A number of reasons to be depressed

Beaten and broken down.

That's how I feel after the Bulls' 79-74 loss the short-handed Milwaukee Bucks at the United Center on Tuesday night.

Knowing Toronto had already lost, the Bulls blew a chance to pull even in the race for the final Eastern Conference playoff berth; with the Raptors owning the tiebreaker, the Bulls just can't afford to miss opportunities like this one. And yet they did, meekly succumbing to an inspired group from Milwaukee.

The reasons to be bummed out by the outcome are almost innumerable. But not quite, as I'm taking it upon myself to examine some of the critical numbers from yet another painful loss:

7: Bulls turnovers in an otherwise very good first quarter that ended with them leading 27-14. The carelessness was indicative of a team playing without a sense of urgency; despite everything at stake, the Bulls couldn't match Milwaukee's intensity and focus, and were completely out-worked by the Bucks, whose playoff berth was all but assured coming in and therefore had very little left to play for.

5: Bulls reserves on the court to start the second quarter. At a time when the team is healthy and in the homestretch of the regular season and most coaches would be shortening their rotation, Vinny Del Negro emptied his bench to start the second quarter. The unit immediately let the Bucks back into the game, giving them a glimmer of hope when the Bulls should have been putting their foot on their throats.

0: (tie)
A) Assists by Kirk Hinrich. Hinrich also shot 4-for-16 (1-for-6 on 3s), had two rebounds, one steal, no blocks, and didn't get to the free-throw line in a 44-minute stint highlighted by nine points. Unfortunately, his atrocious performance was nearly matched by Luol Deng. Sure, Deng had a double-double, but he required 17 shots to get 16 points, had just one assist as he consistently tried to go one-on-one, and played listlessly throughout, missing a number of easy buckets and getting toasted by former Bull John Salmons defensively.
B) Minutes played by the Bucks best player, Andrew Bogut. I told my friend Art before the game that I'd be more confident if Bogut -- out with a grotesquely-injured elbow -- was playing, because Scott Skiles is such a good coach that he no doubt would use it to get his troops fired up for the game, and would be completely unwilling to acccept the injury as an excuse for poor play. You know, unlike the Bulls did when Joakim Noah was out.

7,000,000: The approximate number of dollars the Bulls paid to Skiles through last season to NOT be their coach.

11: Bulls free throw attempts. Despite Bogut's absence in the middle, the Bulls continually settled for outside shots instead of trying to get to the rim.

36.2: The Bulls field goal percentage -- thanks to all those jumpers -- after a hot first quarter (11-for-16, 68.8%).

26-0: Points scored by Salmons against those by Hakim Warrick and Joe Alexander, the players he was traded for.

I suppose you could argue that it's an unfair comparison, given that Salmons played 44 minutes while Warrick played just four and Alexander wasn't even active. But the minutes alone are indicative of the disparity in the talent exchanged, and the game served as Exhibit A for why you shouldn't make a cap-clearing deadline deal with a team you are jockeying with for a postseason berth.

Was there any doubt that Salmons was the Bucks best player? That if he hadn't been on the team, the Bulls would have won the game? Salmons scored a game high 26-points -- twice as many as any other Buck besides Ersan Ilyasova (17) -- and despite being their primary ballhandler in crunch time, didn't commit a turnover in a team-high 44 minutes.

As Art wrote in a post-game email, "I'm so glad we got rid of Salmons and can now sign Joe Johnson to a horrible contract this summer. Awesome."

3: Offensive rebounds the Bulls grabbed after the first quarter. One of the biggest reason the Bucks were able to completely turn the game around and prevent the Bulls from making any sort of sustained run was that they limited Chicago to one-and-done offensive possessions.

2: Points the Bulls were attempting to get, down by three with 7.9 seconds left when Brad Miller got whistled for traveling. Why in the world weren't they setting up to shoot a game-tying 3 when the team is down 77-74? And why is the ball in the hands of the backup center instead of the team's only star, Derrick Rose, who also just happens to be a point guard? Even renowned homer Stacey King pointed this out:

And nothing against Brad right there, but there's a situation you're down 3, with about 15 seconds [actually 13, when the ball was inbounded] to go in the game, and you would think that there would be some kind of pick-and-pop situation. Not to take anything away from Brad handling the ball, but that's the last guy you want to be trying to dribble and trying to create something off the dribble.

Keep in mind that this all occurred coming out of a timeout. I can't even fathom what might've been discussed at that during that stoppage in play. But I suppose it must've went something like this:

Del Negro: Alright everybody, this is exciting. I'm beginning to think that we could actually win this game. I mean, I doubt it, but maybe. Okay Derrick ...

Rose: I'll take the inbounds, go hard to the hole while Miller and Deng set a series of screens on the perimeter, and then find the open man for the game-tying 3?

Del Negro: Hold on there, professor. You're going to be a decoy. We're going to inbound it to Luol. Lu, you're going to act like you're the last person who wants to be near the ball at this point, and you'll find Brad beyond the arc. Now, Brad ...

Miller: Coach, I can make it.

Del Negro: Take it easy, Jimmy Chitwood. You're not going to shoot it, or even think about trying to tie the game. We have to play to our strengths here, so you've got to immediately put the ball on the floor and CREATE. Lose on three, lose on three, LOSE!

I'm always amazed when I look at the stats and Miller isn't averaging 41 turnovers per 48 minutes, because it seems to me that he is constantly losing possession while trying to create something, either by throwing a terrible bounce pass, getting the ball stripped, or just flat-out losing his dribble. Remarkably, Miller averages fewer turnovers per 48 than Rose and, more surprisingly, Noah.

13.9: The percent chance the Bulls now have of getting into the playoffs, according to ESPN.com's John Hollinger, which is pretty much right between CoolStandings.com (15.1%) and Basketball-Reference.com (12.8).

4: The typical number of hours I squander finding/editing photos and creating captions. Which is why, in my depressed state, you're not getting any here. Sorry.

The (hopefully enduring) legacy of Butler

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*** NOTE: I don't care how late this is. I had some lingering thoughts on the NCAA title game and I wanted to express them. If you don't care anymore, I promise I won't be offended. ***

Much to my surprise, the 2010 NCAA Tournament kept up the thrilling pace right until the very end.

In a fitting climax to a fantastic two-and-a-half weeks, Duke held on for a 61-59 win and the championship when a buzzer-beating half-court shot by Butler's Gordon Hayward caromed off the backboard and then the front of the rim before tragically falling harmlessly to the floor.

This followed Hayward narrowly missing a Keith Smart-esque fade-to-the-baseline rainbow on the previous possession with five seconds to go and the Bulldogs trailing 60-59. With the camera right behind him, the shot looked dead-on, and visions of it going down as one of the greatest in college basketball history flashed through my mind, but it ended up being just a touch too strong.

Butler immediately fouled Brian Zoubek on the rebound, and with 3.6 seconds left and the Bulldogs out of timeouts, he made the first before intentionally missing the second, a strategy I disagreed with. Even though it meant Butler wouldn't be able to set up a play on the inbounds, and the running clock pretty much ensured frenetic disorganization, it also put Duke in position to lose if the Bulldogs hit a miracle 3.

Which they damn near did.

Immediately after Heyward's prayer rimmed out, I couldn't help but think of a bullshit charge that was called on him midway through the second half that erased two points, when it really should've been an and one. Could have been a totally different outcome had that sequence been called properly. Still, it could not take away from what was an absolutely riveting contest.

During the course of the game, I became so amped up and nervous as the massive tension continued to mount -- the differential between the two teams was never more than five points in the second half -- that I kept thinking, I cannot even imagine how badly I'd be freaking out if I was a Butler alum. I mean, seriously. You go to some tiny school in Indiana that no one's ever heard of, and then 10 or 15 years later they're playing for the NCAA title? I was completely losing it and I have absolutely no ties to the school; if I did, I'm pretty sure I would've had multiple heart attacks and/or aneurysms.

Still, in the end it was hard to be disappointed. It was such a great, exciting game and the finish was so close that I still had a goofy grin on my face long after it ended. I also thought about how Hayward came within a hair's breadth of immortality. I really think that if his half-courter had rattled in, it would have gone down as the greatest play in sports history. Think of all the legendary finishes in sports: Bobby Thomson's Shot Heard Round the World, the Lorenzo Charles dunk to win the '83 tournament, Bill Mazeroski's homer, The Play, Kirk Gibson's blast, Doug Flutie-to-Gerard Phelan, Jerry West's 60-footer in the '70 NBA Finals, Dwight Clark's catch, or any of Michael Jordan's buzzer beaters. None of them turned a certain loss into a title; most of them didn't even occur in a championship game (or a Game 7, as the case may be.) Charles' dunk and Maz's homer did, but both of those games were tied. Given the length of the shot and the magnitude of the upset, Hayward's heave would have topped them all.

I sincerely hope that he doesn't spend the rest of his life thinking about that. All of the kids from Butler should be exceptionally proud of what they did, and realize that the entire country (of non-Duke alums) was rooting for them. They might not have come away with the title, but I'll remember that team long after the championship is lost among the many in Duke's annals. So congratulations, Butler Bulldogs. That was a hell of a run.

80 Is Not Enough

Alright, I'm back with the second half of my season preview. Since I inundated you with four billion words yesterday, let's just dive right in, and I'll try to keep it brief. But keep in mind that I always try to keep it brief, and rarely -- okay, never -- succeed.

NL Central
St. Louis Cardinals	89-73
Cincinnati Reds	84-78
Chicago Cubs	80-82
Milwaukee Brewers	79-83
Pittsburgh Pirates	73-89
Houston Astros	71-91

Unless Chris Carpenter has one of his injury-plagued years, between him, Albert Pujols, Adam Wainwright, and the emerging Colby Rasmus, it's difficult to envision a scenario in which the Cardinals don't win the division.

I like the Reds a lot; their defense is rock-solid -- best in the National League last year, according to FanGraph's Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR), and they'll add a full season of Scott Rolen -- and they have lots of good, young pitching for Dusty Baker to destroy.

As for the Cubs, the biggest problems are their defense and bullpen. There's not much they can do about the D at this point; they basically have all the same players as last year's 21st-ranked unit, although they should improve up-the-middle when Starlin Castro arrives. And the outfield should see a slight uptick with Marlon Byrd taking over in center for the better-suited-in-right Kosuke Fukudome.

But any defense is rendered moot when a pitcher is walking everybody in sight. And that's the problem with the Cubs' bullpen: too many bases on balls.

For the bullpen to have any chance of being successful, Carlos Marmol has to regain his form from '07-'08, as his already-high walk rate jumped to an insane 7.91 per 9 innings pitched last year. Luckily, he managed to up his groundball/flyball ratio to 0.74 (from 0.62), and that -- combined with what must've been a huge dose of luck -- helped him quarter his home-run rate, from a far-too-hefty (and equally fluky) 1.03 per 9 IP in 2008 to 0.24.
Still, put it all together and Marmol's FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) was 4.06, much worse than his 3.41 ERA. It's worth noting, however, that Marmol has out-performed his FIP significantly in each of the last three years. Mariano Rivera consistently does likewise, and manages to do so while mixing in the occasional strike every now and then.

Marmol is so utterly unhittable that he can get away with a very high walk rate, but not as astronomical as last year's. He needs to get it back under 5 per 9 IP, which isn't asking too much. If he can't do that, the Cubs are in big, big trouble, because they don't have a whole lot behind him.

As I mentioned yesterday, their top lefty, John Grabow, has been very hit-lucky the last few seasons, with a completely unsustainable .265 BABiP, and walks a batter every other inning. Their top-right-handed set-up man, Angel Guzman, is out indefinitely, embarking on his annual spring migration to the disabled list. Esmailin Caridad's unproven, and is coming off a 4.17 ERA (and 4.26 FIP) in Triple-A. Justin Berg has a 1.04 strikeout to walk ratio in over 300 innings in Double- and Triple-A. Jeff Samardzija had a 7.53 ERA last year.

I do like Sean Marshall, and James Russell looks promising in that he at least has proven to be somewhat stingy with the walks -- 2.6 per 9 over the course of his minor-league career -- but they're both lefties and likely to be used situationally.

Pretty much the only redeeming factor about the bullpen is that it's cheap. I don't believe in allocating too many resources for relievers; a team typically is better served using some of its organizational arms instead of signing veteran middle men to 3-year, $16.5-million deals. I just wish the pitchers the Cubs elevated had better track records.

The rotation, however, will be better than the 'pen. I expect Carlos Zambrano to win more than nine games, as his peripherals were actually pretty respectable last year -- his FIP (3.77) was his lowest since 2006, and he upped his strikeout rate after it had been in steady decline. A big part of the perception of Zambrano as a disappointment last season -- other than the single-digit wins, which he has little control over -- can be traced to a .308 BABiP that was about 30 points higher than his career number. And that should come back down this year.

However, any Zambrano improvement will likely be offset by some regression by Randy Wells. Wells came into the year having spent parts of three seasons in Triple-A, and allowed BABiPs ranging between .325 and .371. But last season against major-league hitters it was just .294. While that's not insanely low by any means, I'd be surprised given his track record if that's his true level. Because of that and his relatively low K-rate, I'm not expecting very big things from him. If he can somehow match last season's performance, I'd be very happy.

Ryan Dempster shocked me for the second straight year in '09, actually giving the Cubs some value on their 4-year, $52 million investment, which is starting to look much less bat-shit crazy than I originally thought. The most amazing thing is, Dempster has become almost a completely different pitcher since returning to the rotation. Through the '07 season, he had given up 4.7 BB/9. But over the last two seasons, he's dropped that to 3.1, in the process increasing his K:BB ratio from 1.60 to 2.55. It's a remarkable transformation, and as BABiP last year (.307) was right in line with his career mark, Dempster's success might actually continue.

I like Tom Gorzelanny enough, but he has to prove that he can limit his walks, which was the primary reason he fell out of favor in Pittsburgh. And I'm not going to get into it again after yesterday, but I'm not exactly sanguine about strikeout-averse Carlos Silva's chances of being a successful starter, which means the quick return of Ted Lilly will be crucial.

As for the offense, I do like the Cubs bench, especially Chad Tracy and Xavier Nady. Tyler Colvin will not be able to sustain his spring training success, but he's young and cheap so no harm done. It's not like Sam Fuld is a transcendent player anyway, and I expect him and his solid glove to be up soon enough.

In terms of the starters, Byrd should be pretty much what he's always been: a league-average offensive player whose glove in center is also precisely average -- he has a UZR/150 of 0.0 in 4,266.1 innings.

As long as fans can accept Fukudome for what he is -- a middling-average, high-OBP guy with little power and lots of strikeouts -- and the Cubs sit him against lefties, I think he will have a stealthily nice year, and his defense seems to play better in right (UZR of 18.2) than it does in center (-13.5).

In left, while he's one of my all-time least-favorite Cubs, there's almost no way that Albatrasso Soriano can be as bad as he was last year. His BABiP was a career-low .279, and if fortune allows that to return to his career norm (.306), he'll have a much better season. But I don't think anyone knows what to make of his faltering D. Luckily the Cubs aren't even halfway through that magnificent contract of his, so we'll all have plenty of time to figure it out.

Moving to the infield, I expect more of the same from Derrek Lee (not quite as good as last year, but not as bad as the two that preceded it), Ryan Theriot (who hopefully will go back to taking the occasional walk instead of trying to blast home runs), and Aramis Ramirez (highly-productive when in the lineup, which is far too infrequently.)

Geovany Soto will bounce back from an extremely unlucky (.246 BABiP) 2009, as his walk and strikeout rates were almost identical to his Rookie-of-the-Year season's. Although his line drive rate dropped from 21.0% to 18.1% (almost all of which became ground balls), I expect that after having donated those 25 pounds to Tyler Colvin, he'll rejoin the offensive elite among catchers.

Mike Fontenot will also be much improved. (And as the only Cub on my NL-only fantasy team, he'd better be.) His BABiP, an unsustainably-high .353 in 2008, plunged to .276 in '09, and hopefully will settle somewhere in the middle. Fontenot's production fell off notably after he moved to third base -- a position he had very little familiarity with -- in the wake of Ramirez' annual ailment., and while he never used the position switch as an excuse for his struggles, I nonetheless expect him to rebound now that he (hopefully) has a permanent home.

And that's about it. Really, the bullpen and defense are the only things keeping me from predicting a win total in the mid-to-upper 80's. If they can get some good luck with both, I could actually see them being right there with the Cardinals.

The Brewers don't have enough pitching, I like what the Pirates are putting together but they're still a ways away, and the only positive I expect from Houston are a potential break-out years from Felipe Paulino and maybe J.R. Towles.

As for the rest of this stuff:

NL East
Philadelphia Phillies	91-71
Atlanta Braves*	86-76
Florida Marlins	83-79
New York Mets	78-84
Washington Nationals	73-89
NL West
Arizona Diamondbacks	86-76
Colorado Rockies	83-79
Los Angeles Dodgers	82-80
San Francisco Giants	78-84
San Diego Padres	65-97
AL East
Boston Red Sox	98-64
New York Yankees	93-69
Tampa Bay Rays	90-72
Baltimore Orioles	77-85
Toronto Blue Jays	72-90
AL Central
Chicago White Sox	86-76
Minnesota Twins	84-78
Detroit Tigers	78-84
Cleveland Indians	75-87
Kansas City Royals	69-93
AL West
Seattle Mariners	87-75
California Angels	85-77
Texas Rangers	78-84
Oakland A's	77-85

* Wild card

NLDS

St. Louis over Atlanta

Philadelphia over Arizona

ALDS

Boston over Chicago

New York over Seattle

NLCS

St. Louis over Philadelphia

ALCS

Boston over New York

World Series

Boston over St. Louis

And finally, the award winners:

NL Rookie of the Year: Jason Heyward, Braves

He'll be playing a key role on a team I have making the playoffs. As good of an offensive prospect as there's been in recent years, with a minor-league track record that compares favorably to just about any current star's. To me, he has to be given the edge over Steven Strasburg, who not only has never faced professional hitters in a real game, but also is starting the year in the minors.

AL Rookie of the Year: Brian Matusz, Orioles

Matusz is the best of what appears to be a weak crop of AL rookies.

NL Cy Young: Roy Halladay, Phillies

Moving from the toughest division in baseball -- and a third of his games against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays -- to the National League should make Halladay's already-elite numbers even better. Although I didn't like the Phillies companion deal involving Cliff Lee -- I thought they should have kept both -- Halladay will be the NL's best.

AL Cy Young: Felix Hernandez, Mariners

He was damn close last season, but Zach Greinke had a historically great year and got a ton of (well-deserved) early attention.

NL MVP: Chase Utley, Cardinals

Inevitably, voters are going to get tired of picking Albert Pujols every year -- for proof of this phenomenon, look no further than Michael Jordan's mere five MVP's -- and I think this is the year that happens. After a half-decade of being overlooked by voters in favor of his grossly-inferior teammate Ryan Howard, I think Utley finally gets his due this year, in a close race with Pujols and Hanley Ramirez.

AL MVP: Joe Mauer, Twins

Now that voters realize that a catcher with a .340 batting average and 425 OBP is more valuable than his first-base-playing teammate with the gaudy RBI total, I expect Mauer to run away with the award once again.

One final thought: I've read the proposal for floating realignment, which seems completely ridiculous. But something needs to be done, because the set-up as it stands now is totally unfair to the Rays, Orioles, and Blue Jays. It's one thing to not have a shot at a division title because of having one power team in your division, but they've got to deal with two. Because of that, they are the only teams that come into every season with virtually no chance of making the playoffs.

For the third straight year, I think that the AL East will have the three best teams in baseball. But only two of them will be among the eight playoff qualifiers, and it's really unfair to the Rays especially. Not only is their path to the wild card blocked for all intents and purposes, but they have to play the Red Sox and Yankees 36 times to get there, whereas a team like the Twins or White Sox only has to play those two 12 times. Yes, the unbalanced schedule is bullshit too.

Also, as poor as the NL Central is, it's unfair for an organization like Pittsburgh to have to compete with five other teams for the division title, while the fellow small-market A's only have to go against three others in the AL West, but that's small potatoes compared to the injustice that is the AL East.

Since moving an NL team to the AL and having ongoing inter-league series throughout the year would be too radical for Bud Selig, and it appears that the unbalanced schedule and the seemingly weekly nationally-televised Red Sox-Yankees games it produces aren't going anywhere, here's my solution for the poor, downtrodden also-rans in the AL East:

If the third-place team in any division finishes second in the wild-card race and has a better winning percentage than the division titlist with the worst record, they would meet that division winner in a one-game playoff to determine who actually gets to go to the Division Series.

Over the last 10 seasons, this would have come into play only twice: in the AL in '08 -- when the Yankees finished behind the Red Sox and Rays and would've faced the White Sox under the terms of my proposal -- and the NL in '07, with would've seen the Padres taking on the Cubs. But it would serve to give teams in the AL East just a sliver of hope, and isn't that what all fans deserve?