QB is now the easiest fantasy football position to draft, and the one most fantasy football team owners will look forward to drafting this year. It’s so deep that Jay Cutler, equipped with arguably the best pair of WRs and one of the best pass-catching RBs, through no fault of his own (finally), ranks as no better than a borderline back-up.
That isn’t so with RBs. The position is finally suffering from a long-predicted dip in value, with a small reliable core of Tier 1 players, almost no one who would qualify as a Tier 2, and then a very large pool of middling talent at Tier 3.

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Posted on August 13, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

Rick Rentamanager.
Carlos Villanuewavagoodbye.
John Bakeroonie.
I’ve got nothing.

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Posted on August 12, 2014

By Jim Coffman

The headline atop today’s Tribune sports section reads “Lesson learned, Bennett returns.” But what lesson did tight end Martellus Bennett really learn during the last week?
First, let’s give a shout out to the headline writer. That is a one-column head and those are not easy. It appeared in the paper like this:
Lesson
learned,
Bennett
returns
It is a very impressive little sentence containing a six-letter word followed by three of the seven-letter variety. It conveys the thesis of the story – and it stacks up – just about perfectly. There is even a little rhyming action in there. “Hey Mr. Anonymous Headline Writer (probably a copy editor at the Trib)!” we shout together. “Well done!”

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Posted on August 11, 2014

By Roger Wallenstein

Let’s begin with the numbers, ugly as they may be.
The White Sox dropped five of seven games last week and now find themselves playing out the string in the American League Central at 56-63. They scored 14 runs during the week. Their two opponents, Texas and Seattle, scored 44. That’s not good.
Included in the five losses was Tuesday’s 16-0 beatdown by the Rangers. The good news there – in a rather perverse sort of way – was that Adam Dunn got to pitch the ninth inning on a yield of one run. Compared to the bullpen trio of Maikel Cleto, Andre Rienzo, and Eric Surkamp, Dunn held his own. None of them pitched better than the Sox’s DH-first baseman. Rienzo and Surkamp now toil in Charlotte. That’s how dismal a week it was.

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Posted on August 11, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

Plus: Javy Time. The White Sox Report. Offseason Kaner.

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Posted on August 9, 2014

By Dan O’Shea

I’m taking a brief break from my fantasy football draft guide responsibilities this week to address a major development in the fantasy baseball world: The call-up of super-prospect Javier Baez.
Okay, maybe it’s a much bigger deal to local fantasy baseball team owners, and those who happen to be Cubs fans, but given Baez’s current position eligibility at SS, and another for which he should soon gain eligibility – 2B – Baez could have a major effect on fantasy fortunes.

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Posted on August 6, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“Castro to Baez to Rizzo” actually trended on Twitter on Tuesday night.
Let me fix that: “Hendry Draft Picks Castro And Baez To Rizzo, Acquired For Hendry Draft Pick Cashner.”
And I hated Hendry.

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Posted on August 6, 2014

By Roger Wallenstein

“Good pitching beats good hitting, and vice versa,” Yogi Berra once said.
More recently, Hawk Harrelson has claimed that the game today is a “battle of bullpens,” whereas years ago it was the team’s starting pitching that dictated a club’s success.
The message from both of these walking antiques is that victories don’t come easily without pitchers who can get outs, especially in crucial situations. Yogi no doubt meant to stop his sentence before the comma, while Hawk’s proposition is arguable since the greatest bullpen in the game can’t save an inept starting staff.

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Posted on August 5, 2014

By Steve Rhodes and Jim Coffman

Plus: Drinking The Bears’ Bourbon & Baseball’s Blockbusters.

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Posted on August 1, 2014

By Thomas Chambers

Just when you feel a little enthusiasm for horse racing again, the game clotheslines you right back into the shit hole.
We’re going to hell, and if you stick around, we can drag you right down with us.
Roger Goodell’s NFL discipline policies and decrees may be upside down, but at least they exist.
Now think about the dark side of horse racing: pain killers, steroids, thyroid medications, muscle relaxants, batteries (hand-held shock devices), mysteriously lackadaisical efforts by jockeys, poor track maintenance, tote fraud, past posting, corrupt stewardship and the lost integrity of the race.
Why would anyone involved in horse racing choose to ever do the right thing, take the high road, use common sense, do right by the horses, when they know damn well that they’re never going to be truly penalized for anything? It’s a destructive, tornadic confluence of: Everybody does it. We have to win. Therefore, we have to do it. We do it because we can. Nobody said we couldn’t do it.

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Posted on August 1, 2014