A few other random NFL thoughts

Teams I'm down on this year, relative to my perception of the preseason hype

• The Jets - I just have no faith in the Sanchize. At all.


• The Steelers - for obvious reasons. Even when Roethlisberger is back he'll be rusty, and I think that team was showing signs of age last year


• The Cowboys - No particular reason other than I think Romo sucks

I would include the Redskins, but everyone already knows they're going to suck (again) this year.


Teams I think will surprise this year

• Baltimore - I just really like this squad for some reason. Can't put my finger on it


• Cincinnati - Everyone loves to bloviate about the TO+Ochocinco combo, but FWIW I think those two love to have fun, and I think they'll draw that out of one another. I'm also a big Carson Palmer partisan - I think he's underrated by many. They were throwing less last year, but I think that was more of a factor of Ochocinco being their only real threat and Benson's incredible year (though he definitely won't repeat that). The AFC North should be a great division to watch this year

2010-2011 Packers Season Preview - the crucial players

There was some big news today that changed a big part of what I wrote, but the basic thesis is the same here. What really has changed from the squad that lost 51-45 to Arizona in the playoffs? The secondary was banged up (Harris out with an ACL injury, Woodson not 100%) against what was a bad matchup. Furthermore, the offensive line just stunk. Despite that, they're still an elite offensive team (and there's a good chance Rodgers could get even *better*). But basically, the Packers 2010-2011 season comes down to 6 players.

1. Charles Woodson


2. Al Harris


3. Chad Clifton


4. Mark Tauscher


5. Johnny Jolly's replacements


6. Brett Favre

The theme here is that most of these players are aging and/or are big injury risks, except for Jolly (who is suspended indefinitely for substance abuse/legal problems).

Before today, the Jolly situation was the one I was least worried about. B.J. Raji was picked in the first round for a reason and I think he'll do just fine, and the news that Justin Harrell is healthy helps assuage any problems with depth too.

Of course, the big news I mentioned above was Farve announcing his retirement. Of course, I'm taking that with a huge grain of salt, but if his ankle isn't good, it isn't good. My gut says that the chances are better than not that he stays retired. Once Ted Thompson is gone he'll likely mend his fences with GB (the franchise definitely needs it more than he does). The Vikes are now looking at Sage Rosenfels and Tavaris Jackson as their starting QBs. Jackson is not great, and he lost a year of development with Favre gone, but let's not forget that he was still decent enough to QB the team through a 12-4 season in 2008. They're not going anywhere in the playoffs with him but the rest of the team could still be good enough to carry him to a playoff game at least.

But those 4 guys at the top (and that aforementioned Cardinals loss) are very worrisome. Harris will be out the first few games and he obviously won't be 100% for the next few games after that, and even before the injury his skills were declining. Woodson is coming off a NFL Defensive Player of the Year award last year but is always a guy who's battling injuries, and he's got a lot of mileage on those legs (turns 34 this season). Don't get me wrong - he had a really good year but it was his gaudy INT numbers that got him the award, and that's not something I put *too* much stock on as my gut would tell me there's a lot of variance in that stat. He and Tramon Williams were completely burned by Arizona's (admittedly, excellent) WRs, and the Packers will see more of the same in the playoffs if they run into another elite offensive team.

Tauscher and Clifton are big worries too. It said a lot that no one took a flier on Tauscher, who was a former All-pro RT, after his last knee injury. The Packers picked him up eventually (after Aaron Rodgers was nearly killed in multiple games) and he did an okay job, but nothing to write home about. The same could be said of Clifton, who's a shadow of his former self. They're both just average players at this point. They do have Bulaga (who I'm very high on) waiting in the wings should one of them go down, but I'm not sure he's a guy you can count on in his rookie season. And there's always the FAIL duo of last year of Barbre and Lang, though I think Lang has a lot of room for improvement (he's probably Tauscher's heir apparent).

Anyway, the Favre maybe-retirement was pretty huge. Here's how I think the NFC North shakes out, both with records and chance of winning the division (note: lots of tough road games for the Pack and the Vikes)

Packers: 10-6 (65%)
Vikings: 8-8 (25%)
Bears: 7-9 (10%)
Lions: 6-10 (0%)

Lilly and Theriot (YES! YES!) traded to Dodgers, other trade deadline mania

Our long national nightmare is over - Ryan "TOOTBLAN" Theriot is no longer a Chicago Cub. However, as much as we love to bash Theriot for his low baseball IQ, he was a useful player for the Cubs for several years, and we should make note of that. Here are his wOBAs, defensive numbers, and WAR for his years with the team

Year	PAs	wOBA	UZR	WAR
2006	159	.416	0.8 (UZR) 2 (DRS) (2b)	1.6
2007	597	.309	2.2 (UZR) 6 (DRS) (ss)	1.4
2008	661	.338	1.7 (UZR) 5 (DRS) (ss)	3.2
2009	677	.318	3.7 (UZR) 3 (DRS) (ss)	2.4
2010	412	.291	-3.3 (UZR) -5 (DRS) (ss)	-0.1
total	2520	.322	3.4 (UZR) 7 (DRS) (ss)	8.5

Those numbers are nice when you're paying a guy league minimum, but once his arb years hit then he's out the door. Add in his incredibly frustrating baserunning gaffes and his too-frequent 2 pitch PAs, and the decision is even easier. Overall he stole 100 bases with teh Cubs and was caught 35 times, but fangraphs doesn't include non-CS TOOTBLANs in their stats yet (we can dream).

The Cubs picked up Blake Dewitt, who's left-handed and 5 years younger than Fontenot and Theriot. He's only 25 so he has room to improve, and the Cubs don't have to pay him as much. I would not be surprised to see Fontenot traded if not non-tendered in the next 8 months, with Darwin Barney as the new backup SS.

Lilly's gone too, and that's a little hairier. It looks like the Cubs were not planning on offering him arbitration, which is a bad decision. An even worse decision would be if the Cubs resign him in the offseason, which is a definite possibility since the Dodgers are likely smart enough to offer him arb.

The Cubs got 2 minor league pitchers in the deal as well - an A ball RHP starter named Brett Wallach, the Dodgers 3rd round pick last year, who has a big slider and iffy command. According to Matt Swain of Wrigley Bound he's the kind of all around athlete that the org loves (he played SS in college). So maybe the Cubs will move him to SS (dying laughing). They also picked up a 22 year old A+ relief pitcher named Kyle Smit who is having a fantastic season so far. Reliever prospects are essentially worthless, so I don't have much to say on Smit.

Honestly, it's a lot more than I thought the Cubs would get for a 2-month rental of Ted Lilly and the decaying remains of Ryan Theriot's career. You have to wonder why the Dodgers did it too. DeWitt is cost-controlled, so it's not like they were shedding salary. They're also 7 games back of the Padres with only 2 months left in the season (4.5 in the WC). They could still catch up, and the sudden surprising slide the Rockies have had in the past 2 weeks improve their chances a bit, but still.

Here are the biggest winners and losers in this year's non-waiver trade deadline:

Winners
1. Kerry Wood (Yankees). I'll be more than happy to see him get a ring. He's earned it.

2. The Nationals They absolutely stole a top prospect from MIN, in exchange for a closer that was non-tendered last season. Great, great move by the Nats.

3. The Padres. They picked up some much needed offense in former castoff Ryan Ludwick in exchange for a C pitcher (to StL) and a great looking prospect in Klubner (to CLE). But if anyone can develop pitching, it's the Padres.

Losers
1. Minnesota. Maybe my ignorance of the AL is shining through here, but were things that desperate in the Twins bullpen? I was under the impression that their starting staff needed a lot more help. Though for what it's worth the prospect they traded was a catcher, and he's blocked by one of the top 10 players in baseball. Still, that's not a trade chip you spend on a non-tendered relief pitcher. Capps sucked last year, and has been good this year, but no one should mistake him for an elite closer.

2. St Louis. They badly needed a pitcher, given the injuries to Lohse and Penny, and getting rid of Ludwick saves them some money. But I'm not sure if they have enough offense to make up for this. Jon Jay is the heir apparent to RF, and he's been hitting extremely hot (.439 wOBA). Not surprisingly that comes with a .446 BABIP. CHONE had him at .275/.331/.398 going into the season, and he's really just a platoon guy.Furthermore, it saves them some money that they'll need for Albert Pujols in the 2011 offseason.

3. Arizona, for the craptastic haul they got back for Haren. Though they balanced it out with a great trade for Edwin Jackson. Who would have thought Jackson would have netted a better trade package?

Small change in format

Not that it matters much, since I've barely had time to do any posting thanks to this whole PhD thesis thing, but I figured I'd mention that I'm going to expand the scope of things I'm planning to write about. For the most part this has been a stat-friendly Cubs blog and will likely continue to be one (especially in the pre-season). But MB21's new Iowa blog and last fall's failed experiment of a Packers/Bears blog has given me the itch to write about some football (college, pro, and the non-gridiron kind). The Cubs epically disappointing season certainly helped push me in this direction too. I'm hoping to make at least one post a week on the Badgers, Packers, and/or Spurs once those seasons get rolling.

The Cubs season

Can't end soon enough. Ugh. I can't believe there are still 82 games to play.

World Cup 2010 thoughts and predictions

I've become more of a football (the real kind) fan in the past year or so, largely thanks to Mercurial Outfielder over at ACB, who is a big Tottenham Hotspur fan. I watched maybe half the Spurs matches last year and had a great time doing so. Plus, they made the Champions League this year! Yay!

Still, even then I've been surprised by how much I've been enjoying the World Cup. I was talking about this with Adam the other day - one thing that always bothers me about the Olympics is all the nationalistic jingoism stuff. Somehow it doesn't bother me in the World cup. Maybe it's just that the gap between the traditional world powers and the rest of the world doesn't seem so small.

Even though the US doesn't necessarily dominate the Olympics (though they generally do quite well), the media here would like you to think so, and all the planning and media revolves around the US because that's what generates the most money. Not so much with the World Cup - it's much more global than the Olympics - people in the US don't care as much about football, and people around the world could generally give a crap about swimming, track and field, and ice dancing.

It could also be that the World Cup isn't rocked with the kind of scandals and political maneuvering as the Olympics (though this could just be my ignorance shining through). Football fans have respect for good teams, and most of the hate that flies around is either for the refs or for unsportsmanlike play (especially flopping).

I know it's late in the game for predictions, but here I go anyway (based on the results through round 2 of the group stage)

Mexico (1A) beats South Korea (2B)
Germany (2D) beats England (1C)
Netherlands (1E) beats Italy (2F)
Brazil (1G) beats Chile (2H) (Spain, Chile, SUI tie in group H, but goal differential causes the the swiss to lose. Chile is a good team though, and I could see them drawing Spain and knocking them out of the tournament)

United States (2C) beats Serbia (1D)
Argentina (1B) beats Uruguay (2A)
Paraguay (1F) beats Denmark (2E)
Spain (1H) beats Portugal (2G)

Quarterfinals
Mexico defeats Germany
Netherlands defeats Brazil
Argentina defeats USA
Spain defeats Paraguay

Semifinals
Mexico defeats Netherlands
Argentina defeats Spain

Finals
Argentina over Mexico

As much as I hate El Tri...I think they have a good team

Fun fact

Pudge Rodriguez has caught both Nolan Ryan and Stephen Strasburg.