betterREDthandead

Please explain how Fedorov was going to bring us a Cup and Hossa is not. This should be interesting.

Nominal lineup, anyway. I figure the same, except flip Cabrera and Ordonez. Leyland's more familiar with Maggs. Either that or Sheff-Maggs-Cabrera. 'Course, the Opening Day lineup will probably be used for maybe 45-50 games in the whole season, so it's kind of pointless, same as line combos. Nice thing about Inge is that you can get him maybe 350 at-bats and rest everyone. Raburn, too. Very flexible lineup with those two on the bench.

Precisely the reason I'd rather draft Manningham than Thomas. Like I said before - beware of the workout warrior. Personally if I were an NFL GM, I'd avoid Thomas. Only one season of real evaluation material. Thomas would be a fine pick for the second round, maybe early third. Any team that gets dazzled by his workout numbers and picks him in the first round will be disappointed, I think. Another scouting report that made me mad was Eddie Royal of the Hokies. Apparently he made the scouts drool by doing 24 reps. Um, he's a wide receiver - he plays the one non-special teams position where upper body strength is least important.

I still can't believe how deep the starting lineup is. I keep actually forgetting we now have Edgar Renteria. Here's a .291 career hitter who's a six-time All-Star and who might just be batting ninth. (Though I'd bat him seventh in the nominal lineup. Not like it matters what the lineup is, there are mashers from 1 through 9 no matter how you order it.) Best thing is, the AL doesn't actually look as scary as it used to. The Central is basically a two-team race, and there's probably five contenders for four spots. (The playoffs, if we make it, are going to be rough though.) The schedule breaks down great, too. We're done with both the Yankees and Red Sox by May 11. After May 28, only one series against the Angels. If we need a last-week game or two in the standings, we have KC and TB to finish the season. It's nicely set up to where if the Tigs can be leading the division by the break, there's no reason for another second-half collapse. In fact, Zumaya will return by then, so we already have a guaranteed boost.

For sure. The Pistons and Celtics could compete in the West. There's no need to assume the West will roll away with the title - as Jon Barry said the other day, there's no rule that the West gets to have six teams in the Finals. Gonna be one-on-one, and whoever gets there from the West will have had two or three grueling series of six or seven games each.

Har. Maybe they can trade down to the third round for Devin Thomas Getting Clady would be fine with me. Either him or one of the three cornerbacks: McKelvin, Talib, or the USF guy would best fit their needs. Reasons that I hate the combine are shown pretty clearly in the reports about Darren McFadden and Mike Hart. McFadden's fast? Really? SHOCKER. Hart's slow? We knew this too. Any scout who is surprised by these 40 results needs to find another line of work, or maybe just turn on the TV on any given Saturday. Seriously. This year, I'm actually pretty interested in who goes first overall, even though it's not the Lions' pick. If the first overall pick is named Long, I'll be happy. Happier if it's Chris, I'm pretty sure no UVA player has ever been first overall. Edit: scratch that. Bill Dudley, waaaaaaayyyy back in 1942.

Uh, what? http://griffinshockey.com/newsstats/griffinsstats/ I think there are a few players ahead of him. Just sayin'. Look, I love Ericsson too. I think he's going to be an absolute rock defensively. For about two years now I've been looking forward to him getting his chance. But even if you had been right about leading the Griffins in scoring, scoring success in the minors doesn't necessarily translate to the NHL. Carl Corazzini, perfect example. Kirk Maltby, perfect example. Corazzini is second on the Griffins in scoring. He and his Norfolk Admirals teammate Martin St. Pierre were offensive dynamos for that team. You see them much in the NHL? Maltby was a 50-goal scorer in juniors and a 20-goal scorer in the AHL, and never reached 40 points in the NHL.

Wow! Let's not get carried away here. 80 points in a season? Those would be Nick Lidstrom numbers, if Nick Lidstrom would stop bothering himself with defense and join the damn rush more. (Seriously man. Lidstrom has hit the 80-point mark just once in his career. 80 on the nose in 2006, and that's it.) Ericsson's a 9th round pick. 9th. It's awesome that he's even made it to the NHL and frankly, anything better than a very solid 3rd pairing defenseman is a bonus. Let's aim for 12-18 points in a season. Tops. Anything more is gravy. Expecting Ericsson to outpace the likes of Lidstrom, MacInnis, Blake, Pronger, etc......yowza.

Yeah, but how did he cheat? He didn't race a single lap of competition with the part. The part never even made it onto the track. That race was f'ing painful. I turned it off. Lame as hell, watching them run three laps and go caution. I agree, they ought to have just called the race a no-go and refunded the money and stopped wasting everyone's time. If they finish it, it's just not going to feel like a proper race.

I don't think there's much NASCAR can do about rain. It'd be nice to think, well they should stop being such pansies about a little water on the track. A few good wrecks can be good for the sport. But there's that whole pesky "driver safety" issue that seems to be getting in the way. Maybe they could compromise by only being so anal about the corners and letting the straightaways slide a bit. What does everyone think about the penalty NASCAR slapped Robby Gordon with? I'm not happy about it. I like Robby Gordon, the way he's an independent owner-driver, and I think it's really dumb to penalize a driver for neither racing nor qualifying - in other words, not competing - with the so called illegal part, which isn't even anything different from anything else.

Pistons won't be under the radar for very much longer if they keep putting on performances like this last one. Laying a 30-point thrashing on the Suns on national TV tends to attract attention. Seems like every one of their shots was falling - what a fun game to watch. One advantage basketball has over hockey: Blowouts are more fun to watch, they just keep pouring it on.

Well, just like I said, it's helpful for the D-IAA types like Flacco. I never said the combine is useless. I said I don't like it. The results that come out of the combine are wildly overrated. It's almost as if the combine results are weighted 50/50 with the actual gameplay. For most of these players, the combine ought to factor in maybe 5-10% of the evaluation. If they're a never-heard-of-em type player, scouts oughta take a hard look at why they've never heard of them. If they play for Delaware, OK. You're not gonna see them on ESPN much. If it's a sleeper-type player from a BCS school who is just now at the combine showing he "has what it takes to get drafted," then you have to wonder why he waited til the combine to show it.

Lilja-esque. Maybe he does have a nice slap shot, but there's a reason he's no longer a forward.

I hate the combine. It's a place where guys can make up for being not especially good football players by making scouts say goo-goo-ga-ga over workouts. Never draft a guy whose "stock is shooting up at the combine." It means nobody thought he was worthy of drafting high when he was actually playing games, but they sure look good in an insulated, controlled environment. The combine is helpful maybe for these D-IAA types who you don't really know whether they looked good because of the competition or because of their actual talent, but BCS guys have more than enough game tape to show whether or not they can play.

Longshot idea and only a project for the offseason. There's no way Lebda can be useful at forward by converting mid-stream. He wouldn't be any more useful than, say, Kopecky, and nothing against Kopecky, but another one of him is not the solution to any problems. The best thing for Lebda is to get back on the 3rd pairing where he doesn't have to against the other team's best. Ericsson, by the way, has quite a way to go. I was pleased with his performance last night but not exactly blown away. He was very, very good around his own net but really didn't play to NHL standards out in space.

Ericsson factoid: Having been selected with the 291st overall pick in 2002, he is now the lowest-drafted player ever to appear in an NHL game. Excellent draft that year: 4 of 8 players have now played an NHL game for the Wings (Rex, Flip, Meech, Ericsson) and a 5th (Logan Koopmans) would be playing for the Griffs if not for hernia surgery.

You noticed that too, huh? Jeez. Given the choice between shooting and passing to Derek Meech, nine out of 10 players choose option A. Nothing on Meech, specifically, but it's Pavel bloody Datsyuk. Needs to be thinking score there.

"Meech and Samuelsson on the point", as pointed out by the announcers, doesn't inspire my confidence in the power play. That's a good start.

That's four Lebda giveaways. That one was particularly egregious - yikes.

I wish they would stop saying Flip's name "Fil-pyoo-lah".

Vigneault has got to be unhappy with his team. The Wings are playing with the #5-10 defensemen in their system and the #3 goalie, and they are tied after 20 and taking penalties.

Another giveaway by Lebda, I count three tonight. Is he trying to fill Kronwall's role or something?

Meech is back.....maybe still a little dazed, couldn't hold it in properly on the blue line.

I'd dig it. I'm really pleased that Ericsson is getting his shot, even if it comes at the expense of friggin' four of our regulars.

Chill.