MLB Free Agency 2011

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I was hoping that this article would still be topical by the time I started writing it yesterday night, and lo and behold the only free agent of consequence to sign on November 3rd was Juan Rivera.  I have literally no idea who he is.  I watch at least a hundred Mariners games each year (MLB.tv FTW), plus a good number of Phillies games and even as much of a Tigers game as I can stomach now and then.  Between that and fantasy baseball, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on who’s who in the MLB and I had literally no idea who this guy was.*  So basically he wasn’t going to be on this list anyway.
 
Here is a list of ten of the top free agents and where I think they will sign:
 
Albert Pujols
2011 team: Cardinals
2012 team: Cardinals
Why: Everyone has been jawing all season long about Pujols testing the market, but I think a lot of that was ESPN puffing the subject up so they had something else to talk about during Sports Center besides whether Tom Brady having longer hair than Aaron Rodgers makes him a better QB.  When all is said and done, I think this is going to turn out like the Matt Holliday-STL deal where there weren’t a ton of other serious suitors for the money and the player didn’t want to leave St. Louis anyway.  Add in that two of the big free agent spenders, the Yankees and Red Sox already have top tier 1Bs and you don’t have anyone to seriously compete with the Cardinals at the price Pujols wants.  So in the end St. Louis will end up overpaying a bit, talking heads who said that Pujols would sign for 300 million will complain about how St. Louis overpaid, St. Louis fans will complain about how they overpaid, but inside everyone will be happy.
Outside shot: Real Madrid?  At that price, I don’t know.
Keep reading…

The de facto national championship preview: The players

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Yesterday’s de facto national championship preview focused on the coaches. Today’s looks at the players.

Alabama and LSU players were in the news before the season even started, which, given each team’s potential for success isn’t surprising by itself. That both teams’ players were in the preseason news for off-field reasons is notable, though. It may seem like an age ago, but Alabama was one of the places hit very hard by the tornadoes that devastated parts of the lower Midwest and Southeast earlier this year. Tuscaloosa was a direct hit. A month later, Sports Illustrated ran a cover story by Lars Anderson that is one of the most powerful sports pieces I’ve read. Facing personal losses themselves, the Tide football players nevertheless had to stand tall in a community and a state that looked to them– as they always had in good times– for support in bad times. Terror, Tragedy And Hope in Tuscaloosa.

LSU players made their way into the preseason, non-sports news in a manner less worthy of an emotional SI cover and an earnest letter home. Keep reading…

Lions not backing down from anyone (via Yahoo! Sports)

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Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to the 2011 Lions, a team depicted as “evil” by the NFL’s own website even before they disrespected Tim Tebow.

Now allow me to let you in on a little secret: They just don’t give a damn.

In fact, there is a very clear message behind the Lions’ insolence: We’re not the pushovers we used to be. We’re here, we’re fierce – get used to it.

Determined to break an extended cycle of futility, the 6-2 Lions are exuding ‘tude at every turn. They are very much in step with the ethos of the city they call home: Tough, industrious, proud and very far from subtle.

Think transplanted “Beverly Hills Cop” detective Axel Foley meets “8 Mile” rapper “B-Rabbit” meets the 1980s Pistons Bad Boys, and you’ll get a sense of the way the Lions view themselves. … Read More

(via Yahoo! Sports)

The de facto national championship preview: The coaches

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In college football, players come and go, and it’s the coaches who are more likely to become the lasting face of a particular team. Adding to this is the common college football notion of coaching “systems.” Coaching in the NFL is more about coordinators and their “schemes”– the Wide Nine really isn’t a defensive “system,” and the Wildcat really isn’t an offensive one, though it may be offensive to some– although coaches have developed systems at that level, including Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense and Tony Dungy’s Tampa 2. Systems certainly are in play at the high school level, but they frequently are crazy and not at all viable even at the college level. Think Wing-T, A-11, and, of course, the Wishbone.

The major college level is the Goldilocks of coaching systems, however, and along with this comes coaching personalities and attitudes that can influence the on-field performance of the impressionable, yet quite capable yoots.  

This installment of our ongoing coverage of LSU vs. Alabama, the de facto national championship, therefore focuses on the two coaches …Keep reading…

The de facto national championship

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One of college football’s biggest challenges, from an institutional perspective, has been its ability to crown a consensus national champion at year’s end. The first memory I have of controversy in this regard was the 1997 split championship between Michigan and Nebraska that precipitated the implementation of the BCS in 1998. (I don’t know if that decision actually precipitated the BCS, because that system may have been in the works already, but it felt that way at the time.) The BCS did not bring peace and happiness across the land, however, and the criticism that started then– I recall writing an editorial on the arbitrariness of BCS outcomes as sports editor of a newspaper in the early 2000s– has only grown in scope and volume, even reaching the halls of the U.S. Senate and the Department of Justice, and the favors it grants upon certain athletic conferences certainly has been part of the fuel for the conference realignment conflagration that burns to this day.

By some magic mix of scheduling, on-field performance, coaching, recruiting, and everything else that goes into making one particular football game happen the way it happens and mean what it means, though, we have been gifted a national championship game this year that really is as free from controversy as one could imagine, a matchup of two undefeated teams, either of which could be ranked #1, playing in the toughest division of the toughest conference in the country, and largely dominating their opponents to this point. On Saturday night in Tuscaloosa, #1 LSU will meet #2 Alabama for what many see as the de facto national championship. The BCS’ noncomical Rube Goldberg machine may churn out a pairing at season’s end that will garner national consensus, but this Saturday’s game is a guarantee; it provides certainty and assurance, things the BCS largely has failed to give teams and fans since its inception.

In anticipation of this game, plan on daily coverage this week* from ALDLAND to get you ready for it.

* Disclosure: This is likely to severely decrease our unplanned coverage of the Breeders’ Cup. In our stead, I recommend the sports page of the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Manic Monday

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This was a rough weekend for most of ALDLAND’s teams, with Michigan State pulling another no-show, this time against extremely beatable Nebraska, and Vanderbilt blowing two opportunities to beat #8 Arkansas. Clemson’s offense forgot to show up and remind Georgia Tech that the Tigers don’t have a defense, and our own Magalan and commodawg went head to head for Georgia’s come-from-behind victory over the heavily penalized Florida Gators at the annual Cocktail Party game in Jacksonville.

The Florida-Georgia rivalry played out on Sunday, too, when the Lions met the Broncos in Denver. Georgia grad Matthew Stafford, along with Georgia Tech grad Calvin Johnson, led Detroit in a dominant victory over Florida grad Timothy Richard Tebow’s Denver team, the only bright spot of which was Knowshon Moreno, running back and Georgia alum.

Elsewhere in the NFL, the Rams got their first win, shocking New Orleans with Sam Bradford on the bench, the Dolphins came from ahead to stay winless, and the Colts lost to an underperforming Titans team. Watching Chris Johnson this year, one understands why he held out for a big payday at the start of this season.

To What We’re Listening (and Youtubing): The Black Keys’ new single Lonely Boy

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As usual, I swore at the beginning of the football season that I wouldn’t travel to The Game Formerly Known As The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party (“TGFKATWLOCP”). The many reasons for my apathy about this game included: recently Georgia has refused to put up much of a fight, Jacksonville is so overrated, coordinating getting to the game is always a royal pain, and the stadium, while neat to look at when its split blue and red 50/50, doesn’t provide anywhere near the joy of being in The Swamp. Et cetera.

But just like in years past, here we are about 24 hours to kick-off, and my willpower has faded. So I’ll be leaving in a couple hours for TGFKATWLOCP, and I’m actually pretty excited about it. We’re allegedly including a bourbon fountain in our tailgate this year, which is the good kind of bad idea that makes you scared for your life, and more importantly, your bar license. It’s a bright spot on a weekend that otherwise features grown men dressing like vampires, or drag queens, or the ultimate: vampire drag queens.

One other bright spot is that The Black Keys (Dan Auerbach – vocals/guitar and Patrick Carney – drums) dropped their first single from forthcoming album, El Camino (the cover of which inexplicably [to me] has a photo of a 90s vintage minivan on it). The new song, Lonely Boy, already has a funny video up on their Youtube channel. While you’re there, check out the videos for Tighten Up and Howlin for You. They’ll all make you laugh.

This new album was recorded at Dan’s new studio in Music City, USA. In the past, they’ve recorded all over the place, including Pat’s basement, an old rubber factory (for an album titled…wait for it…Rubber Factory), and Muscle Shoals Sound Studios (founded by a group that defected from FAME, including David Hood, father of Drive By Truckers front man Patterson Hood). AD tells me their experience recording in Alabama was suboptimal, which is sad to hear. All the same, they’ve put out consistently strong bluesy rock over a series of records, no small feat for a couple of white dudes in a power duo. Though to be fair, if a white dude is trying to sing the blues with any kind of authenticity, coming of age in post-industrial Ohio can’t hurt. If the new single is any indication, they’re close to the mark again.

Good listening, Godspeed, and Go Gators.