Hello, Bucs fan here. Just wanted to give you guys a little in depth preview from a diehard Bucs fan that you probably wont get from the national guys...

When the BUcs are on Offense....

Tampa's  Gameplan--  Run the ball, whether its effective or not, they will run to protect Freeman and get to 3rd down and see if Freeman can create something with his feet, or with his young talented WRs + WInslow at TE. Freeman doesnt like to run, and is always looking to throw first. He is elusive and hard to bring down, and has a huge arm. Spotty accuracy at times but can make every throw. His maturity and leadership skills are growing a lot, but he is still very susceptible to making mistakes and misreads. Is a real playmaker, and gets compared to Roethlisberger a lot.

OL-- The run blocking of the OL is supposed to be the strength of the offense, but is looking like the weakness. No push vs the run. Just not what we expect from an OL with 4 "maulers", + the technician Jeff Faine. In pass pro LT Penn and RT Trueblood are inconsistent ranging from above average to atrocious.Especially TBlood

RB-- No gamebreakers in the backfield, but a handful of very capable/ reliable backs. The split early on has seen Caddy getting the majority of carries, with Graham getting a few in the red zone and serving as starting FB. OL is giving them no help

WR/TE-- Freemans favorite targets in the passing game are Mike Williams and Winslow. He looks to Stroughter a lot on 3rd down out of the slot, and as his next favorite target in general. Spurlock is an inexperienced but explosive 3rd option at WR/ wildact QB/returnman.

When the BUcs are on Defense....

Tampa's Gameplan-- With not much pass rush on the DL, Raheem Morris has called a lot of blitzes, and has really mixed things up running the 3-4 at times, in an attempt to get pressure on the QB. Very little cover 2 is being played. The heart of the defense has been replaced with two of the top 35 picks in this years draft, in DTs Price and McCoy, as well as last years 3rd round pick DT Miller. With talent and experience all over the place at LB and in the secondary, the emergence of our interior DL has given TB the missing piece they needed vs the run.The secondary is the strength of the team

DL-- McCoy, Price, and Miller are becoming a formidable rotation on the inside, and at DE Tim Crowder, Stylez G White, and Kyle Moore are average at best. High motors with very little pass rush

LB-- Geno Hayes, former teammate of Lawrence Timmons, is becoming a real splash player. The only similarities Hayes and Timmons share might be speed. Hayes is a smallish OLB in the mold of D Brooks, who flys to the ball and can run and hit. Ruud is very solid in the middle, and will get better and better iwth the new interior DL in front of him. Quincy Black is a 3-4 type OLB, who resembles a Pitt Lb more than a Bucs LB but provides lots of versatility and is becoming a force all over the field..

Secondary-- This unit is the strength of the D, and the team. Aqib Talib is a stud at CB, and Barber is coming off a strong year last year and has started this year on fire, creating key turning points in both wins this year. Tanard Jackson is the best player on the defense, the hardest hitter on the team, and a real ballhawk and playmaker.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/BDL-s-2009-10-NBA-Preview-Orlando-Magic;_ylt=ArIzSrBELkHXehdlqR2aXBg.PaB4?urn=nba,197750

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I need people to join and the only reason I post this here is I know a lot of you love SABR stats and Id like to have interested managers who will enjoy playing this style league all year. Im not as big into SABR stats as most of the people here but I played in a SABR fantasy league last year and I found it interesting so Im creating my own this year with a few minor changes. Its a 12 team 8 x 8 roto league and I tried to incorporate SABR stats along with making fielding, hitting, starting pitching, and relief pitching all important. It's not a finished product and I am open to tweaking the scoring/settings but for now I am looking to see who is interested...Heres the scoring cats...

Hitting-

Runs, Hits, OBP, SLG, Net SB, Ks and the 2 fielding categories are Errors and OF assists

Pitching-

Wins, ERA, Whip, K/BB, K/9, Holds, Net Saves, Relief Wins

The starting positions are C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, LF, CF, RF, Util

SP, SP, RP, RP, P, P, P, and 5 bench spots

^^none of this is set in stone and Im open to suggestions/ questions. So if you are interested let me know and leave your email and I'll shoot you the info. Thanks

http://www.kansascity.com/baseball/story/970183.html

Sorry if this doesnt belong here, I am kind of retarded and couldnt figure out the fanshots. I dont know if anyone has been to Kauffman Stadium before but its one of my favorite stadiums in baseball. They are working on huge upgrades right now...

- new sports bar and restaurant in right field

- 100 inch plasma tv

-  team hall of fame in left field

- new bar in left field

- new fountain seats in left field

- new fountain seats in left field,

- behind right and center field will be a new little league field that will be used during games, a carousel, 5 holes of miniature golf, a batting cage, a pitch speed radar so you can see how hard you throw, and a way to time yourself from home to 1B and see how you compare to MLers

- wider concourses, more concession stands, a food court on the view level and new bars on nearly every level

- addition high-end seating options behind home plate

- nearly twice as many suites are being built

- 500 high def TVs around the stadium (copy cats)

- more ribbon boards, an additional board for out of town scores

and I have a story from Kauffman. I went there a few years ago with my dad, it was the middle of the summer and they were having a George Brett t-shirt jersey give away to the first 10,000 fans or something. They were pretty sweet shirts too. Sitting in front of us was about 10 college kids and the next section over was a little league team of probably 12 year olds. This girl that was with the college kids was pissed when she realized she didnt get a George Brett shirt, so she goes to the group of little league kids and for about 20 minutes they are talking about something. Finally she leaves with 2 or 3 of the kids and comes back 10 minutes later with a George Brett shirt. These kids come back with huge smiles on their faces and you could hear them talking to their friends about how this chick took them to the bathroom and flashed them for a t-shirt. George Brett you da man!

Ok I dont know if this is worthy of a fanpost, so I apologize if it isn't

1) I guess the first question is more about the statistic known as Range Factor. I was reading Carlos Pena's Wikipedia entry and stumbled upon this..."In 2007, he had the lowest range factor of all AL league first basemen, 8.73."...so seeing how I dont know much about Range Factor as a measuring stick, but I do know that Carlos Pena is highly athletic for a 1B and has atleast better than average lateral movement at the position, I searched the exact definition of Range Factor. I found this..."It is calculated by dividing putouts and assists by number of innings or games played at a given defense position...some positions (especially first baseman) may have substantially more putouts because of a superior infield around them, that commits fewer errors and turns many double plays, allowing them to receive credit for more putouts."

So I guess my question is, was Carlos Pena's Range Factor negatively effected by the worst defensive infield in baseball that year, or is something else wrong with Range Factor as a statistic to accurately judge someones defensive skills? I dont want to discard that stats relevance, but I was shocked when I read that about Carlos Pena

2) Would Carlos Pena's 2007 season have earned him the MVP award over Dustin Pedroia in 2008? Pena hit .282 46 HR 121 RBI had a .411 OBP and a .627 SLG % to go along with 103 walks and great defense. He only had 490 ABs in about 135 games started and couldve reasonably hit 50 HR with 140 RBI over a full year

Pedroia had 110 more plate appearances in 2008 than Pena had in 2007. He hit .326 17 HR 83 RBI had a .376 OBP and a .493 SLG % to go along with 50 walks and great defense

3. Should Carlos Pena be invited to the World Baseball Classic to back up Albert Pujols for the DR?

"The Miami Herald reports that the Rays and Joe Nelson have agreed to a one-year, $1.3 million contract.

Good for Nelson. The Marlins only wanted to pay him about half that before non-tendering him. Nelson is 34, so this could well be the biggest payday he's ever going to have"....... rotoworld.com^^

This is good news. We get a guy who had an ERA around 1.75 all year and ended at 2.00. Only paying 1.3 mil doenst sound bad to me. He had a .207 BAA and a .226 BAA the year before