I stumbled upon this image of Adam Dunn practicing bunting during spring training and immediately thought to myself, well thats a complete waste of time. In what situation would you actually want your power hitter or one of your best hitters to sacrifice bunt? How many times has Adam Dunn actually bunted in his career? Perhaps practicing making contact and boosting his average above .240 would be of better use?

So I did a quick google search and found this. With two sacrifice bunts in his career and runners on 1st and second Dusty Baker asked Adam Dunn to bunt. He failed twice and was forced to swing away. He returned Dusty's confidence in him by.... blasting a 440+ foot walk off home run.

I'm not anti-small ball by any manner, but why have a massive power hitter that you're never going to ask to bunt even practice it. It's just a waste of time.

Trades "Soldier" Kellen Winslow from the Cleveland Browns to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. [ESPN]

I was contractually obligated to make that joke.

Between watching the Michigan Basketball game and highlights of the Cavs Rockets game last night, I've come to the conclusion that I despise the Charge. It's not that I think the rule is a bad one. I don't think an offensive player should be allowed to just plow over a defender to get to the basket. I just hate the fact that it's now a defensive tactic, instead of you know trying to play defense.

Watching last nights game it was blatantly obvious on several possessions that Michigan defenders were simply trying to get in the way of Purdon't players in order to draw a charge. They weren't actually trying to steal the ball or contest a shot, nope they were just standing there hoping that they were graced the whistle in their favor. Then when Sportscenter aired they showed the greatest Charge Jackass of them all Shane Battier. Last night he drew two separate charges on Lebron James. Each time he was a bit overzealous with the maginitude of the fall. It's lame and it pissed me off.

What would you do if someone in your pick up game tried to draw a charge? Would you hope he gets run over so you could make fun of him, call a foul on him and not help him off the floor? That's what I would do.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

When I watched the Alamo Bowl (man I was bored), I immediately threw Jeremy Maclin on my Jets Wish List. Unfortunately, all the mock drafts out there and all the projections had him going well before the Jets 17th pick, so I kind of gave up hope a bit. But his stock has dropped some thanks to his combine numbers slipping lower than expected while others like Darius Heyward-Bey sped by. In fact I even can find mock drafts where Maclin slips to the Jets. And to that I say hooray.

Why do I want Maclin? Because he's exactly what the Jets need. A wide receiver with speed and size that can stretch the field vertically. A player that has the potential to score on every play. Currently, the Jets biggest play maker currently is Leon Washington and he isn't even on the field the majority of the plays considering he's a 3rd down back.

To top it off, the combination of Maclin and Leon Washington on punt returns and kick off returns would be devistating. Maclin was arguably the best kickoff returner in College last year and Washington has arguably been the best kickoff returner in the NFL the past two seasons. Opponents would either need to decide to pooch or take the massive gamble that Maclin or Washington bust the return.

Simply put, Maclin is #1 on my wish list this offseason.

Alamo Bowl Highlights


Maclin Highlight Reel

I find this humorous... In Baltimore, Bart Scott's first choice is the Ravens. In New York, he's leaning towards the Jets.... And I guess the National Football Post says the Jets signed him.

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you. This week it's throwing a curve ball and looking at All Time Great Yankees. Players that we know did not take steroids to see if this gives a defense to any of the players 'convicted' by Numbers on Steroids.

Mr. October was a pure power hitter who never hit over .300. Kind of sounds like Mark McGwire, let's take a look.

Explaining It In 90s Steroid Terms

If you took a look at Reggie's career and wanted to figure out where the oddity is, its in his improvements from age 37 to 39. At age 37 he was pretty much done and by done I mean really done. He hit below .200 and only had 14 home runs. The next two seasons he improved both his home run totals and his averages to the point at 39 when he hit .252 and 27 home runs. The issue with linking it to steroids would be that the numbers still aren't off the charts, and they are still significantly lower than during his prime.

The other oddity is the fact that his career best season happened at age 34. He hit 41 home runs, hit exactly .300 for the only time of his career and finished 2nd in the MVP voting. If that happened during a time of steroids eyeballs would be raised.

The Verdict

Reggie's numbers are very very very inconsistent over the tail end of his career so it would be tough to declare a prolonged usage. With that being said blowing up in one season at the age of 34 would definitely get people to question in todays world.

Career Year at 34? Hmm....

You're tired of the boring everyday outfielders like Raul Ibanez and Pat the Bat, you want to spice it up in the later rounds with young potential. So who do you go with Justin Upton heading up his sophomore campaign or Cameron Maybin starting up his official rookie season?

The Fantasy Rankings

CBS has Upton at 223 and Maybin at 248.
Yahoo Big Board mentions neither.
ESPN has Upton at 117 and Maybin at 174.

The rankings are all in Upton's favor which is to be expected. Both are terrific prospects and both have been hyped for a long time, but Upton has always been the cream of the crop.

Projections

Justin Upton: .263, 22 HRs, 6 SBs, 79 Rs, 68 RBIs
Cameron Maybin: .276, 16 HRs, 32 SBs, 86 Rs, 58 RBIs

The major difference between the two in the projections is Maybin's assendance to the leadoff role and his spead. These set of projections are the top of the top for Maybin this season, but if he were ever to put these numbers together he would be an absolute steal. As for Upton, the projections are probably fair, but he did have 19 steals one year in the minors so there is hope that he will run more.

Surrounding Lineup

Neither player will have an abundance of studs surrounding them no matter where they hit in the lineup. The Marlins have Hanley Ramirez and then everyone else. Sure Dan Uggla has pop, but he's still not a great hitter. The Diamondbacks have Mike Cameron light in Chris B. Young, a mid-tier first baseman in Conor Jackson, high flyin Eric Byrnes, etc. Essentially they have a bunch of slop.

Question Marks

Being that these two players are both 21 years old, there's a ton of questionmarks. First are they overhyped? Second, with no MLB track record are you going to end up paying for mediocre stats. Cameron Maybin could potentially be awful in spring training and not even make the roster. Basically drafting a 21 year old is as risky as you're going to get in a draft.

The Verdict

The Verdict is highly dependent on spring training and their spot in the lineup. If you're draft is right now than you have to go with Upton on the basis that he has a secured spot in the lineup even though he is likely to bat at the tail end. Come the end of March if Maybin is slotted as the Marlins lead off go than I think you have to go with him. The Diamondbacks do not have a Hanley Ramirez on their roster, so the prospect of Maybin hitting in front of Ramirez is an option not on the table for Upton. Finally, batting leadoff would give Maybin the green light on the basepaths. If you can get double digit homers, 30+ steals and around 90 runs than you essentially have Shane Victorino from the past two years, which is a solid thing to have as your 4th or 5th outfielder as can be seen by my trophy collection.

Three years ago Daisuke Matsuzaka, the best Japanese Pitcher, helped lead their National Team to the World Baseball Classic and took home the MVP award. The following offseason he made a boat load of cash for both himself and Nippon. In 2009 Yu Darvish is now the best Japanese Pitcher, and with a similar performance as Daisuke in 2006, he just might make even more money. Why? Because he just might be better.

Darvish, a 6-5 fireballing righty, has posted a sub 1.90 ERA in each of the past two seasons. Dice-K's career best in his eight years in the Japanese League was 2.13. In addition he's younger now than Dice-K was in 2006.

If you're craving watching someone you've never seen before than Darvish is your man. He just might be the best baseball player in the world not currently playing in Major League Baseball

I'm not quite sure I get the loose ball out of the shorts part of this float. [Via Deadspin]

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

The collection of Eric Mangini, Chad Pennington, Ben Graham and Laveranues Coles appeared on Sesame Street in December of 2006. After yesterday when the Jets released Coles, all of them are officially out of the Big Apple.

So why the releasing of Coles? Simply put, he's not worth 6 million dollars. He's a solid #2 receiver. He's been a solid tough as nails receiver his entire career, he's just never been a gamebreaker. Right now he essentially does the same things as Jerricho Cotchery, except he's older and was getting paid more. In the right role for the right money I think he could be a very solid edition to an NFL team. The Jets just need a game breaking wideout and not a #2 getting paid #1 money. I wish him well, I enjoyed his toughness, but it's time to move on. It's time to draft Jeremy Maclin (I hope).

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you. This week it's throwing a curve ball and looking at All Time Great Yankees. Players that we know did not take steroids to see if this gives a defense to any of the players 'convicted' by Numbers on Steroids.

It's time to take a look at the master of the English language, Yogi Berra.

Explaining It In 90s Steroid Era Terms

Nothing easily screams at you when looking at Yogi's numbers. His averages throughout his career are remarkably consistent. If you took at those numbers you'd almost think he had the same exact season for his entire career. The AB/HR totals you could potentially point to the 1961 totals and throw a quick question at how it dropped so heavily but then if you look at his fielding stats you'll notice that 61 was the first year where he was mostly an outfielder and not a catcher a figure that at age 36 he had to get a boost from avoiding the daily beatings behind the plate.

The Verdict

In no era could you look at these numbers and come to any conclusion of performance enhancers. There are no spikes anywhere in averages, and the AB/HR numbers can in part be contributed to luck and a change in position. In conclusion if Yogi was playing today and he had those numbers, nobody would question him for a second.

Maybe He Takes Performance Enhancers for His Afflack Commercials

The World Baseball Classic starts next week so I perused the rosters and stumbled across a few players who I frankly did not expect. Here's a run down of the top 5 players who caught me off guard as to whom they are playing for.

5. Russell Martin, Canada - I probably should have known he was Canadian, but he looks hispanic, doesn't he? I picture Canadians in the Jason Bay mold, ghastly white.

4. Nick Punto, Italy - I don't think I understand how people are allowed to play for Nations when they definitely have never lived there. Anyway, Punto was born in San Diego to a father who played in the minors.

3. Marco Scutaro, Venezuala - I don't know if I've ever heard Scutaro talk, I think I have after he hit a walk off against Mariano a few years back, but I always thought he was Italian or Italian American. Now he's playing for the Venezualan Team? Who knew?

2. The Hairston Brothers, Mexico - The Hairston brothers are 3rd generation Major Leaguers. Their father played for the White Sox for most of his career and their grandfather played in the Negro Leagues and for one season for the White Sox. So is their mother Mexican? Their father did play 3 years in the Mexican league, perhaps they were just born in Mexico?

1. Bruce Chen, Panama - With a name like Chen, your first guess would probably be China right? Then you'd rattle off all the remaining Asian countries and the USA. How long would it take to get to Panama? The entire list?

You've convinced yourself that you want to be the first guy in your league to draft a pitcher. Your options are Johan Santana or Tim Lincecum. Who do you go with?

The Fantasy Rankings

CBS has Santana at 17 and Lincecum at 18.
Yahoo Big Board has Johan at 18 and Tiny Tim at 19.
ESPN has Johan at 9 and Tim at 12.

There's little doubt that these are the best two available pitchers. Deciding on which one to go with is obviously a much more difficult choice.

Projections

Johan Santana: 3.01 ERA, 18-7, 230 IP, 234 Ks, 1.07 WHIP
Tim Lincecum: 3.02 ERA, 17-9, 240 IP, 272 Ks, 1.19 WHIP

The difference between the two is Johan's advantage in WHIP and Tim's advantage in Ks. Which one do you like better?

Surrounding Lineup

One thing you should never when drafting pitchers is make the decision solely on projected win totals. Johan pitched well enough to win 23 games last year, but he didn't. With that being said, you still have to take in consideration the surrounding lineups a little bit, and the advantage here clearly goes to Johan Santana.

The New York Mets clearyl have a more dynamic lineup with three superstars in Carlos Beltran, David Wright and Jose Reyes. After that there are questionmarks abound, from who will play the corner outfield to whether Carlos Delgado can replicate his 2008 campaign.

The Giants are lacking great players and will have to make due with aging Bengie Molina, Edgar Renteria, Randy Winn and Aaron Rowand supplying the punch to their lineup.

Question Marks

The questionmarks for both players is health and workload. Tiny Tim made a tremendous workload leap last season. Will his small frame hold up again this season? For Johan he seemingly has been healthy and started 33+ games in 6 straight seasons. Will the track record finally break this year?

The Verdict

For this year, I'd still go with Johan Santana and the main reason is safety. If you're drafting either of these players you're going to need to drop at minimum a 2nd round pick. You don't want your 2nd round pick underperforming and there is a legitimate chance that Lincecum can get the same run support that teammate Matt Cain received last year. I know I told you don't pick a player strictly for wins, but when these two are so close in every category something needs to tip the scale. Additionally, Johan also has proven he can start 33 games year after year, Lincecum has one year under his belt and you just don't know if he will be the durable ace quite yet.

You probably won't go wrong with either of these pitchers leading the way, but in my opinion the time to take risks is not the second round, so you have to go with Johan.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

In 2005 the New York Jets were burned by poor kicking. Doug Brien missed two potential game winning field goals against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the playoffs and they went from one game away from the Super Bowl, to a wednesday tee time at the local golf course. So the Jets did what anyone scorned would do, they dumped Brien and drafted a Mike Nugent, a 'Franchise' kicker, in the second round. Well that certainly blew up in their face.

Mike Nugent has officially parted ways with the Jets, and his career with the team was average to below average. In 4 years he made 81.5% of his kicks and was never reliable from deep as he was 3-9 in his career from 50+ yards out. Additionally, his kickoffs lacked depth and he was never really a touchback threat.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of Nugent as a Jets fan is Stephen Gostkowski. The Patriots drafted Gostkowski only a year later, but in 4th round, and since he's been superior in everyway. He is a constant threat for touchbacks because he has a much stronger leg, and his accuracy over his three year career is better as well (85%). Just one more of the countless things the Patriots have done better than the Jets in the Belicheat era.

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you. This week it's throwing a curve ball and looking at All Time Great Yankees. Players that we know did not take steroids to see if this gives a defense to any of the players 'convicted' by Numbers on Steroids.

Time to look at my dad's favorite athlete of all time, Mickey Mantle.

Explaining As If It Was the 90s

If you take a look at the numbers there are two time frames which in the 1990s would be questioned. First would be the incredible leap he took from his first year in the big leagues to his first MVP season in 1956. His batting average jumped 50 points. His slugging percentage jumped 90 points and he hit 15 more homers than his previous high. This wouldn't merrit a conviction nowadays though because the young age he arrived in the big leagues and the entering his prime.

The biggest questionmark would be the return to a God in 1961 after his disappointing, by his standards, 1960 year. In 61 his average jumped 40 points, his slugging percentage jumped 130 points and he hit 14 more homers. Over the next three years his averages pretty much stabilized at very good but never again touched the 61 numbers.

The Verdict

I don't think the Mick would have been convicted with those numbers in the 90s. He destroyed the ball in his early prime and his biggest years came when he was in his 20s. Then in his early to mid 30s his career started to regress. The anomoly really is the dip in 59 and 60.

In reality though, with all the excessive abuse Mickey had in his life, what do you think the chances are that Mickey wouldn't have used roids if he played in the 1990s?

The Mick on Steroids Would Have Been Bonkers

The Knicks finally gave Stephon the mercy kill last night; thus allowing him to fly up I-95 all the way to the TD Bank North Garden and throw on Celtic Green. I'm surprised by this decision mostly because how can a man who so passionately loves a number just abandon it. The Celtics have already retired #3 and #33 in Dennis Johnson and Larry Bird, so what will Starbury wear? Hmm... I wonder what he will go with?

It's time again to tune up for March Madness by making picks for the Accenture Match Play Tournament.

Much like March Madness you have to go with an underdog somewhere. My underdog is Luke Donald, and I have him taking out both Vajajay Singh and Mickeltits.

On the opposite side of the bracket I'm going with Ryder Cup hero Anthony Kim. Paddy Harrington and Goofy Swing Furyk are also major competitors but I liked the fire in Kim last year and think he makes a move this week.

How long does Tiger make it in his first tournament back? I'm probably an idiot for picking against him, but there has to be at least a little bit of rust right? A little bit? I've got him going down against Mike Weir. And I've got Camillo, who's pretty much fantastico, winning the region.

In the fancy pants bracket with Sergio and Ian Poulter, the winner is going to take the fashion award and the region. Sergio shall be that man and he will breeze throught the rest of the competition cause this isn't a major.

I took Sergio. Why? Because I'm a glutton for punishment.

Clayton Kershaw and David Price are two young studs expected to make an incredible impact on their respective teams roster. But which one would you rather have on your fantasy team?

The Fantasy Rankings

CBS has Price at 133 and Kershaw at 188.
Yahoo Big Board mentions neither.
ESPN has Kershaw at 198 and Price at 207.

Both pitchers are ranked similarly, a mid to late round high risk / high reward play.

Projections

David Price: 4.90 ERA, 4-5, 79 IP, 59 Ks, 1.49 WHIP
Clayton Kershaw: 4.23 ERA, 6-6, 115 IP, 102 Ks, 1.45 WHIP

The projections are pretty blah for both Kershaw and Price, but especially bleak for Price. I can't say from the stuff that I saw these two pitcher possess last year that either projection is remotely accurate.

Surrounding Lineup

David Price is on the defending AL Champs, but that might be a bit misleading. The Rays bullpen was infused with his presence last year which helped bridge the gap to the end of the game. Without him, the bullpen will be a bit more unreliable. Additionally, the Rays lineup wasn't a dominant offensive squad last year, just a quality one. Adding Pat the Bat will help, but still in the AL East there won;t be much margin for error.

The Dodgers lineup on the other hand is missing a Manny. The fortunes of many a Dodger pitcher will be tied to Scott Boras desire to take a smaller contract than he originally promised Manny. If Manny signs than the Dodgers lineup will be solid throughout. If not, than Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, and James Loney better change into their massive RBI shoes.

Question Marks

The biggest questionmarks for both pitchers are workload. How many innings do their franchises plan on letting them throw? If you're drafting a pitcher chances are you want them to get a good workload. The longer they are in the game, the more chance they will have of coming away with a victory and building up strikeout totals. The difference between the two may simply come down to who throws more innings.

The Verdict

The edge for me goes to Kershaw. The reason for the edge are first and foremost workload. Kershaw threw 168+ innings last year between Triple A and the Dodgers. Meanwhile, Price's biggest workload came two years ago when he was a Senior for Vandy and totaled 133+ innings. Additionally Kershaw gets an edge in the competition he's going to face. The NL West will again be poor while the AL East consists of two powerhouses. Finally assuming the Dodgers sign Manny, their lineup will be just as dynamic as the Rays lineup.

Both pitchers could easily be lights out this year and pay off big dividends, but if I'm going to jump at just one of these left handed studs it's gonna be Kershaw.

The Champions League round of 16 starts today so let's take a look around and predict the winners.

Internazionale v Manchester United

Two teams that are absolutely dominating their domestic leagues, makes this arguably the biggest matchup of the Round of 16. Inter is 9 points clear of second Juventus while ManU is 7 points clear of second Liverpool both are poised to take their respective crowns. This matchup also pits Jose Mourinho back against Sir Alex in a rematch of the Special 1's Chelsea days when he dominated the Scotsman. I don't expect Inter to go into Old Trafford and come out with a victory so everything rides on their matchup at the San Siro today.

Prediction: Inter with the upset 2-1 on aggregate. 1-0 at San Siro, 1-1 at Old Trafford

Lyon v Barcelona

Barca takes on Lyon in another matchup of squads at the top of the table. The difference is that the French Ligue is weaker than the Spanish and Barca plays at another level which Lyon won't be able to handle.

Prediction: Barca with the easy win 3-1 on aggregate. 1-0 at Stade de Gerland, 2-1 at Camp Nou

Arsenal v AS Roma

In the opposite of the first two matchups, Arsenal and Roma are sputtering domestically and have positioned themselves outside of the mix of the 2010 Champions League. This is where all their eggs are left for their season. The Premiership has dominated this tournament in years past

Prediction: Arsenal with the win 2-1 on aggregate. 1-0 at Emirates, 1-1 at Olimpico

Atlético Madrid v FC Porto

Talk about the luck of the draw. Both of these squads do not have the look of Champions League Trophy holders. Madrid are lucky to have drawn Porto, but it still won't matter. Down go the Spaniards.

Prediction: FC Porto with the win 2-1 on aggregate. 1-0 at Vicente Calderon, 0-2 at Estadio do Dragao

Chelsea v Juventus

Only weeks after sacking their coach, Chelsea now continue the quest to get the one trophy that has slipped through their fingers. The test starts with Juventus who have bounced back from their corruption relegation to make a strong run in the Champions League Group stage. Guus Hiddink is now the man in charge and he will get it done.

Prediction: Chelsea with the win 2-1 on aggregate. 2-0 at Stamford Bridge, 0-1 at Stadio Olimpico di Torino

Villarreal v Panathinaikos

Greek teams don't make it far in the Champions League. The fact that Panathinaikos made it this far is accomplishment enough. Their time will end at the Spanish Feet.

Prediction: Villarreal with the easy win 4-1 on aggregate. 2-0 at Estadio El Madrigal, 2-1 at Athens Olympic Stadium

Real Madrid v Liverpool

Liverpool once looked like they were going to win the Premiership, now they look distantly up the table at ManU. But this is the Champions League, a place Liverpool has played above expectations for years. Real Madrid is a great squad but behind Fernando Torres, Liverpool will squeek it out.

Prediction: Liverpool with the win 3-3 on away goals. 2-2 at Bernabéu, 1-1 at Anfield

Sporting Lisbon v Bayern Munich

Don't mess with the Germans on PKs.

Prediction: Bayern Munich with the win 2-2 on PKs. 1-1 at Jose Alvalade, 1-1 at Allianz-Arena

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you. This week it's throwing a curve ball and looking at All Time Great Yankees. Players that we know did not take steroids to see if this gives a defense to any of the players 'convicted' by Numbers on Steroids.

It's time to link at the Great Bambino. What would people say about his numbers if they were occurring in todays era?

Explaining It In 90s Steroid Terms

Ruth certainly didn't get off to a bang at the start of his career, probably because he was pitching. If Ruth was put in today's terms and someone was trying to pinpoint when he did steroids the answer would be 1920 and 1921. After those years he was pretty consistent until he turned 36 and started the I'm fat, not and good shape, and getting really old stages of his career. In 20 and 21 however Ruth was a god. In both seasons he hit in the .370s, got on base at .500+ clip and slugged outrageously in the .840s.

The Verdict

I don't think Ruth took roids back in the 20s, and I don't think booze and cigarettes are performance enhancers, so he's probably all set. What he proves is that you can be an all time great for most of your career but morph into a god in your prime years. He was the example that drew suspicion away from ARod. What it also shows is that you're probably unlikely to have those god-like years in your late 30s cough Bonds cough.

If Beer Is a Performance Enhancer than I Should At Least Be in the Minors

If you're a Met fan and you like projections than prepare yourself for a whole lot of Tim Redding. ESPN projects Tim Redding to win 35 games while striking out 427 batters making him the greatest fantasy pitcher of all time. Unfortunately those numbers come with a price, namely 42 losses, a WHIP of 1.91 and an ERA of 6.30.

If you Redding continues his K rate of 2008 (around 2/3 per inning) than the projections say he's going to throw somewhere around 630 innings. That's a lot of Tim Redding.

Today we are officially 6 weeks away from the start of the baseball season. I'm obviously geared up to start purchasing some tickets and to figure out when I will be making my first trips to the new NYC ball parks. I continually check both the Mets' and Yankees' Websites to see when I can get my thumbs worked out (aka trying to fight through ticketmaster for single game tickets), and there is no answer. Nope the Yankees and Mets are both still trying to get people to buy ticket packages, each package is a minimum of 11 games and given the fact I live 75 minutes away, I'm certainly not signing up for that.

At this point in time last season I had purchased all the games I was going to throughout the year, 5 Yankees games and 1 trip to the Shea shithole. This year, neither website has even mentioned when single game tickets go on sale and so I wait. I wait eagerly, impatiently and annoyed.

This is my personal biggest toss up of the Fantasy Offseason. I have to keep three starters between Sabathia, Haren and Lackey with CC being a lock. Thus, I have a month to figure out whether I like Haren or Lackey better. You can vote on the sidebar if you want.

The Fantasy Rankings

CBS ranks Dan Haren at 46 and John Lackey at 66.
Yahoo Big Board has Haren On the Bubble and Lackey out of the tournament
ESPN has Haren at 40 and Lackey at 46.

Haren wins in every ranking but only by a little margin.

Projections

Dan Haren: 3.59 ERA, 14-10, 210 IP, 174 Ks, 1.20 WHIP
John Lackey: 3.81 ERA, 11-9, 175 IP, 141 Ks, 1.29 WHIP

The Projections are incredibly in the favor of Haren, but still a little bit blah for both. Lackey's numbers are brought down by the projection that he will only 26 starts in comparison to 32 for Haren.

Surrounding Lineup

The Diamondbacks roster is all about youth and potential. Stephen Drew, Justin Upton, Chris Young, and Conor Jackson will all be relied upon heavily and each will need to to increase their historic numbers if the Diamondbacks want to have a potent lineup.

The Angels roster is seemingly consistent, always good but never a powerhouse. The addition of Bobby Abreu should help their offense as he is an upgrade over the aging Garrett Anderson, but does that make up for Vlad's diminishing performances? Probably not.

Question Marks

Haren's #1 questionmark is his endurance throughout the entire season. Just look at his career splits, he's 100 times better before the All Star Break than after it. Can he break the trend?

Lackey made 32+ starts in five seasons and 27 between Triple A and LAA last season so I don't think his questionmark is health. The biggest issue is his diminishing K rate which is on a 4 season decline while Haren's is on a 4 year up swing.

The Verdict

Right now I'm leaning heavily towards keeping Haren. First off Haren's division and league is littered with worse opponents. His ERA will likely be lower than Lackey's as a result. Lackey's offense should be better than Haren's but picking a pitcher based on projected wins is a crap shoot. Meanwhile, Lackey's diminishing K rate is a major concern and Haren seemingly is much more like to post 200 Ks.

For all these reasons it looks like Dan Haren will be staying on my roster come April 1st.

I went with Vintage helmets because it added a little twist. Click on the Image for a Full Size Version. If you want the Excel File for whatever reason or have a correction to the schedule, email me at SimonOnSports at gmail dot com.

Check Out the Other Helmet Schedules.

*Update, Download the Entire Helmet Schedule Here

It's been two full years since Brian Cashman did the unthinkable and kicked Bernie Williams to the curb in favor of Dougie Minkowitz. It was a dumb move both in loyalty terms and actually baseball terms. Minkowitz was terrible and useless and that was prior to getting KTFO. Meanwhile Bernie spent his time staying away from the stadium while never officially retiring and toying with his music. Finally Bernie returned last year for the stadium send off and received the loudest of cheers.

This spring the Yankees finally did something right. Bernie Williams is suiting up for team Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic but didn't really have a place to train until the Puerto Rican team opens up camp. Instead of letting Bernie train somewhere on his own, Joe Girardi called him up and told him that Yankee camp was open for his usage and that he should come down and take advantage of the facilities. It's understood that the Yankees aren't going to sign him, but it was 100% the right thing to do. Bernie Williams is a class act and one of the greatest Yankees of all time, it's about time they stop treating him like a bag of meat.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you. This week it's throwing a curve ball and looking at All Time Great Yankees. Players that we know did not take steroids to see if this gives a defense to any of the players 'convicted' by Numbers on Steroids.

What better Yankee to breach first than Roger Maris, the man that had a 3 year peak and came out of nowhere to knock off Ruth's record.

Explaining It In 90s Steroid Terms

If Roger Maris played in the 1990s people would be screaming from the mountain tops accusing him of cheating. The two years of 1960 and 1961 are light years ahead of his other numbers. During his peak in 1961 his slugging percentage was .620 and his At Bats per Home Run dipped below 10.

To throw more fire on the damnation, his final five years starting in 1964, when he was just 30, started a continual downward slope. If these numbers ever aligned with the 2004 start of drug testing he would have already have been convicted by the public of using. Just see Sammy Sosa.

The Verdict

I don't think designer steroids were all the rage in the 1960s, so Maris serves as a key example of a player who can have multiple years which are way out of whack from the norm. Granted many of his seasons post 1961 were plagued by injuries, but still his stats serve as a barometer that you can't fully convict someone just because of his numbers.

Perhaps He Would Have Taken Them If They Were Available in the 60s

I went with Vintage helmets because it added a little twist. Click on the Image for a Full Size Version. If you want the Excel File for whatever reason or have a correction to the schedule, email me at SimonOnSports at gmail dot com.

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The Nuts of Barry Bonds might be subject to view in his trial. This is how I imagine they present the case afterwards.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you.

It's Jason Giambi time. He admitted steroid use, so let's try to figure out the effect it may have had on him.

Explaining It Away

If you want to explain Giambi's number away you'd have to first hit on the idea that he was entering his prime and that he was steadily improving for 4 straight seasons until he blasted off in 2000. The next three seasons he stayed consistent and just had a miserable 2004 season before he bounced back to a certain extent in 05 and 06. The past two seasons have been in decline because well he's getting old now and his body looks like it's falling apart.

The Verdict

Even if we didn't know Giambi took steroids the numbers are a bit suspicious. 6 years of continued improvement isn't really condemning, it's the massive jump in that 2000 season when he was effectively an OPS god. But alas we know that...

He is Steroid Boy

So where do you want to get your speed from this year? Option 1 is Mr. Ellsbury, speed demon and heart throb of Boston. Option 2 is the Flyin' Hawaiin, spark plug to the World Champs.

The Fantasy Rankings

CBS ranks Ellsbury at #52 and Victorino at #53.
Yahoo Big Board ranks Ellsbury at #44 and Victorino at #48.
ESPN ranks Ellsbury at #62 and Victorino at #82.

All the rankings favor Ellsbury but by the slightest of margins.

Projections

Jacoby Ellsbury: .302, 9 Home Runs, 53 RBI, 100 Runs, 52 Stolen Bases
Shane Victorino: .286, 13 Home Runs, 54 RBI, 88 Runs, 26 Stolen Bases

If you're going to take the projections to heart than it isn't even a close call. Victorino will get you more home runs, but loses everywhere else and gets slaughtered in steals.

Surrounding Lineup

Both players have terrific lineups surrounding them. The Phillies have Rollins, Utley, and Howard plus a little Ibanez and Werth on the side. The Red Sox have Ortiz, Youk, Pedroia, plus a little Bay and Lowell on the side. Neither player if put in the right spot will hurt for RBI or Run scored opportunities.

Question Marks

The biggest question marks for both players relative fantasy values is what spot in the order will they hit? If Victorino is thrust back into the two hole surrounded by Rollins, Utley, and Howard than he'll get fastball after fastball. But if they move him down in the lineup and hit Werth at 6th, than where will his runs scored plummet to?

Ellsbury has the same question. With Coco gone he'll play everyday, which eliminates that questionmark, but will he garner the lead off spot?

The Verdict

I'm not convinced of two things in the projections. First I'm not 100% sold on Ellsbury hitting 9 homers again, but who really cares. Secondly, I don't see why Victorino would drop from 36 and 37 steals the past two seasons to 26. In the end though Ellsbury is the guy, he'll be the category killer. Even if Victorino plumps up his steals total to 40, he'll still fall short of Ellsbury's totals by at least 10 if not more. Additionally, I think Ellsbury is more of a lock to leadoff than Victorino is to hit 2 given that Charles in Charge batted Werth there for much of the postseason run. So draft your Ellsbury and enjoy your dominance in steals.

ESPN's Chad Ford has a frightening tale of the NBA trade deadline focusing on the value of Raef Lafrentz.

The hottest name at the trade deadline? A guy who hasn't played a game this season: Raef LaFrentz of the Portland Trail Blazers.

"If you asked owners in the league who they'd rather have right now, LaFrentz or Stoudemire, I think more than half of them would prefer LaFrentz," one executive told me. "That's how screwed up this thing has been. I guarantee you [Blazers GM] Kevin Pritchard has gotten better offers for LaFrentz than the Suns have gotten for Stoudemire."

At some point you have to think if you are the NBA you have to question your salary cap system. You probably have to admit that the system is a little dumb when Raef Lafrentz is mentioned in the same breath as hottest name or the best asset in the NBA.

Let's take a quick look at two outfielders that will be fighting for your affection come the opening rounds of your fantasy drafts.

The Fantasy Rankings

CBS has Holliday as the #7 and Hamilton at #8.
Yahoo Big Board has Hamilton at #9 and Holliday at #36?!?!?
ESPN Ranks Hamilton at #19 and Holliday at 27

Projections

Josh Hamilton: .310, 36 Home Runs, 126 RBI, 103 Runs, 9 Stolen Bases
Matt Holliday: .317, 29 Home Runs, 108 RBI, 111 Runs, 19 Stolen Bases

These are just projections of course but if you take these numbers to be truth then the slightest of edges here goes to Holliday mostly thanks to the stolen base difference.

Surrounding Lineup

I think it's safe to say that the A's lineup as constituted today, is not very good. Holliday is surrounded by Jason Giambi (who will likely bat behind him), Jack Cust, always injured Eric Chavez, Bobby Crosby (maybe), Mark Ellis, etc. It's not a great batch of players.

Hamilton on the other hand is surrounded by Michael Young, Ian Kinsler, Chris Davis, Chris Murphy, always injured Hank Blalock, etc. Hamilton's lineup is far superior to Holliday's. He will have better protection and much better run producers ahead of him than will Holliday.

Question Marks

Holliday is moving from the cozy Coors advantage, to a miserable hitters park. But last year was a down year for him, one where he played in 19 less games than he did the year before and still put up 25 homers and 28 steals.

The question mark with Hamilton is whether he actually has a repeat performance in him. He hit 21 of his homers and had 93 of his RBI pre-all star break and then tailed off the rest of the season. Which side is which?

The Verdict

Well if your selection is one or the other than I'd go with Hamilton and the reason is pretty simple, his lineup is unarguably superior to Holliday's. He will have consistently more opportunities to drive in runs and more opportunities to score runs when on base. Additionally, his home park is more inclined to power numbers.

Now if your question is who is the better value? Than I would much rather draft Holliday at the start of the 3rd round than draft Hamilton in the back of the 1st round.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you.

"I Never Took Steroids! Period!" That's what Rafael Palmeiro said a few months prior to testing positive for steroids. Yay for lying to America. Let's take a look at his career stats to see where any evident jumps are to see if we can pinpoint the start of his abuse.

Explaining It Away

Let's say for a second he didn't test positive. First let's take away his 2nd year as the numbers are a little skewed thanks to less at bats. In 3 of 4 years Palmeiro was an excellent hitter. He hit well over .300 in 3 of those years and accumulated 41, 35, 49 doubles in those same seasons while making two all star teams. He was a solid hitter that hadn't quite found his power stroke. Once he found it he kept it til his body could no longer do it at the age of 39.

The Verdict

The Verdict was in a long time ago when the test came back positive but when did he start taking the juice. The logical guess would be 1993 when all of a sudden he started a 10 year streak of 30+ Home Runs*. Seven years in the big leagues is a strong sample size to see what kind of a player you are and Palmeiro just wasn't a masher until 1993 when his game to a dramatic upswing. Is it a coincidence?

That B12 Shot Sure Did Have A Lot of Steroids In It

*Actually 9 out of the ten years, the only year he didn't he had 23 homers in 111 games in the Strike shortened year.

Good Riddance Crappy Stadium.

Wow Johnny Damon is just great. Straight faced answering that question with Murdering Someone. Classic. Utterly classic.

I went with Vintage helmets because it added a little twist. Click on the Image for a Full Size Version. If you want the Excel File for whatever reason or have a correction to the schedule, email me at SimonOnSports at gmail dot com.

Check Out the Other Helmet Schedules.

*Update, Download the Entire Helmet Schedule Here

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

The deadline has come and gone for Texas Tech Red Raiders Coach Mike Leach to sign a contract extension. He wants more money, the school is not willing to give it to him. He says he's content with working through the remainder of his current deal which will take him through the 2010 season, the school is not so certain they still want him around and that would be a very very bad mistake.

In his tenure the Red Raiders have begun to venture into the ranks of the elite. He has coached the Red Raiders to a bowl game in each of his 9 seasons as coach amounting a 5-4 record. The remaining bowl record of the program in it's history is 5-17-1, which is hideous and embarassing. He has the second highest win percentage of any coach in the program only slightly behind Pete Cawthon who coached the team in the 1930s. Assuming he wins 6+ games next season with the Red Raiders he will become the all time winningest coach in Red Raider history. To put in bluntly, he's the best coach the program has ever had.

As a school it sucks to have a coach who's ready to take the leap into a new price range, one that you might not be able to afford. Texas Tech has probably come to the realization that in two years if Leach's stock continues to rise he will move on to other more lucrative opportunities. But as a program it's time to realize that just because that is the case it does not mean that you shouldn't take advantage of him currently. Get the most out of your asset while you can. Don't be stupid and pull a BC, Leach is the best coach in your school's history, play it out until the end.

Let's help ARod out by translating his answers during yesterday's press conference from ARod PR speak to real honest thoughts.

Alex, if your name was never revealed in the Sports Illustrated report, would you have come out on your own volition?

"I haven't thought about that much. The fact is it came out and I am here to share my story, put it out there and hopefully I can put this behind me and my teammates don't have to carry the burden of answering all the questions for me."

Well this is a dumb question? Why the hell would I have admitted it? Are you drunk? Next question.

Alex, you talked about the pressure of being the highest-paid player in baseball in Texas as one of the reasons for using performance-enhancing drugs. When you came to New York in 2004, a pretty tough place to play, you discontinued the use. Can you talk about why?

"Well, I think I was curious. Like I said in Peter's interview, I was young. I was 24, 25 years old. I keep going back to -- I entered the game when I was 18. For a lot of people, if I had a son I would definitely recommend going to college and having an opportunity to grow up. And I didn't. I felt like I said in my statement that after I had my neck injury and after I realized MLB was implementing tests that this was serious business. It was time to grow up. Since, I've realized that I didn't need any of it. I've played the best baseball in my career in and had my best year of all-time in '07. I'm glad it's past me and I look forward to playing more baseball."

Cause they started testing for Steroids in 2004. I didn't want to get caught.

Alex, you said you took the substance for three years. What was the benefit of taking of it and when you stopped taking it, did you notice any difference when you did stop?

"I'm not sure what the benefit was. I will say this: When you take any substance or anything, especially in baseball, it's half mental and half physical. If you take this glass of water and you say I'm going to be a better baseball player, if you believe it, you probably will be. So, I certainly felt more energy, but it's hard to say. Hard to say."

I was able to workout for hours with our getting tired. I was god damn ripped.

Alex, when you took these substances was it in pill form or were you actually injected?

"Injected."

Injected in the Ass

Alex, since this came out about a week and a half ago, a lot of people have talked about this being cheating. Do you consider this cheating?

"That's not for me to determine. I'm here to say that I'm sorry. I'm here to say that in some ways I wish I went to college and had an opportunity to grow up at my own pace. You know, I guess when you are young and stupid, you are young and stupid. And I'm very guilty of both those."

No shit it's cheating. Why the hell is it called a performance enhancing drug?

Alex, you've obviously had a lot of support from your teammates, but some ex-teammates [such as] Jamie Moyer have come out with some pretty strong statements about your credibility and whatnot. Do you feel like you have a lot to repair in that sense, and what do you make of those particular comments from Jamie Moyer?

"Do you want to read Jamie Moyer's comments? I'm not aware of what exactly he said."

Now why the hell would I pay attention to Jamie Moyer?

Well, he talked about why would we believe what he has to say and that his credibility has been seriously damaged, and why would anybody vote for the Hall of Fame for a player who has admitted to using steroids.

"I mean, I'm sorry Jamie feels that way, and he's definitely entitled to his opinion. And the baseball world and all the fans we have, I understand their doubt. I understand their concerns. And there's certain things I can't control and there are certain things I could control. I'm going to focus on what I can do and move forward."

Again Ireally couldn't give two shits about Jamie Moyer or any of his opinions.

Alex, what's your cousin's name and who transported the substance from the Dominican to the United States?

"What was the second part, George?"

What does transported mean?

Who transported the substance from the Dominican to the United States?

"Same person. I'd rather not get into who my cousin is. I'm here to stand front and center and take the blame because I am responsible for this. He basically took an instruction from me and felt he was doing something that was going to be helpful, not hurtful. So, George, I really don't think his name is relevant at this point, his name."

Uh, a guy and I don't really want my cousin to get arrested for being my drug lacky so we're not gonna tell you who he is.

You touched on the fact that some people might refer to this as cheating. How do you address parents now that have to talk to their kids about the fact that you profited from this?

"Well, I think, the first [thing] that I say to parents is I'm sorry. And I feel like this happened for much bigger reasons than baseball. And I think God has put me in a position, a forum, where I can be heard and my voice can be heard. And I hope that kids would not make the same mistake that I made. I hope to join Don Hooton, who has done some incredible things, who's sitting right over here. His son passed away because of steroid abuse. I know this isn't the time or the forum to talk about what I intend or plan to do, but I do plan to and I've had several conversations with Don to join forces with him and Major League Baseball to basically [send] an anti-steroid message to kids all over the country."

Here comes my token apology that my PR team drew up. Wee this is all lies.

Just to be clear, did you know the stuff you were getting from the Dominican was steroids, and, if so, did you consider the consequences at the time?

"I didn't think they were steroids at the time. Again, that's part of being young and stupid. It was over the counter, it was pretty basic and it was really amateur hour. It was two guys, we couldn't go outside, who couldn't ask anyone, didn't want to ask anyone. We went outside team doctors, team trainers. It was two guys doing a very amateur and immature thing. We probably didn't even take it right. Like I said in my statement, we used to do it about two times a month. I don't even know if that is proper. So when this gentleman asked me about how it affected us -- I'm not sure we even did it right to affect us in the right way. All these years, I never thought I did anything that was wrong. Perhaps, but not wrong. And come to find out bole triggered a positive test in 2003."

Of course I knew it was steroids. I'm not an idiot.

As someone who monitors everything they put in their body, how could you have not done more research or been more conscientious about what you were taking?

"I wish I knew, I was 24, I was 25. I was pretty naive and pretty young. Initially, I was curious because he mentioned it a few times, and I just gave it a try."

Dude I took steroids to get better at baseball. I did the damn research, look at my numbers in Texas.

The home run record is something that's obviously going to come up in future years here, and obviously it was something important to you and the Yankees -- so much that there are $30 million in incentives in your contract as you approach it. Do you feel your home run record will be tainted, that any of your home runs are tainted and should you get that money if you get to that point?

"I mean, look, I'm trying to get by today. It's been a difficult several weeks and it's been very painful for me and my family. I'm here to take my medicine. As far as anything that has to do with today or the past, it's really hard to get myself in that mind frame. I'm sure there will be a lot of debates and there will be a lot of questions about everything I did in that period."

I'll pass Barry Bonds, the record is already tainted so I don't really give a crap. I want the record it will be mine and you all can bitch about it some day if you want.

Do you feel like you're going to have to talk to your teammates and rebuild your credibility with your teammates given that you had denied using steroids, you know, or performance-enhancing drugs in other interviews?

"Not only with my teammates. I mean, look, at the end of the day, these 25 guys are family and I really hope through this crisis that we are going to become so close, closer than ever, and I think that's going to happen. But I owe an apology not only to my teammates, the entire organization but every fan all over the world that is a fan of baseball. I mean, yeah, all of the above."

Half my god damn team took steroids, I'm just only one of a couple to get caught.

Did you ever experiment with anything else over the course of your career, such as human growth hormone or amphetamines?

"No on the human growth hormone. What I used to take a lot, especially in the Seattle days, was something called 'Ripped Fuel.' Since it has been banned since MLB, I believe, and also has been removed from shelves at GNC. I used to dabble with that."

Now why the hell would I tell you I took a different illegal substance?

You were caught up with emotion earlier when you wanted to address your teammates. As you've gathered yourself a bit, can you tell us what you had to say to your teammates?

"Thank you for the opportunity. For the guys, I thank you for being here. Like I said earlier, this has been a very difficult two weeks and a difficult day to try to get through. And without you guys it would have been impossible. So, I thank you and I love you and I look forward to putting this day behind us and having an amazing season. Because it will be the best season of our lives."

Sucks that I got caught and Jeter didn't, that's pretty much bullshit right there.

Alex, you mentioned earlier that you didn't think at the time that what you and your cousin were doing was wrong. But if you didn't think it was wrong, why where you so secretive and so reluctant to ask for assistance for what you were doing?

"That's a good question. I knew we weren't taking Tic Tacs. I knew that it was something potentially that perhaps was wrong. I really didn't get into the investigation, perhaps like I would've. I wouldn't imagine thinking of doing something like that today, obviously. It's a different world, a different culture. But again, when you are 24, 25 and you're curious and you're ignorant, there are a lot of things, you don't tell a lot of people, not just that. You don't want to share everything you do with the public or whatnot. And that was just one of those things that I decided to not really share with anyone."

You believed that I shit I spit out a few minutes ago? Damn you're an idiot. Why the hell would I tell my Texas Rangers Trainer that I was taking roids?

Roy Oswalt, a fellow player and fellow union member, said last week in an interview that, 'A-Rod's numbers shouldn't count for anything. I feel like he cheated me out of the game.' I wonder if you think if his position has any validity, and is his apparent anger warranted?

"Well again, I'm sorry Roy feels that way. Look, everyone has their opinions and their beliefs. And I'm sorry he feels that way."

Roy Oswalt can suck a fat man cock.

You made some serious allegations against Selena Roberts in your interview with Peter Gammons. Do you stand by those and is it accurate that you spoke with Selena Roberts since that interview?

"Yes, it is [accurate that I talked to her]. I actually reached out to Selena last week and we had a very good conversation. After talking to the Miami Beach police, they wrote a police report that I thought was a citation. So it was definitely a misunderstanding of the facts. I reached out to her and it went well. And we both decided to put it behind us."

Whatever, the women is pretty damn annoying.

Alex, because of your status in the game and how you keep saying you want people to forget about this and forgive you, have you given any consideration to submitting to even more testing than players normally get? To say, 'Test me every week, test me twice a month, I'm that anxious to prove that what I'm doing now, I'm clean.'

"My style is not to challenge anything. I think the system in place is really good. I think MLB has made some incredible strides, and I think it's a different game today than it was 10 or 15 years ago or even seven years ago. I think numbers across the board prove that. I will say 2006 was a blood test and next week is another blood test. If I'm not correct, I believe the WBC [World Baseball Classic] is a blood test. Check on that. I'm checking facts now because that's what I think it is next week. That's as good as it gets."

Um, why would I do that?

Alex, you talked about in Texas it being kind of a loosey-goosey atmosphere. Did you see other players taking steroids or people talking about taking some of type of performance-enhancing drugs, and, if so, what?

"I meant by that statement that overall it was a different culture, it was a different situation. There weren't as many questions asked. Any product today that is presented to you, the first thing you do is you send it to your team trainer and he will fax it back or to the union. Those types of procedures I don't think occurred back then. I didn't practice that, obviously. But my mistake has nothing to do with where I played. My mistake came because I was immature and I was stupid. It wasn't because the Rangers or anything to do with Texas. I blame myself. Look for a week here, I have been looking for people to blame and I keep looking at myself at the end of the day. I never saw any other player do it. And I really didn't get involved in any other conversations or heard anything. This is about me and I'm the one that screwed up, no one else."

Come on, everybody was juiced up in Texas, what do you not understand about that?

Alex, if I understand the story you are telling today, it's that you didn't know what it did, you weren't sure you were administering it right and you're not sure if what the effects were or if it would have a positive effect. But you said you took twice a month for three years. Basic math would make that 36 times. Why would someone inject something into their system 36 times, who is a professional athlete and wants a long career if you don't know what it is, if you were doing it right? I just wonder if you could explain that?

"Instead of saying, in general, I tried to put the usage in a box for you. Sometimes it was once a month, [then] it maybe [was] three times a month. I want to clarify that. You're asking me why I would do that? Again, it goes back to being young and being curious. When it started it was probably in the middle of 2001 and [when it] ended it was '03. And I realized, thank God that I realized, after my neck injury that I was being silly and irresponsible. And I decided to stop. And I was a young guy."

Ya I lied about all that.

Last week, a USA Today Gallup Poll [found] 46 percent of their respondents said that they didn't believe you just took steroids from 2001 to '03, they believe you took it other times. I wonder what you think that says about you, and secondly, last week Commissioner [Bud] Selig said you 'shamed the game,' so I was wondering if you agree?

"I certainly made a mistake and I feel poorly for that. I know the Commissioner has his position and I respect Bud [Selig] a lot. And I feel poorly for what I did. As far as other allegations, people are always going to say things. When I was a junior in high school, I bench-pressed 310 pounds, today I probably bench-press 240 or 250. You know, funny enough, I did it because I played football and I was a quarterback and the big challenge was if you bench-pressed 300 pounds you get to get this lettermen's jacket with white sleeves. I was poor and I thought what a great way to get a free jacket. I got up to 300 pounds, up to 310 pounds bench press, and some of these guys know me, I played with some of these guys, and there will attest for that. The best year of my career came when I was 19-20 years old in Seattle, and my other best year was in '07, just a year and a half ago, two years ago. So I hope that after, when my career is over, the evidence falls in my favor, but if it doesn't I also understand that, too."

Seriously, Bud is a Douche. He almost makes as much as me for doing absolutely nothing. And as for taking steroids other times well my answer is obvious I didn't. That may or may not be a lie.

Alex, I'm just curious last week when you had your interview with Peter Gammons, why you didn't disclose how you started using this drug with your cousin, this was an interview you arranged and yet you didn't tell him about it. You're only revealing it now.

"Good question. The thing is when a reporter came into the gym, maybe 38 hours before, maybe 48 hours before, I thought it was important to come out and get the truth out there early and be forthright. As far as all the details, I didn't want to speak from a position of non-factual. I felt I was putting myself out there already with saying the truth. And over the last nine days, I've sat down with my cousin and we've had several conversations -- here are the facts, nine days later. I wasn't prepared to say that when I sat down with Peter. Because I really didn't remember, it was a long, long time ago. "

My PR team didn't instruct me to.

Alex, [a] little over a year ago in a 60 Minutes interview you said you had never taken anything. Last week in an ESPN interview, you said what you said, and now you're clarifying it even more, telling us even more. Progressively, the stories have been different. What assurances can you give us that everything you're saying today is the whole truth and there's not going to be something more that's going to come out that you're going to have answer for several months or years from now?

"Look, I may have to answer them for the rest of my career, that's the position I've put myself in. As far as Katie [Couric], I reached out her about 10 days ago. Look, when you are in denial and you're not being honest with yourself it's hard to be honest with Katie. That was a part of me. Like when I answered John's question earlier, I thought since I hadn't heard about it for five years that there was a chance it was OK. There was a lot of that stuff going on, and I am here to say my story and this [is] it."

Enough with this Katie Couric shit. Ya I lied to her. Why the hell would I tell her I did steroids?

Alex, describe the first time you were injected -- where you were, did you have any doubts at the last minute, where you without doubt, did the injection hurt afterward, the next day or two did you feel anything, did you have any regrets?

"At the time I had no regrets. I just, it was injected, to what degree it helped I'm not sure. I hope that answers your question."

What the hell kind of question is this? You certainly seem to like the word injection a lot. That answer the question for ya?

2001, '02, '03, should your stats and everything you accomplished during that period of time still count or is it appropriate to explore wiping those numbers and accomplishments from your record?

"That's not for me to decide. The one thing that I can lay my pillow at night is I entered this game when I was 18. I had my best year when I was 20 and then I had my other best year when I was in 2007. That foul pole to foul pole is pretty good. I understand the questions and the doubt. I laid my bed and I'm going to have to sit on it. I'm here to take my medicine. The one thing I will say is after today, I hope I can put this behind me and start focusing on baseball. We have a very special team here. For me personally, I'm going to be honest with you, the last 15 months have been very, very tough. I've been through divorce, I've been through tabloids, you name it. I miss playing baseball and I miss simply being a baseball player. I think this is a tremendous opportunity for me to look in the mirror and be a better teammate to my guys over there. Be a better player to my fans, a better human being and start hooking up with Don and start making the world a better place. I think that's my opportunity. I screwed up big time. But I think the only thing I ask from this group today and the American people is to judge me from this day forward. That's all I can ask for."

Screw that. I dominated in those three years. No way should those numbers be erased. If you erase mine you should erase like half of baseball. I'll be the Home Run King soon enough, so screw taking away those stats.

The creation of the Helmet Schedule was due part to boredom and part to CGB putting together the ACC Version. Click on the Image for a Full Size Version. If you want the Excel File for whatever reason email me at SimonOnSports at gmail dot com.

Check Out the Other Helmet Schedules.

*Update, Download the Entire Helmet Schedule Here

Test Your Knowledge on the History of Basketball Recruiting according to Scout.com.

"He's leaving and he has no idea where he's going," Threet's father Jewel, said today. (Maize N Brew)

Steven Threet the co-captainer of the Michigan shit-train in 2008 has decided that it's time to throw out the life raft and paddle to different shores and for this I have to say, whatever. He didn't suck quite as much as Nick Sheridan but it was quite obvious that he wasn't exactly the future quarterback for a National Champion. My question is why the hell did he transfer? Does he just like transferring? He transferred to UM last year from Georgia Tech, now he's transferring from UM to where? I can't imagine a big time program is going to start himm he pretty much only started this year cause Pryor chose Buckeye over Wolverine.

So what's next? Well Sheridan is terrible, so pretty much all the Wolverine's eggs are in Freshman recruits Tate Forcier's basket. He's a top ten recruit at least so... maybe there's hope, but probably not. At least they loaded up on Directional Michigan's this year.

Also, what the hell kind of name for a man is Jewel? Seriously if my name was Jewel I would find any nickname under the sun to be called instead. Jay seems good enough.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

Jared Lorenzen just got himself a big time football contract. He's headed back to the Blue Grass state to light up Rupp Arena with the Lexington Horseman of the Arena Football League 2. It's about time someone decided to sign up Jared Lorenzen to a football contract, donuts and beer do not pay for themselves.

Poor Ole Lorenzen has been without a job thanks to the Indianapolis Colts cutting him in camp after the Giants decided they'd rather have David Carr in the offseason. Since then the Lefty has been working out vigorously to gain return to the NFL, he even applied for the Biggest Loser but didn't make it. All the hard work paid off into a lucrative Arena Deal, well the hard work and the fact that the Horseman are desperate to get a former UK player to try to scrounge some ticket sales out of the area.

The Horseman did not comment on whether he'll automatically garner the starting defensive tackle position or if he will have to compete with smaller men for the role.

I've got the day off which means I'm not going to be spending it on my computer... See you tomorrow.

A Pony in a Box?

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

So who's gonna spend 4 hours watching cars drive around in circles this weekend in chase for a race that almost has zero impact on who wins the actually championship? Certainly not me. But I will predict the winner. The winner will be...

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you.

It's time for the Big Mac to get investigated. He didn't want to say he did steroids in congress so what do the stats look like?

Explaining It Away

Mark McGwire came into baseball as a massive slugger and continued that trend throughout his career. As a 23 year old rookie in 87 he hit 49 homers. Sure that did a little dipping during the next few years, but he was still hitting in the 30s every year without fail. The disturbing view is 1991 year where he hit .201 with 22 home runs, but this can possibly be partially explained away by his divorce and his subsequent quote that he did not lift any weights that entire year. Perhaps this was reason enough for him to dedicate himself to training so that he would never replicate that horrible season.

The Verdict

I actually think you can explain away most of the stats thanks to his overall career stats, especially his rookie year explosion, and his personal problems in his worst year. The issue with McGwire is the substance that was found in his locker, which wasn't illegal in baseball at the time but illegal everywhere else, and of course his testimoy in front of congress. His inability to deny anything just presents too much of a cloud to continue to believe in him being clean. So...

If You're Too Scared to Say You Didn't Do It Then You Probably Did It

It's February, so I'm Trying to Find things to Post On. Therefore You're Going to Get Some Simple Regression Tests from the 2008 MLB Season.


The Major High Outlier: Rangers with an On Base Percentage of .354 and 79 Wins
The Low Outlier: Angels with an On Base Percentage of .330 and 100 Wins

Formula: On Base Percentage = 0.288506 + (0.000549) * Wins
ReFangled Formula: Wins = (OBP + 0.288506) / (0.000549)

Fun Math Time
The regression line appears to have magentic repellent as only three of the teams really come close to the line, but we move on. If I want the Yanks to win 100 games this year the ole formula suggest they'll need and On Base Percentage of .343, which would be a slight improvement from last year. Meanwhile if I think that the Devil Rays are going to have an on Base Percentage of say .330, than they would be expected to fall to 76 games this year.

It's finally the All Star break so it's time to take a look at which players are the Worst in each stat category.

Lotsa Big Men do not like to score led by Chuck Hayes. This list is a very familiar one for fantasy players, as you pick up any of these players for their rebounds and blocks (Przybilla and Wallace I'm Looking Directly At You) and know that your points are going to take a big kick in the junk.

B-Diddy has not done a very good job of shooting this year. Just over 35% from the field is grotesque. The two oddests part in looking at these stats is that Ron Artest's overall FG% is actually better from beyond the arc than it is from 2-point land and that somehow Iverson avoided the bottom 11 (by 2 spots).

Well this is a star studded cast. Mr. Wade coming in at below 28% from down town is almost vomit inducing. Lebron James is probably the best player in the NBA but if there's one thing he could still use some fine tuning on, it's obviously his jump shot accuracy which is shown prevalently here.

Mr. Biedrins apparently is what hinders the White Warriors from winning FT% every week. Other names on the list are pretty much permanent contributors: Shaq, Dwight Howard, Okafor, and other expected big men. Mr. Rondo as a point guard should really be ashamed to be on this list and that's a must improve in his game if he ever plans on entering the elite.

This list is pretty boring and pretty obvious when you think about it. If you're not a scorer or a guard and you don't have the ball on offense much than you're not going to rack up assists. Snooze...

On the opposite end of the spectrum if you have the ball in your hands a ton each game then you are more likely to make careless mistakes especially someone like Steve Nash who has the ball in his hands for the majority of each possession and tends to be a little on the riskier side with some passes.

This is again a not very surprising list. These are the stars that are gunners. The players who get the ball and are very very likely to shoot. Mr. Durant is the only person on this list who averages more turnovers than assists which is pretty ugly but he's young and his team is terrible. So go gunnin Kevin.

Little men do grab many boards. I am kind of surprised that Chauncey is on this list though as you picture him as a tough scrapping point guard who isn't afraid to jump after a rebound or two. Guess I'm wrong.

Little men do not block shots either, so these guys are mostly small guards. The real question I have is how Steve Nash avoided this list. Who the hell has he blocked this season?

Big Men are not thieves. Shaq is a law enforcement officer, he does not care to steal from others. He rather blocks their entry to the lane by consuming 90% of it with his body.

Gregory Really needs to figure out how to hold off from getting the whistle blown ever 6 minutes he's on the court.

All Stats Retrieved from NBA.com and Only Contain Players Who Are Deemed Qualified.

It's February, so I'm Trying to Find things to Post On. Therefore You're Going to Get Some Simple Regression Tests from the 2008 MLB Season.


The Major High Outlier: Texas with .283 Batting Average and 79 Wins
The Low Outlier: Oakland with a .242 Batting Average and 75 Wins

Formula: Average = 0.237917 + (0.000319) * Wins
ReFangled Formula: Wins = (Average + 0.237917) / (0.000319)

Fun Math Time

The ole average doesn't look like it is tightly correlated to wins and losses but anyway according to the ole formula if I want the Yankees to win 100 games what would their average need to be? .269, well that seems low. And say I think the A's will boost their average to .255 how many wins would that equal? 54.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

So let's assume the Brett Favre is telling the truth and is actually retiring and is done for good. (I know that's a stretch but just play with the hypothetical with me for a little bit.) If this is the case how long must we wait before Peyton Manning eviscerates all of his records. Let us investigate.

Touchdown Passes Record (464)
Peyton Manning has thrown for 333 touchdowns thus far in his 11 seasons. That's an average of around 30 touchdowns a season. (464-333)/30 = 4.327 seasons which translates to the 6th game of his 5th season.

Passing Yardage Record (65127)
Peyton Manning has thrown for 45628 yards thus far in his 11 seasons. That's an average of around 4148 yards a season. (65127-45628)/4148 = 4.7 seasons which translates to the 12th game of his 5th season.

Wins As A Starting Quarterback (169)
Peyton Manning has won 117 games in his 11 seasons for an average of 10.636 games per season. (169-117)/10.636 = 4.8889. Throwing in the ratios that would leave probably 10 wins to accomplish in his 5th season which would likely come somewhere between weeks 14-16.

Passing Completions (5720)
Peyton Manning has thrown 3839 completions for an average of 349 per season. (5720-3839)/349 = 5.4 seasons which translates to the 7th game of his 6th season.

Ironman Streak (269)
Peyton Manning has started 176 consecutive games, obviously at 16 per clip. (269-176)/16 = 5.8125 seasons which translates to the 13th game of his 6th season.

Passing Attempts (9281)
Peyton Manning has thrown 5960 passes in his career for an average of 542 per season. (9281-5960)/542 = 6.12 seasons which translates to the 3rd game of his 7th season.

Interceptions (310)
Ha, this one is Favre's for a life time.

In the chronicles of who has an opinion on an ARoid, the next man up to the plate is Roy Oswalt:

"A-Rod's numbers shouldn't count for anything," Oswalt said in a phone interview with MLB.com. "I feel like he cheated me out of the game."

"It does bother me," Oswalt said. "Especially for the guys that went out there and did it on talent. We're always going to have a cloud on us, and that's not fair at all.

"The ones that have come out and admitted it, and are proven guilty, [their numbers] should not count. I've been cheated out of the game," Oswalt continued. "This is my ninth year, and I've done nothing to enhance my performance, other than work my butt off to get guys out. These guys [who took PEDs] have all the talent in the world. All-Star talent. And they put times two on it.

"I'm going out there with the ability God gave me. They have that ability, too, and they're putting something on top of it."MLB

I would just like to point out the convenience of the 2004 and 2005 Astros rosters, aka the best Astros teams ever, who were one Brad Lidge melt down away from the World Series in 2004 and made the World Series in 2005. See any faces on that roster that might have taken some Steroids? Like perhaps Jeff Bagwell who I chronicled this week. Or maybe Roger Clemens who blatantly lied to congress. How about Andy "I Only Tried it Twice" Pettitte?

I'm glad you didn't do steroids there Roy. Good for you. But in the two seasons that your team actually had success it was littered with chronicled performance enhancers. So should we erase all of the Astros records too? Maybe like how the NCAA eviscerated Michigan's Final Four appearances thanks to the CWebb money scandal, we should do the same thing to the Astros records.

Just shut up and pitch.

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you.

Brady Anderson looked like a player who was 180 pounds soaking wet. He was a runt leadoff-esque centerfielder for the Orioles who couldn't get the ball out of the ball park and then... 50 home runs? That seems a bit questionable so let's take a look at his numbers to see how much the rates mightily changed in his career.

Explaining It Away

Sometimes players are just late bloomers right? Maybe he never hit the gym ever in his life before 1992? Also, 1992 was the first season he got consistent at bats and was a day to day starter, perhaps that boosted his confidence and helped him get in a home run groove? And then some years you just have career years that can't be matched. So in 96 when he hit 50 home runs, it was more fluke than having any true cause.

The Verdict

In Brady Anderson's first 4 years he finished with a total of 10 home runs then all of a sudden he hit 21 home runs. And to further that even more he hit Hell he only had 53 steals in those first 4 years, the same total he had in his breakout 1992 campaign. And can anyone really believe that in a 15 year career when he finished with 210 total home runs that 50 came in one season, and that was just a complete fluke? So...

If it Walks Like a Duck and Quacks Like a Duck... Than It's Probably a Duck

It's February, so I'm Trying to Find things to Post On. Therefore You're Going to Get Some Simple Regression Tests from the 2008 MLB Season.


The Major High Outlier: Angels with 66 Saves and 100 Wins
The Low Outlier: Atlanta with 26 Saves and 72 Wins

Formula: Saves = -4.701583 + (0.545737) * Wins
ReFangled Formula: Wins = (Saves + 4.701583) / (0.545737)

Fun Math Time

This is really a useful tool for fantasy players rather than predicting a teams success. How much does winning more games truly effect the likelihood of saves? There's a lot of numbers close to the line and then there's the Angels with a ridiculous amount of saves. Anway let's take a look at it from a Fantasy perspective. Say I think the Yankees are going to win 100 games, than how many shaves should I expect Mo to get? 50. Now say I think the Nationals are going to win 50 games this year because their rotation is dog poo. How many saves would Joel Hanrahan have in that scenario? 23.

The Kings retired CWebb's jersey over the weekend and well I miss the big man. He's my favorite athlete of all time and well I just feel old now that he makes his money analyzing games instead of actually playing.



People remembering their favorite moments of CWebb with the highlights coming of course from the oddball Scott Pollard who thanked CWebb for stopping him from getting his ass kicked by Shaq.


And of course a highlight film...

The Angels Decided to Beef Up Their Outfield Wall Padding and... they signed Bobby Abreu. He'll replace Garrett Anderson in the outfield and will probably let Vlad DH on an almost daily basis all while being a goofy ass with very little noticeable intensity. Goodbye El Come Dulce. No longer will you be "As Sweet as Candy". God how I hated that stupid Home Run Call.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

I'm On Setanta Sports lives on as Special 1 TV and well this episode is solid.

ESPN's Ed Werder is reporting that Brett Favre has decided to retire and that Buzz Cook, Brett Favre's agent, has informed the Jets of this decision. Here are Brett's comments to Ed:

"Mike and Woody, as well as the entire organization, have been nothing short of outstanding,'' Favre said in the e-mail. "My teammates -- Thomas and Kerry included -- were a pleasure to play with. Eric [Mangini] could not have been any better. I enjoyed playing for him. My time with the Jets was short, but I'm honored to be given that chance.'' ESPN

So, who believes him? Anybody? Apparently his agent discussed the option of the Jets cutting Favre to which the Jets politely declined. So who bets he just doesn't want to play for the Jets next year?

My opinion is that the Jets should actually find out what he wants to do. If he wants to play for another team, then just cut him. Don't be a hard ass. Just let the man do what he wants to do. Why would it be a PR nightmare? The man doesn't want to play in New York, just say "we had a good year run that unfortunately did not end the way we wanted it to... etc." If he wants to retire, then tell him to put his papers in. He occupies 13$ million dollars of cap space, and you currently are $2 million over the cap. That's a lot of valuable money to both sign rookies or go after a big free agent, it's something you need to know ASAP. You don't have any loyalty to this man, so stop pretending like you do.

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you.

"Baseball's been berry berry good to me" Sammy Sosa. But were steroids what were really berry berry good to Sammy? Let's take a look at this numbers to see how much the rates mightily changed in his career.

Explaining It Away

In his first few years Sammy Sosa was incredibly young. He broke into the league at age 20 and didn't do much in 89 for either the Rangers or the White Sox. In 90 he had his first full season in which he hit 15 home runs as a 21 year old. The next two seasons didn't see much improvement possibly because he was injured and didn't get a full season under his belt. The 1993 breakout 33 home run year came in his next full season. The more difficult years to explain away start at 1998. In 1997 Sosa was a solid player while hitting 36 home runs and racking up 118 rbi. The next season though, the Home Run total almost doubled finishing at 66. Over the next three years Sosa his 63, 50, and 64 home runs respectively.

Sosa's steady decline could possibly be explained as just losing a step in his old age. In 2005 he was a latine 36 year old (potentially 87 years old in real human years) playing for the Orioles and no longer in the comfy Wrigley field setting. He was terrible. In 2007 he came back with the Rangers and was respectable just not terrific, but again he was 38 that season.

The Verdict

Believing that a player who had already played 9 seasons in the big leagues could double his home run totals from a solid 36 to an unimaginable 66 is too much of a stretch. Throw in the corked bat incident and...

If it Walks Like a Duck and Quacks Like a Duck... Than It's Probably a Duck

A-Rod isn't the only person that I know who's used performance enhancers for years. I myself am very guilty of washing down some might performance enhancers. See I'm a big fan of tea. Hot Tea, Iced Tea, Green Tea. Pretty much all tea except for the Chai crap. When I get hangover or am on a long drive and feel the need for a nice refreshing beverage then I often turn to Vitamin Water Rescue, their Green Tea offering. It's delicious and pun intended 'rescues' me from Hangover.

Now, today I learn that that's banned by the NCAA. Oh no I've tainted my body, I'll never be able to play College Athletics ever again, I just might tear up.

Who knew that after going over Arod's stats yesterday to find out if there were some blatantly obvious Steroid years, he would just come out and admit the three years which were in biggest question. Anyway, let me give my quick take on yesterday's events.

He Had No Choice: It's been proven with Bonds and Clemens that you can't flat out lie. People just won't believe you. So he gave away the three years which were his best consecutive three seasons. But at the same time tried to say look at how good I was with the Mariners and with the Yankees to smooth it over.

The Idea He Had No Idea What He Was Using: I could see this conversation at the gym with some people at the gym, "Dude you're getting f'n ripped? What Are you Taking?" "I'm popping the Red Magic Pills" "Shit get me some of that." I could also see some athletes having this conversation with their trainer "I don't care what you give me and I really don't even care to know, just give me whatever is going to get me in the best shape of my life." Problem? I just don't see A-Rod doing this. Not someone who is so concerned about every little thing around him at all moments and so concerned about breaking every single record and having the premium baseball body. No he knew what he was taking.

The Idea He Didn't Know What He Tested Positive For: This may be true because chances are it could have been one of any number of things.

The Idea He Had No Idea Where He Got Them From: My bet is the tooth fairy, that's who used to give me steroids. Come on, obviously he knows and just isn't going to tell you. Why what he? What's the benefit of being a cheater and a snitch?

The Whole Selena Roberts Stalking Thing: Who cares? Honestly you should have less a problem with Roberts attempting to dig up the story and write a book on you, and trying to inform you of the pending news, than with the person(s) who coughed over the information.

The Idea That Now He's Gonna Get Booed on the Road and At Home: Doesn't Everyone already hate A-Rod? Doesn't he get booed everywhere already?

Peter Gammons Didn't Ask the HARD Hitters: How many times do you need to ask a man you sure you don't know what you did or who you got them from? Obviously A-Rod wasn't going to admit to knowing which drug he took and he wasn't going to hand over his suppliers.

The Idea That This "Taints" His Legacy: Assuming he plays out the length of the contract and is eligible for the Hall of Fame 14 years from now, I'd say he's pretty much fine. By the time the dust settles on this steroid crap so many people are going to be outed that even the best of the best will just start to blend in. I'd be willing to bet that he doesn't go first ballot as a sort of slap on the wrist for this but that he gets in the following year.

It's February, so I'm Trying to Find things to Post On. Therefore You're Going to Get Some Simple Regression Tests from the 2008 MLB Season.


The Major High Outlier: White Sox with 235 Home Runs and 89 Wins
The Low Outlier: San Francisco with 94 Home Runs and 72 Wins

Formula: Home Runs = 53.067986 + (1.353362) * Wins
ReFangled Formula: Wins = (Home Runs - 53.067986) / (1.353362)

Fun Math Time

How many home runs you hit isn't really tightly correlated with how many games you're going to win, but still the more you hit the better your chances are. So by this regression, if I want the Yanks to win 100 games how many home runs are they likely to hit? 188. And say the Giants boost up their home runs to a massive 100, how many games will they win according to this graph? 35, that would be bad.

The SI Swimsuit edition came out today, and I took the pain staking task of ranking the rookies for you. Enjoy.

All in all a solid rookie class, but if you ask me I'm still going with this from last year.

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you.

It's time to look at one of my favorite cases, Jeff Bagwell to see if the numbers scream at you. We're going to look at his per game out puts rather than season totals. This will give you a better idea of what he averaged in his prime and the tale off at the end.

Explaining It Away

Here's our attempt to explain away the stats. Obviously not all rookies explode onto the seen in full force. Some take a few years to jump up and Bagwell did just that. The massive jump in numbers in 1994 could also be the benefit of the shortened strike season and the benefit of not going through any prolonged slump that year. The numbers and avearages fluctuate some over his prime years but nothing out of the ordinary and then plummet in 2004, which coincides with steroid testing. It also coincides with Bagwell's shoulder practically falling off, and his inability to lift his arm above his head. That probably doesn't help the batting totals much.

Verdict

Bagwell certainly had the look and feel of a Steroids guy. Prospect at third base that all of a sudden gets way too big to play the Hot Corner and moves across the diamond. He becomes injury plagued at the end of his career after having some supreme power years.

If it Walks Like a Duck and Quacks Like a Duck... Than It's Probably a Duck

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

If we say the steroid era for Bonds and Arod started somewhere around 2000 and ended when full on testing came available in 2004 in MLB, how do Arod and Barry Bonds stats look? Do either have a significant jump in categories during that time frame?

Conclusion

I'm not saying that Arod didn't take steroids and that the tests are bunk, but his numbers while seeing a slight bump during the steroid years are nothing in comparison to Bonds. If anything Arod's consistency and higher home run totals can actually be explained through the benefits of playing at the Ballpark at Arlington in comparison to playing at more difficult right handed hitting parks (Safeco and Yankee Stadium) plus the additional pressure of playing in the Bronx.

Really who knows if Arod did steroids in just 2003 or if he's done them his whole career. All I'm saying is that unlike Bonds, there is nothing in his stats that scream at you "THESE STATS ARE THE COMPLETE RESULT OF BEING JUICED OUT OF HIS MIND."

It's February, so I'm Trying to Find things to Post On. Therefore You're Going to Get Some Simple Regression Tests from the 2008 MLB Season.


The Major High Outlier: Texas with an WHIP of 1.51 and an ERA of 4.73
The Low Outlier: San Francisco with an WHIP of 1.29 and an ERA of 3.98

Formula: WHIP = 0.574305 + (0.189032) * ERA
ReFangled Formula: Wins = (WHIP - 1.837) / (-0.005525)

Fun Math Time

If you look at the chart you'll notice just how tightly coupled WHIP and ERA are. One is a very solid predictor of the other. So if you see your team has a dot below the line than you probably got a little unlucky and vice versa if the dot is above the line. So say I want the Yanks to have an ERA of 3.50 this year, what will their WHIP need to be? 1.235. On the opposite end of the spectrum, what if I think the Rangers are going to have a WHIP of 1.50, what will their ERA likely be? 4.90.

Big Al Go Boom... After getting snubbed from the All Star Game while averaging 23 and 11, damn you coaches, Big Al has been on a roll. He's gone 30+ in 4 of his last 9 games which included a 36 point 22 rebound blow up against Yao and the Rockets (they lost anyway). That roll might have ended last night when he felt a pop in his knee with 27 seconds left against the Hornets last night. Ugh.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

So Who Watched the Pro Bowl? I didn't. I didn't even remember it was pkayed yesterday until this morning when I read on my google reader that Revis made a solid one handed interception. This is pretty much exactly why the NFL made a good decision moving the Pro Bowl to the bye week, the football season is straight up over to me after the Super Bowl and if I don't manage to accidentally flip to the game, I'm not gonna remember to watch it. Oh and the NFC won thanks to Fitzy apparently.

Andruw Jones was a great player in baseball for about 10 years and then well, he ate himself out of the league. Still just 31, what does the 10 time gold glove winner have in store for the league? Let's take a look.

Who Wants the Over the Hill/Fat Center Fielder?

Apparently the Yankees did. But he didn't want the Yankees. Instead, he wanted the 1000 degree weather of Arlington and signed with the Rangers for an incentive laden minor league deal.

What Can We Expect?

Well FanGraphs conveniently puts together four of the better projections, and they say mixed bag. All think he isn't going to crack .235. Three say he's not gonna hit 20 homers even if he gets the at bats, most don't think he will. And good ole CHONE thinks that somehow he bounces back and hits 28 homers. I'm going with the other three and betting he's all washed up until I see him do something in spring training.

Test Your Knowledge More With Other Editions of What College Did I Go To
PGA Edition
BCS Coaches Edition
ESPN Edition
MLB Closers

Weeeee Arod took Steroids according to SI, who got someone to cough up the anonymous 2003 Urine Test results that currently might hurt Bonds. Honestly, I'm just so sick of this crap that I don't care. I think it's a complete joke that those 2003 tests were supposed to be anonymous as agreed to by the player's union and yet somehow it always leaks out. If you're going to pull out the two biggest names out of the anonymous hat, why not just drop all of them. Is it really fair for Bonds and Arod to get shat on when 102 other players are getting off scott free because a couple of dbags like to spill the beans? Ugh whatever.

Just a reminder, in 2003 taking steroids was not penalized by baseball.

It's the second season of the Scalabrine Watch which is meant to point out just how terrible he is as a basketball player. It shall track both his typical numbers as well as his +/- which the signifies the total number of points the Celtics lose while he is on the court.

The Scals was inserted into the starting lineup after Perk got injured and in the month of January Scals was "The Beacon of Energy". The only thing that could stop his rampant pace? Concussions.

January Sum Up: +99

The month of January got off to a slow start for Scals. In the first 5 games he only racked up 36 minutes of PT and he garnered a middle of the road +/-. You know the numbers we expect from Scals, a +/- in the single digits for each game cause he doesn't play enough. Than Perkins got injured, Scals was inserted in the starting line up and and the +/- was on sky rocket patrol.

In the next 6 games, Scals played at least 22 minutes. In four of these 6 games Scals put up a +/- over 15. He even scored double digit points in two of these games. Somehow in the 6 games he never managed to pick up more than 4 rebonds, proving he does still suck, but the +/- were through the roof.

Overall November Performance: 86

Damn you January. Scalabrine's +99 in January leaves him at +86 for the season. You know how hard it's going to be to get back to par from +86? Nearly impossible especially if his minutes do not drastically increase when he finally comes back from the concussions.

January Totals: 223 Minutes, 63 Points, 22-56 FG, 9-28 3s, 10-10 FTs, 23 Rebounds, 8 Assists, 5 Turnovers, 3 Steals, 7 Blocks, 33 Fouls

January Averages: 17 Minutes, 4.85 Points, 1.7-4 FG, 1-2.2 3s, 0.8-0.8 FTs, 1.77 Rebounds, .36Assists, .4 Turnovers, .2 Steals, .5 Blocks, 2.5 Fouls

It's February, so I'm Trying to Find things to Post On. Therefore You're Going to Get Some Simple Regression Tests from the 2008 MLB Season.


The Major High Outlier: San Francisco with 1240 Ks and 72 Wins
The Low Outlier: St. Louis with 957 Ks and 86 Wins

Formula: Ks = 826 + (3.33) * Wins
ReFangled Formula: Wins = (Ks - 826) / (3.33)

Fun Math Time

If there's one thing you can deem from the chart, it's that having a pitching staff that strikes out people doesn't necessarily translate to wins. Regardless taking the formula above if I want the Yanks to win 100 games than this regression says the Yanks should strike out 1160. And say the Cards decide they are only going to K 957 people again this year then the formula says they can expect to win 40 games.

This weeks theme is bubble watch.

5. Michigan Wolverines vs. UConn Huskies
Obviously this game is close to my heart. The Wolverines are trying to climb back onto the bubble and beating the #1 team on the road would certainly be a great help to their cause. Too bad they have zero height and Hasheem Thabeet will likely be able to have nearly 10 put back dunks. The Pick: UConn by 22

4. Notre Dame Fighting Irish vs. UCLA Bruins
Before Big East play the Fighting Irish looked like a lock for the NCAA tournament. Now they have a mountain to climb to get back in. The first step, just like Michigan, is going on the road and knocking off a highly ranked opponent. Not gonna happen. The Pick: Bruins by 12

3. Boston College vs. Wake Forest Demon Deacons
BC has the sparkly victory over UNC and the nice 6-3 ACC record. They also have losses to Harvard and St. Louis, yuck. Their RPI leaves something to be desired, so they need to start winning a couple more sparkly gems to secure their spot. Beating a Demon Deacon squad who is still ranked in the top ten (despite their skid) would be an additional feather in the cap. Too bad it isn't gonna happen. The Pick: Decons by 9

2. Providence Friars vs. West Virginia Mountaineers
Bubble vs. Bubble. The Friars have come from nowhere, thanks to their new coach, and have surprisingly emerged as a potential tournament team. West Vriginia was expected to push for a tourney spot and that's exactly what they are doing. Both teams are coming into the game with a 2 game losing streak. So who gets that snapped? The Pick: WVU by 4

1. Cincinatti Bearcats vs. Georgetown Hoyas
Bubble vs. Bubble. The Bearcats have the better record, the Hoyas have the better resume. Both teams desperately need to win a few more games to secure their footing. The Bearcats just knocked off the Irish in another bubble battle and the Hoyas got a much needed win against Rutgers. This battle could at the end of the day be a big reason one team gets in and the other does not. The Pick: Hoyas by 6

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure out where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

"That just sounds right," Lewis told the NFLN. "It's like, 'Wow, if something does happen where you're not back in Baltimore, the Jets wouldn't be bad.'

"You go take a young Jets team that has a lot of talent across the board. You wiggle 52 (Lewis) into that equation, then that team goes from just being OK to 'Let's go win this.' That scenario is attractive." [USA Today]

I knew these rumors were going to come at some point. Ray Lewis + Free Agency + Defensosaurus + Head Coach of the Jets = Rumors of Ray Lewis going to the Jets. The thing is I just don't see it happenning. The Jets are well over the cap, thanks to the Arm Punt Extraordinaire, and really need to fill out spots in other spots of the roster more than they need a replacement for David Harris. It really isn't going to happen, and for that I am thankful.

Ok, I'm finally annoyed enough to bring up the Michael Phelps bong ripping picture. I was hoping that it would just blow away quickly and not be a part of the news but alas he's been dropped from his Kellogg's dumped him as a sponsor and the US Swimming Association suspended him for 3 months (which my guess is a completely meaningless suspension cause their events are probably in the summer).

Now let me preface this rant with two things, first I'm not the biggest Phelps fan in the world and second I myself have never smoked up before (why is a story for another day). When you were in college, what percentage of your friends tried pot? 50 to 75 Percent Maybe? 95 Percent if you were in school in the 70s. Did you yourself try it? Probably. So why kill a kid in his lower 20s for smoking up when chances are good you did the same thing at his age.

And what about pop culture? Are people ignorant that 95% of rock or rap artists have at least one song on their last album that had to do with some form of drugs? We even have songs on pop radio stations that are solely about smoking up. Think "I Get High High High High" or "Because I Get High". It's ok for little kids to sing "I was Gonna Clean Me Room Until I Got High", but it's not ok for Phelps to smoke up once or twice. Your kids are going to smoke up when they get to college, and it won't be a picture of Michael Phelps with a bong that leads them to do so.

If I've got a problem with anything in this story it's with whoever took the picture. How much money did you get paid for selling that picture? Apparently he's never seen Scent of a Women and Pacino's speech on snitching.

Just in case you really want to put this in perspective, if the leader of the free world can smoke up "frequently" as a kid and still be ok to win the election, than I think Phelps will be able to swim just fine.

Check Out the Answers

Check Out Some Other SimonOnSports Trivia
The Ladies of Jeter
Bodies of the WTA
Cheerleader PhotoHunt Extravaganza

And Don't Forget to Peruse the SI Collection, it's days worth of entertainment.

It's February, so I'm Trying to Find things to Post On. Therefore You're Going to Get Some Simple Regression Tests from the 2008 MLB Season.


The Major High Outlier: Texas with an WHIP of 1.58 an 79 Wins
The Low Outlier: Toronto with an WHIP of 1.24 and 86 Wins

Formula: WHIP = 1.837 + (-0.005525) * Wins
ReFangled Formula: Wins = (WHIP - 1.837) / (-0.005525)

Fun Math Time

Say I want the Yankees to Win a 100 games next year, what would their WHIP likely need to be around? 1.837 + (-0.005525)*100 = 1.28 WHIP. And say I think the Nationals are going to stink up the joint with their horrile pitching and throw up say a 1.56 WHIP. (1.56-1.837) / (-0.005525) = 50 Wins.

I make a lot of my decisions via the coin flip. I jokingly call it "Letting God Decide". Usually this decisions are, "what restaurant should I go to dinner to" or "should I actually get some work done now", pretty meaningless things in the grand scheme of things. The majority of time I do it either because I'm A) A Horrible Decision Maker or B) Do not want to spend time deliberating whether or not to do something. Never have I ever used it as a method to make a life altering choice. But that can't be said about 3 star linebacker Ka'lial Glaud.

The next 4 years of his life were decided on the basis of of whether the coin flip landed on Heads or Tails. His options? Rutgers or West Virginia. I guess when you're deciding between living in Jersey (Dirty) or West Virginia (Hickville) than there really isn't much of a choice, so why not let a coin flip decide. At least then in 4 years you can blame something if your time was shitty. The Winner? Rutgers. Yay Jersey.

You know Chase Wright of the 4 straight Homer Fame? Ya He got traded to the Brewers yesterday. Let is memoralize his time with the Yankees by watching the closest thing to video of the 4 straight homers.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure out where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

When you're a fan of a college hoop team, who has made the tournament in over a decade and appears to be free falling from contention yet again, you really only have a few things to look forward to: Epic collapses and any notable Duke losses.

Coming into last night Duke Losses only happenned twice. Once by the Wolverines (Yay) and once last week by Wake. Neither of which were particularly embarrassing, just hard fought losses. Still a Duke loss is enjoyable in all shapes and sizes, but when you get Coach K on the sidelines calling timeouts near the end of the game for the specific reason of having his players soak in just how much they sucked, well that's delicious.

74-47, mmm mmm yummy.

Kobe Bryant Points: 61 FG: 19-31 FT: 20-20 3Pt: 3-6 Assists: 3 Rebounds: 0 Blocks: 1 Edge on LBJ: All of the Shooting Categories including scoring. Lebron James Points: 52 FG: 17-33 FT: 16-19 3Pt: 2-7 Assists: 11 Rebounds: 10 Blocks: 2 Edge on Kobe: All of the Peripheral Categories

Online Surveys & Market Research

52 10 11... Tim Thomas is quite impressed.

It's February, so I'm Trying to Find things to Post On. Therefore You're Going to Get Some Simple Regression Tests from the 2008 MLB Season.


The Major High Outlier: Texas with an ERA of 5.37 an 79 Wins
The Low Outlier: Toronto with an ERA 3.49 and 86 Wins

Formula: ERA = 6.5246 + (-0.02728) * Wins
ReFangled Formula: Wins = (ERA - 6.5246) / (-0.02728)

So let's have some fun. Say I want the Yankees to win 100 games next year? Based on last years regression test I expect that they'll need somewhere around a team ERA of 3.8. Meanwhile if I think the Oreos are going to have an ERA close to 5.20, because their starters are miserable, than based on last years stats I can expect them to win about 48 games.

Mr. I'm Afraid of Any and Every Outfield Wall (aka Bobby Abreu) is still a free agent looking for a home. That home obviously won't be the Yankees, as they are looking to get rid of outfielders, not take more in. So where will Bobby land and what kind of player are you getting if you sign him? Let's look at the numbers first:

Good Ole Bobby days as a 20/20 guy are just about up as his stolen base total is falling by the year and he was caught stealing 11 times last year. Additionally he's hit 20 home runs in only one of the past three seasons. Even with those so so power and steal numbers he would have extreme value if he was still a .400 on base guy, but those numbers as well appear to be on a severe decline. In two years with the Yankees surrounded by All Star talent, Abreu's On Base % fell from 5 straight years above .400 to two years at around .370.

So Who Wants Him?

Apparently the White Sox do for 1 year at 8 million. It doesn't seem like the Tigres, Mets, Mariners or any other squad that seemingly needs a corner outfielder is going to come running with a better offer, so Bobby might just be patrolling the southside next year.

On This Day Last Year...Terrelle Pryor made me a very confused individual, when he decided that signing day was not for him. Instead he decided he needed more time to let me linger in the hopes that he wouldn't choose the Buckeyes.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure out where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

"We were up 3-0 and Mo (Rivera) came in again with the lead and lost it. He lost it again. As great as he is, and it's amazing what he does, if you start the evaluation again since I got here, he has accomplished nothing in comparison to what he accomplished in the four years before. He blew the World Series in '01. He lost the Boston series. He didn't lose it himself but we had a chance to win in the ninth and sweep them, and he doesn't do it there."

"I know you look at everything (Rivera's) done and it's been awesome," Mussina continues. "I'll admit that. But it hadn't been the same in those couple of years." [Yankee Years]

It seems like Yankee fans and specifically Mariano lovers are jumping down the throat of Mike Mussina for these comments. But why? Is it not true? If Mo was his godly self in those spots than the Yankees would certainly have 1 more World Series and would arguably have another (I mean the Red Sox did embarass the Cardinals). It's not as if Mike Mussina is putting 100% of the blame on Mariano, he's just stating facts. If Mo truly did his job every single time, as his legend goes, than Mike would have a ring on his finger.

I guess sometimes the truth is too much to bare.

Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili all were sidelined for the San Antonio Spurs' game at Denver on Tuesday night.

Ginobili has a bruised hip, and coach Gregg Popovich said he decided to give Duncan and Parker the night off in Denver following the Spurs' 110-105 overtime win at Golden State Monday night.

"Ginobili has a left hip contusion among other bumps and bruises. For a different variety of reasons, I don't think Timmy and Tony should play tonight," Popovich said before tip-off. [Herald Tribune]

So what happenned? They got dumped by 8. Surprise, Surprise.