And anyone who played fantasy baseball in the last two years knew how good Hamilton was.

Stop making yourself out to be the new Bill James.

Oh, I certainly don't...

Look at the Cardinals of a few years ago...83 regular season wins...and they get hot and win the World Series...

It's all about being hot at the right time...the Cubs have the best team but I don't give them any more of a 25% shot of winning the World Series this year...the one thing I hate about baseball that cannot be fixed...the best team usually doesn't end up winning the World Series...

In the NBA, the best team almost always win...not quite the same with the NFL, but close. In baseball, all you have to do is get to the postseason and if your pitching is hot, you have a damn good chance of winning it all.

Wonder if todays spanking had anything to do with Edmonds bat toss towards Tony?

There are far more factors involved than that. You are oversimplifying.

Do I have to face Sheets and Sabathia in those five games, or Aaron Cook and Jorge De La Rosa?

Are the games at home or away?

What is the umps' strike zone like?

Does the other team run well, and does mine pitch to contact? Do they work the count? Do their pitchers pound the zone and do my hitters take a lot of 1st pitch strikes?

I don't think I discovered Josh Hamilton for god's sake...I just love watching him play. I rooted for him in Cincinatti after I followed his huge spring last season...took a chance on him in fantasy and it paid off for a month or two and drafted him early this year and it is really paying off. Relax...

It's pretty easy to fix if you go back to pre-'69 expansion of the playoffs, but the league would never do that.

you play against the other 30 teams best 25 players combined...

You're a ****ing moron.

EVERYONE is taking the 97 wins...college football overtime...you choose to play defense first...NFL you choose the ball...EVERYONE would always want to make their own destiny rather than have someone else determine it...IT'S HOW WE WORK.

I always imagined Hootie playing Madden online similar to this:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/olm7xC-gBMY&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/olm7xC-gBMY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

I refuse to play madden online on anything other than the regular XBOX, the gameplay on the 360 is unbelievably awful...you have NO control over your players...the movement is choppy and the graphics aren't even that great...

Now, if anyone wants to play some Halo 3...I'm all up for that. I'm a 47 but I can't get past that...tried and tried to reach a 50 but some people are just truly ****ing insane.

TheMeatSauce if anyone wants to add me.

Yeah, because there is a statistical advantage to choosing the ball in the NFL, dipshit.

Funny thing: The Cards needed a win in 2006 to clinch the division on the last day. They determined their own destiny. Did they start Carpenter or a scrub?

They started a scrub, knowing that even if they lost, the other team would still have to win, and if they won or Houston lost, they'd have Carp for game 1 against the Pads.

It's called maximizing your odds.

If you are 101-61 and the other team is 100-60, who has the better odds? Team B has to win twice to win, and once to tie.

There is only one possible outcome where team A loses. It's not like football, that's an apples/oranges comparison.

you can start a poll asking which someone would choose...and 80% or more will choose 97 games because IT'S COMMON SENSE TO CHOOSE YOUR OWN DESTINY...

It's fallacious, and uninformed. It's not destiny.

maybe they have found the weakness in Big Z's pitching.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
After the offense stalled during Friday’s 3-2 loss, it was important for the Cardinals to jump to a quick start against No. 1 Cubs starter Carlos Zambrano. Skip Schumaker didn’t wait, blistering Z’s first pitch of the game for a leadoff double. He would score on a Ryan Ludwick single, and the Cardinals had a 1-0 lead. In his next AB, Schumaker homered to put the Cardinals ahead 2-1, and they led the rest of the way. I don’t know if the scouting reports figured into it, but the numbers show that when opposing hitters attack Zambrano’s first pitch, they can get something done. Zambrano doesn’t have many weaknesses, but when hitters swing and connect on the first pitch, they are hitting .342 against him.

Zambrano throws a fastball on the first pitch nearly 75 percent of the time, but most hitters lay off. Going into Saturday’s game, hitters took the first Zambrano pitch in 73 percent of their at-bats against him. But Schumaker let it rip. And the Cardinals were aggressive early in the count against Z.

Sometimes Skip pisses me off when he does that. In his first four ABs Wednesday, he saw a total of six pitches, and swung five times.

the Cards had Z's number yesterday.... Great to see the Bats exploded....

Go for the series win tonite with Carp. Very good test for him against div leaders.