SimonOnSports

Dear Lebron James, Hi Lebron, with the NBA season just around the corner it must be an exciting time for you. You get to concentrate on being a basketball player and riding the coattails playing with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. You must be so excited that you.... do an interview and foolishly say that race played a factor in why people hate you now. [Internal Screaming] Ok We're better now. Lebron, we really have no care in the world for whether you are black, white, asian, latino or some version of this . The reason why we lowered your approval rating so much this offseason is because you are a self promoting asshole who had zero difficulty throwing a knife into the hearts of his former fanbase nor had any problem creating a "Super" team for which all of us will have zero issues rooting against. We Americans like to vilify and you did a fantastic job of making that easy for us to do with "The Decision". You were the local super hero. You were t

1. AJ Burnett is the 6th Highest Paid Starting Pitcher in MLB this season. He is the 20th highest paid player in all of baseball. 2. Of the 93 MLB pitchers whom qualify*, AJ Burnett ranks dead last in ERA. 3. Of the 93 MLB pitchers whom qualify*, AJ Burnett ranks 89th in WHIP. 4. AJ Burnett is currently tied for having the second most losses in the league trailing only Kevin Millwood (Oreos) and Joe Saunders (LAA/ARI). 5. Of those 15 losses, just one was dubbed a "Tough Loss" which has the not so difficult bar set as a loss in which you earned a Quality Start. 6. Speaking of Quality Starts, AJ has thrown 13 this season putting him at a percentage of .41% which ranks him 101st of the 107 pitchers with over 140 IP. 7. AJ Burnett ranks 40th out of the 107 pitchers with over 140 IP in regards to run support. In comparison Kevin Millwood ranks 90th and Joe Saunders ranks 79th. (King Felix ranks dead last, ouch) 8. AJ Burnett has a WAR of 1 which values him at

Dear Tampa Bay, I think it's about time you looked in the mirror as a community and said to yourself, it's time to put up or shut up. You currently have three professional franchises within your metro area and you ardently support exactly zero of these franchises. The greatest injustice of all is of course the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays are now going on their 3rd consecutive winning season. They have a roster full of 20-somethings who are incredibly athletic and entertaining to watch. They are about to clinch a playoff birth for the second time in franchise history and quite likely will beat out the Yankees for the division and finish with the best record in the American League and yet you show up to the ballpark on the final week of the season with just over 12,000 people. 12,000 people is barely better than what the solid Triple A clubs get on an average basis. Currently the Rays stand 22nd in all of baseball in home attendance despite sitting a 1/2 from having the be

I would like to preface this article by saying that as both a Yankee fan and an owner of CC in my fantasy keeper league for 5 straight seasons, I am a huge fan of the Yankee horse. I would love for him to win the Cy Young and to pitch up to that level. With that being said CC Sabathia should not win the Cy Young this season and frankly he shouldn't even come close. Below is a table of the Top 10 AL Pitchers according to their ERA. I've included a series of useful pitching statistics and shaded the boxes Gold, Silver and Bronze according to whom finished in the top 3 of each respective statistic. Even before delving into what the categories are or clicking on the image to expand the table so you can read it, one person blatantly stands above the rest of his competition. That pitcher is King Felix. King Felix is the most durable and reliable starting pitcher this season leading the league in Quality Starts and Innings pitched. He has also arguably been the most excellen

Before you yell and say where is so and so team, please read my polling philosophy and then yell afterwards. Another week down with a few upsets, a few big ones and one consistent... Alabama is the #1 team in the country and by a lot. After the Crimson Tide it becomes a muddle mess of huh and speculation. The Sooners are sneaking by and barely picking up Victories but I'm giving them extra credit for wins over Cincy, FSU and an improved Air Force team. Arguments for #2 can be made for any of the next 5 teams. Boise St. picked up another nice win this weekend. Oregon wins every game by 400. Auburn picked up a big SEC victory to enhance their Clemson win from last weekend. Arizona has the Iowa signature win. The Buckeyes victory over Miami looks enhanced by Miami's enormous victory over Pitt. Etc. Etc. Etc. There's still 2/3 of the season to play and teams like Nebraska/Florida/Wisconsin have for the most part played poor competition so things will continue to ch

Before you yell and say where is so and so team, please read my polling philosophy and then yell afterwards. I'm going to be straight honest prefacing this poll, I just spent one full week in the Bahamas (why I missed last weeks poll) and did not have any time this weekend to make a major push to get this done accurately and to the best of my abilities. For this reason this weeks poll was bit rushed and not up to my usual quality win poll standards. Feel free to beat me down in the comments. Alabama is #1 and then after that everything is up for grabs... SimonOnSports Ballot - Week 4 Rank Team Delta 1 Alabama Crimson Tide -- 2 Oklahoma Sooners -- 3 Oregon Ducks -- 4 Ohio St. Buckeyes -- 5 Arizona Wildcats --

Before you yell and say where is so and so team, please read my polling philosophy and then yell afterwards. It's week 1 which means this ballot is as its supposed to be, ridiculous looking. Of all the games played this weekend there were only 7 notable victories (and I can't vote for Jacksonville St.) and some of those victories were marginal at best. Boise is #1: They pulled off the comeback. They have the biggest win of the weekend by far. They won at a "neutral" (aka 80% Hokie) site against arguably the best ACC team. It's just unfortunate that the rest of their schedule is pathetic and that they won't stay here for too long. If anything Boise at least can be glad Fresno St. knocked off Cincy at home which will cred for a few weeks until we come to the conclusion that Cincy 2010 is not Cincy 2009. The MWC Brings It: Utah knocks off Pitt and TCU knocks off Oregon St. The two schools got a BCS team to travel to their home stadiums and managed to