rap.....well, you can probably guess where I'm going with that one.
Lots of travelers headed to Pittsburgh from Columbus over the weekend then. I know a bunch of people who made the journey on Sunday. Great show.
I love how awesome Stage AE and the LC in Columbus are. Just great venues, and they're basically the same. Both are in beautiful, blooming areas of their respective cities, too.
Agreed - of course, the subsequent issue is that these shows should be booked AT the LC.
I’m a big fan of Wilson. I really enjoyed watching him play at Wisconsin. He got a lot of great qualities…..arm strength, accuracy, mobility, poise, intangibles. Too bad he’s only 5’10”. If he’s 4 inches taller, he would have taken in 2nd round.
Another QB I like in late rounds….Kellen Moore. He was very productive. Decision making and pocket awareness are probably his biggest strengths. He’s very accurate but he doesn’t have arm strength and size (just 6 feet tall). I think he could be good backup in NFL. He’s similar to Colt McCoy and Ty Detmer.
Those guys would both be terrible picks. The #1 best predictor of pro success when looking at college QBs is completion percentage, and both those guys were awful (yes, yes, I know, Tim Couch...but Tim Couch vs. JaMarcus Russell, Kyle Boller, Michael Vick, Ryan Leaf and many others). Neither of them had an impressive career TD/INT ratio either.
Looking for guys who started a lot of games against the best competition and had a good career completion percentage, but who will slide in the draft for some unimportant reason, I like Russell Wilson. He reminds me of Doug Flutie, a comparison I'm not alone in making. Considering that scouts and draft websites almost never make cross-racial comparisons (just look at the media squirm around trying to make a comparison for RGIII: Michael Vick? 67% vs. 56%. Cam Newton? RGIII isn't a damn giant. Randall Cunningham? He played 20 years ago!), I really like my read on this one.
I'd take a young Doug Flutie as my backup over some tall guy who can't hit what he's aiming at. Heck, I'd take Doug Flutie in his prime as my starter over some overpaid rap.....well, you can probably guess where I'm going with that one.
The odds of you finding a franchise QB in the 6th round are pretty minimal. If you want to draft a QB in the 2nd round to get someone better, then fine...I'm looking for a 3rd stringer in the 6th round because we have way bigger fish to fry than a guy who's never going to see the field. Stats in college are meaningless. Kellen Moore doesn't have a single tool that it takes to be more than practice squad fodder in the NFL (I love the guy, but he's not going to be a NFL QB), meanwhile Coleman was able to turn one of the worst programs in the FCS into a competitor last year despite having no talent anywhere around him. It's hard to complete all of your passes when your no talent receivers don't know how to catch the ball.
And you damn well know I'm far more familiar with Coleman than Wilson anyway Why the hell would I watch BCS conference football?
Last edited by Big McLargehuge: 04-17-2012 at 12:07 PM.
The odds of you finding a franchise QB in the 6th round are pretty minimal. If you want to draft a QB in the 2nd round to get someone better, then fine...I'm looking for a 3rd stringer in the 6th round because we have way bigger fish to fry than a guy who's never going to see the field. Stats in college are meaningless. Kellen Moore doesn't have a single tool that it takes to be more than practice squad fodder in the NFL (I love the guy, but he's not going to be a NFL QB), meanwhile Coleman was able to turn one of the worst programs in the FCS into a competitor last year despite having no talent anywhere around him. It's hard to complete all of your passes when your no talent receivers don't know how to catch the ball.
And you damn well know I'm far more familiar with Coleman than Wilson anyway Why the hell would I watch BCS conference football?
Wilson's stock is currently listed as 3-4 on all the draft websites, but there are 4 rounds worth of guys listed as being 3rd or 4th rounders on those websites. I wouldn't draft a QB in the second round, either, but nobody drafts QBs under 6', so I expect Wilson to fall.
If the "tools" you look for in a talented QB are arm strength, speed and height, then Moore doesn't have them. Those things are secondary concerns for a starter and totally unimportant for a backup. When you look for a QB, especially a backup, you want a smart, accurate guy. That's Kellen Moore. He's your 6th round backup type, not some 6'5" big armed guy who can't complete passes. Wilson is going to start in the NFL someday, and he'll be good enough to win with. If he drops, the Steelers should take him.
Only Tom Brady has a longer tenure with the same team as a QB.
What happens to Leftwich remains to be seen. The longer he stays available the more likely he is to return, I'd imagine. Pretty hard to imagine the Steelers don't draft a QB at some point of the draft, though. Personally I'm rooting for B.J. Coleman in the 6th round, which should surprise absolutely no one. Ryan Lindley is another one I'd watch out for.
The Colts want to sign Byron Leftwich to help out Andrew Luck learn Arians' offense.
I have some doubts that Wallace will sign a long term contract with Steelers. He saw some ridiculous contracts teams sign receivers during free agency. He figured he can get a contract similar to Fitzgerald. I know they are negotiating but I don't think they will get a long term contract. Steeler have leverage so Wallace will be forced to sign a tendered 1 year contract and then becomes an unrestricted free agent next year. That's my gut feeling.
Why the hell would I watch BCS conference football?
