Posts Tagged ‘MLB Free Agents’

Let’s call it Wednesday

Posted: January 13, 2016 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, football, sports, Uncategorized
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Have you ever seen a worst weekend of playoff football? The last game of the set of four featuring the Green bay Packers beating the Washington Redskins was a decent game, but the other 3 stunk. The Kansas City Chiefs/Houston Texans game was over after the opening kickoff; we just didn’t know that yet. Even though the Chiefs went in leading at halftime 13-0; it seemed like Houston had no chance to get back into the game. There are obvious reasons the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. the Cincinnati Bengals game was terrible. Besides the 2 penalties decided the game there was the fact that these 2 teams combined to score just 34 points. I thought for sure that one of these teams would score 34 points; in no way did I think it would take both of them to get to that number. The Seattle Seahawks vs. the Minnesota Vikings game was 3-0 at halftime with Minnesota in the lead. They saved all the excitement for the last field goal attempt by the Vikings when Blair Walsh missed a 26-yarder to allow Seattle to hang on to a 10-9 victory. It was just bad football from start to finish on wild card weekend; so here’s hoping that the divisional round this weekend has some better games. Kansas City gets to start the weekend off again, but this time they are on the road to play the New England Patriots. It’s schedule to be a 3:35 p.m. kickoff on Saturday. Game 2 has the Green Bay Packers against the Arizona Cardinals with a kickoff time scheduled at 7:15 p.m. It’s the first meeting this season for the Chiefs and the Patriots, but the Packers and the Cardinals met in Week 16 when Arizona dominated the game and handed Green Bay a 38-8 loss. The Sunday games are both rematches. The first game has the Seattle Seahawks at the Caroline Panthers. In Week 6 the Panthers went into Seattle and won the game 27-23. This game is scheduled to be the Noon kickoff on Sunday. The second game is a scheduled 3:40 p.m. kickoff has the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. the Denver Broncos. These two teams played in Week 15 in Pittsburgh and the Steelers came away with a 34-27 victory. After last week I’m just not sure if any of these will be good match ups or if they’ll turn ingot good games. Of course like everyone else I’ll be sitting in front of the television watching even if it’s bad football; again!

Who had Gerardo Parra coming off the free agent market before Justin Upton or Yoenis Cespedes? Yesterday Parra got a 3-year $27.5 million dollar deal with from the Colorado Rockies. It was a bit of a surprise that the Rockies made this signing since their outfield looked set. Colorado has Carlos Gonzalez in right field, Charlie Blackmon in center field and Corey Dickerson in left field. Now quite a few teams use a 4 man outfield, but right after this signing the rumors started that one of the Colorado outfielders would be traded. There have been some rumors about the St. Louis Cardinals and Gonzalez, but nothing solid. It seemed that yesterday Blackmon’s name came up more and more with the Detroit Tigers seeming to be the team interested. Of course these are all just rumors right now. I thinking ti also could lead to Gonzalez playing some 1st base to help him stay in the line up. Gonzalez stayed healthy last season playing in 153 games and hit 40 homers. If Blackmon or Gonzalez is dealt you’d have to think that the Rockies would like to get some quality young pitching in return. So with Parra off the board how much longer will it be before Upton and Cespedes sign deals?

In what I think you could say is another surprise signing it was the Miami Marlins who stepped up and signing left-hander Wei-Yin Chen to a 5-year $80 million dollar deal. Chen’s deal does have an opt out after the second season. Last season Chen went 11-8 with a 3.34 ERA over 31 starts. Chen did go 16-6 in 2014. One of Chen’s most impressive stats is the fact that over 117 career starts he has walked just 172 hitters; 4 of which where intentional. The Marlins needed someone to fill the #2 spot in the rotation behind Jose Fernandez and you have to wonder with the Chen signing if will hear anymore about a possible Fernandez trade. There was a report out yesterday that the Marlins are no longer interested in trading center fielder Marcell Ozuna. The Marlins also added veteran infielder Chris Johnson yesterday. Johnson was let go by the Cleveland Indians after the 2015 season. Johnson should add some left handed as a back up at 3rd and 1st base. Terms of Johnson’s deal were not disclosed as the Indians are on the hook for $7.5 million this season and $9 million next season. Who knows if these moves will be enough for Miami to contend on the N.L. East next season, but remember no one had the New York Met winning that division last season.

The NBA is coming up on it’s halfway point and the Chicago Bulls find themselves at 22-15 in 4th place overall in the Eastern Conference. This is pretty much right where the Bulls found themselves last season under coach Tom Thibodeau. Now the Bulls front office team of john Paxton and Gar Foreman couldn’t wait to get rid of Thibodeau after last season. They even managed to set things up so Thibodeau was pretty much closed out of any other head coaching position for the 2015-16 season. With Thibodeau gone Paxton and Foreman went out and got their guy Fred Hoiberg. Now is Hoiberg the guy to lead this team t an NBA championship? He’s suppose to be an offensive coach, but the Bulls are only 11th in scoring averaging 102.1 points per game. The Bulls used to be a top defensive team under Thibodeau, but now they give up 100.8 points per game. That ranks right in the middle or 15th overall for the average of points given up. So under Hoiberg the Bulls aren’t a top offensive team and they’re no linger a top defensive team. After a 6 game winning streak the Bulls have now looked bad in 3 straight losses. Chicago lost 120-105 to the Atlanta Hawks; a team that is ahead of them in the standings. Then they turned around and played very poorly in a 114-100 loss to the Washington Wizards. To add to it last night the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Bulls 106-101. Now the Wizards are 17-19 and the Bucks are 16-24 with neither team being in the Top 8 of the Eastern Conference. The Bulls take the court tomorrow (Thursday) against the 4-36 Philadelphia 76ers. With the way te Bulls have played these last 3 games and with the game being in Philadelphia; could the Bulls become the 76ers 5th victory of the season?

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Let’s call it Wednesday.

Posted: November 19, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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11/19/14

Week 11’s picks had Dan the Man, Schaumburg Stu, Mr. Fantasy and I all going 8-6 for the week. For the season I’m in the lead with an overall record of 102-57-1. Schaumburg Stu is 2 games back at 100-59-1 while Dan the Man and Mr. Fantasy are tied while an overall record of 99-60-1. Who knows what Week 12 will have in store for us.

In what I guess we’ll call the Fantasy Football Challenge pitting Mr. Fantasy vs. Greg, played out this way. At quarterback Mr. Fantasy went with Tom Brady of the New England Patriots while Greg picked Robert Griffin III of the Washington Redskins. Brady scored 13.44 points and finished 13th among quarterbacks while Griffin scored 8.74 points and finished 21st among quarterbacks for Week 11. At running back they both agreed that Mark Ingram of the New Orleans Saints was the right choice. Ingram finished 9th among running backs with 20.70 points. At wide receiver Mr. Fantasy went with DeSean Jackson of the Washington Redskins while Greg’s choice was Randall Cobb of the Green Bay Packers. Jackson finished 48th among wide receivers for Week 11 with 6.95 points while Cobb finished with 20.65 points which was good for 10th place among wide receivers. At tight end Mr. Fantasy picked Antonio Gates of the San Diego Chargers while Greg went with Julius Thomas of the Denver Broncos. Gates scored 5.45 points and finished 21st among tight ends while Thomas got hurt in Sunday’s game and scored 1.80 points which put him in 42nd place among tight ends. At kicker Mr. Fantasy picked Stephen Gostkowski of the New England Patriots while Greg’s choice was Nick Novak of the San Diego Chargers. Gostkowski scored 6 points and finished tied for 11th place while Novak scored 10 points and finished tied for 6th place. Sleeper picks for Week 11. Mr. Fantasy went with Cleveland Browns wide receiver Taylor Gabriel while Greg’s choice was Indianapolis Colts running back Trent Richardson. While Richardson might not be a sleeper in name value in production value he would be a sleeper if he had a good week. Gabriel coed 13.37 points and finished 23rd for Week 11. Richardson scored 4.60 points and finished 47th among running backs for Week 11. If you heard the show Sunday morning you have to hear Mr. Fantasy complain about picking the same players over and over. He suggested that they not be allowed to pick the Top 5 scores at each position. I ran the idea by Greg and he was good with it; so starting with Week 12 they will not be allowed to select any of the Top 5 scoring players at each position for the season. As always I use the scoring system from your Yahoo league titled Next Year is Here 13.

If you’ve listened to Sports Time Radio you know that we all live in the Chicago area. If you listen to sports talk radio in Chicago when they’re not firing Marc Trestman or trying to get Jay Cutler traded or released they’ll talk about who the Chicago Cubs will sign from the free agent market this off-season. The team itself had come out and said that Jon Lester was the first free agent that they where interested in, but they’d also like to sign Russell Martin. Now Dan the Man and Schaumburg Stu are the resident Cubs fans on the show while Mr. Fantasy roots for the Chicago White Sox. Now we’ve heard this song and dance from the Cubs organization for the past couple of seasons. How they just missed out on this free agent or that free agent and it has started already this off-season. Russell Martin signed a 5 year $82 million dollar deal with the Toronto Blue Jays. The Cubs of course having to explain losing Martin to Toronto, went with it was too much money. I actually agree it was too much money for Martin, but he was the only top catcher on the free agent market and that’s what someone was going to have to pay to bring him in. There’s strike one on the Cubs. This morning the Cubs have been quoted as saying that they believe that Lester will sign with the Boston Red Sox. So the Cubs put two names up for their fans to look for and now it looks more and more that neither one of these players will be in a Cubs uniform come opening day. While Martin was far and away the best catcher on the free agent market there are still some top of the rotation starting pitchers still out there. Will the Cubs go after a James Shields or a Max Scherzer now that they’re saying Lester is headed to Boston. I doubt they will, but they’ll need to find some new names to put up for their fans to wish for.

If you’re playing fantasy hockey this season like Dan the Man and I are, I hope you had all of your Nashville Predators in your line up last night. The Predators went out and scored 9 goals last night against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Taylor Back scored 2 goals while Derek Roy, Eric Nystrom, Mike Ribeiro, Filip Forsberg, Calle Jarnkrok, Roman Josi and Colin Wilson each added a goal. Shea Weber tallied 3 assists while Ryan Ellis, and Paul Gaustad each had 2 assists in the game. Maple Leafs goalie James Reimer gave up 6 of the Predators goals while Jonathan Bernier gave up the other 3 goals and was tagged with the loss. The Montréal Canadiens led the NHL right now with 29 points and an 20-14-5 record. The Tampa Bay Lightning are just 1 point behind at 28 points and an 20-13-5 record. After that it’s the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Anaheim Ducks tied at 27 points.

Kevin Harvick won his 1st Sprint Cup championship and a championship for Stewart-Haas Racing by winning the Ford EcoBoost 400 in Homestead Miami Florida on Sunday. Harvick went from 12th to first over the final 15 laps gave Harvick the championship over Denny Hamlin, Ryan Newman and Joey Logano. It was Harvick’s first Sprint Cup title in his 14th season of competition.

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.