Oscar Gamble Society

Ted Thompson has been widely critisized since he took over the GM post of Green Bay for his lack of free agent signings (or trades).  I have argued in the past that Mike Sherman was a bad coach, but a horrible GM.  The Packers are again well under the cap, but did Thompson make a mistake by passively using free agents to build his team?
It appears to me that building an NFL team is similar to a MLB team in certain ways.  It is important in baseball to be strong up the middle, and have deep pitching.  In football, there is a hierarchy of positions.  I would submit the four most important positions are: (more…)

What a way to kick off Thanksgiving Break.  The trade of Estrada helps the Brewers in so many ways.  Without actually watching Estrada play on a regular basis, and with a brief glancing of his stats, I had thought going into 2007 the Brewers had upgraded at catcher with the Doug Davis / Johnny Estrada trade.  I was a little concerned with only 13 walks in 433 PAs, but his strikeout rate was also very low, and for a team that strikes out way too much, I had thought that Estrada’s “plate discipline” would be an asset.
There is a reason Estrada has been traded for the 4th time in his six year career (an amazing feat).  Catchers that have the ability to hit .300 are very rare.  Despite his trouble last year, he came into the league as a defense first catcher.  So why do teams give up on him after only one year?  It isn’t like Miguel Montero tore up the league last year in Arizona.
Here are the problems:  He is arguably the slowest player in the league.  He is not a positive influence in the clubhouse {I can only attest to the one incident with Yost this past season that earned him a 2 game benching}.  He swings at everything.  The reason his BB/K totals are so low isn’t from being a good contact hitter, it is more from the fact that he swings at the first pitch more than any other player in the game.  This not only affects his stats, but it hurts the team.  The Red Sox won the World Series in no small part to their ability/willingness to work the count.  Not many teams had the ability to drive up Carmona’s pitch count to over 100 in the fourth inning, while only scoring a couple runs.  Even if Mota is an abject failure, this is a good trade for Milwaukee.
 

So Gonzo/Money… enjoy J

I pretty much felt this way when I read this piece, but the guys at ColdHardFootballFacts.com say it much better than I could have.

And another thing vis a vis Manning and his performance without his all-star cast - what would his numbers have looked like all these years if he had Brady’s receivers?  As Moss said earlier this year, and I’m paraphrasing - ‘we’ll see what happens now that Tom has his guys’.

http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/Articles/11_1855_Dr._Z_loses_his_license_to_practice_pigskin.html

Wow, could anyone’s grapes be more sour than Shula’s?  Not to mention, does anyone here think that by making these comments he didn’t make it a whole heck of a lot more likely that his beloved record* (asterix applied because there were only 14 regular season games at the time, not to mention there was no salary cap) will fall this year?

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3097057