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By Anthony De Franco  March 20, 2010, at 6:40 am  After fighting Dan Henderson on the upcoming Strikeforce CBS card, Jake Shields will be a free agent win or lose. He does not have a “champions clause” in his contract that states he can’t leave while he is the middleweight champion. Therefore, he is likely to be taking suitors as soon as the 18th of April.
At the front of that line should be Dana White.
Shields is a great fit for the UFC for many reason. The first of which is that he simply a great fighter. He possesses great BJJ, and holds 10 submission victories. However, that is what we expect from someone who holds a black belt under Cesar Gracie. However, what separates him from someone like teammate Nate Diaz is solid standup. He’s not going to blow anyone away on the feet, but he can use his standup to set up takedowns. He’s not just throwing a pawing jab out there, he is doing damage with strikes.
Shields has won twelve in a row, including a victory over overrated personality/underrated fighter Jason “Mayhem” Miller in his last fight. That fight was at middleweight, which is not Shields natural weight class. However, since they lacked a star at 185 to put on CBS, they went to a bulked up Shields. The result was Miller being too strong for Shields, and Shields being unable to finish the fight.
If he was able to come to the UFC, Shields could move back down the 170 immediately. In that division there are so many interesting fights for him. He could start near the top of the division because of his previous success the same way we saw Vitor Belfort do. That means that fights with Jon Fitch, Thiago Alves, Josh Koscheck, Anthony Johnson and more are all options.
Another reason why it’s important that Shields come over is what I’m calling the Dan Hardy theory. After UFC 100, when we were watching the presser and Jason was recovering from Frank Mir’s loss, Jason said that Shields was the only person that he was interested in watching the GSP fight. I told him to calm down, and that he sounded like a Sherdog forum member panicking like that. New contenders pop up all the time.
Enter Dan Hardy. Is Hardy the second best welterweight in the UFC? No. However, since we have seen Fitch, Alves and Koscheck all fight the Canadian wonder already, Hardy gets the bump up. If we are willing to give that shot to Hardy, then we could easily give it to Shields. There is a suddenly interesting opponent for GSP.
Shields is a top-ten welterweight. There is never any problem with adding a top-ten guy to your company. However, Shields’ validity has been put into question because of him not fighting the top talent in his weight class. All that talent is in the UFC.
It’s too good to pass up for both sides.
By Anthony De Franco November 18, 2009, at 10:26 am With the last loss that the Jets suffered, the season is pretty much over. In order to get to 10 wins, the team will have to win six of their final seven games. With a rookie quarterback, a rookie head coach, and a team that is seemingly snake bit, I don’t that it’s going to happen.
However, I’m not so sure that this season is the only issue the Jets face. With Mark Sanchez at the helm of this team, there is a misconception that this is a young team that is going to get better as their movie star-esque quarterback does. The problem is that the rest of the team around him isn’t nearly as young as him, and in fact, might be considered an aging experiment that isn’t really working.
In the backfield, Thomas Jones is a back running on borrowed time. He’s 31 years old and has has over 2,000 career carries. He’s going to inevitably break down in the coming season, and when it happen slowly. It’s going to look a lot like the train wreck that the Chargers are currently going through with LaDanian Tomlinson. He’s going to fall off a cliff. Behind him, you have Leon Washington who is going to be coming off a devastating leg injury that might effect him for the rest of the career, and Shonn Greene, who has some potential, but lacks big play ability.
At receiver, Braylon Edwards is a huge problem. It’s not just that he is dropping two point conversions that are costing the Jets games, it’s what going to happen after the Jets play their final game this year. Edwards is going to be a free agent after the season. He’s going to demand that kind of contract that a receiver like Andre Johnson or Larry Fitzgerald has. Is anyone crazy enough to think that Edwards has proven he’s in that tier of wide receivers, or has earned cash of that magnitude? If you give him that huge contract, and add his deal to the big free agent pay days that they gave too of players like Kris Jenkins, Calvin Pace, Damien Woody, not to mention the contract extension that they will have to give super cornerback Darelle Revis and the Jets find themselves in a situation where they may HAVE to keep Edwards, but will be crippling themselves for the future in the process.
As for the defense, the key to it remains the previously mentioned Jenkins. In the past two years, there has been two different Jet teams. When Jenkins is on the field, the defense has been as good as any in the league. He stuffs up the middle of the field and allows for the very average Jets linebacking corps to make plays. Not the mention the fact that he is one of the few 3-4 nose tackles in the league that can actually push the pocket and get sacks. The problem is that he just can’t stay healthy. In two seasons, he’s played at one hundred percent in roughly six games. The Jets also have not built quality depth behind him, meaning he can’t come off the field. What they have now is a 31 year old player who can’t stay healthy at a position where players break down quickly who is making 15 million dollars over the next three years.
Those are just a few players on the Jets that are going to be seeing their careers on the downswing over the next few years. Add an aging offensive line, and a linebacking corps that is expensive, but not very good and the Jets are not a team that is building something.
They are a team that might be in serious trouble.
By Anthony De Franco November 6, 2009, at 1:30 pm Ok, What?
From Rotoworld:
Adam McCalvy of MLB.com reports that the Brewers have traded J.J. Hardy to the Twins for Carlos Gomez.
Hardy was a goner with the Brewers committing to Alcides Escobar at shortstop and the Twins have long been a rumored destination for him, so this deal makes sense. Gomez fell out of favor in Minnesota after arriving in the Johan Santana trade, but the speedy center fielder will be given a clear path to everyday playing time in Milwaukee as the replacement for free agent Mike Cameron. Nov. 6 – 11:57 am et
Okay, I get that J.J. Hardy was a goner. I get that they think that Alcides Escobar is the next big thing, but coouldn’t they do better than Carlos Gomez? Gomez has sick range in centerfield, but his bat really leaves something to be desired. How do you expect to run out a centerfielder who hits .246/.292/.346 and expect to make the Playoffs?
This just goes back to certain teams obsession with speed and defense. While Gomez is a great defender, does that lineup have enough pop in it with Ryan J. Braun and Prince Fielder to just give up an out in the lineup?
As for Hardy, he was a +5 win player in his heyday. The Twins want him to just get back to about half that. His .229/.350/.357 was accompanied by a 45 pont drop in his BABIP. There’s reason to beleive that he will improve, and regain some semblance of his previous form.
In short, the Twins got better, and the Brewers fans are likely to be really pissed by May.
By Anthony De Franco November 3, 2009, at 9:01 pm Five Years, 85 million.
That’s likely what it would cost to make sure that what’s happening to the Yankees right now won’t happen again anytime in the near future. That’s what it would cost to have stop Tim Mccarver stop making reference to pitcher’s from his era (before the dinosaurs, by the way) pitching on two days rest. That’s what would make sure that the name Chad Gaudin is never said in the same sentenced as “starting game 5 of the World Series” ever, ever again.
That’s what it will likely cost for the Yankees to get John Lackey.
I’ve never been a real big fan of signing free agent pitchers. Generally, they cost far too much, and almost never perform up to the standard that they set before they became multi-millionaires. Just bring up the name Barry Zito in front of a San Francisco Giants fan and pass out the entire cast of Fast Forward.
As much as that thought makes me squirm in my chair, I can’t take this “three days rest” thing anymore. I don’t want to hear about C.C. Sabathia doing it, it’s clear that the dude is a freak. He’s just a huge horse of a man that can take the ball every other day and dominate one of the league’s best lineups while barely breaking a sweat.
What no one has mentioned about that this whole pitching on short rest thing is that pitchers are a grand total of 19-34 in the division playoff era on three days rest. They haven’t told you that only the Minnesota Twins of 1991 have won a World Series recently by pushing up their entire staff. They didn’t tell you that starting A.J. Burnett on short rest was a TERRIBLE idea.
The truth of the situation is that it wasn’t the fact that his stuff wasn’t crisp that screwed A.J. It was the fact that the mix in his schedule screwed with his frequently discussed head. He still threw gas, but just couldn’t locate his curveball for anything. That was mental more than physical.
Even better, let’s put his personal catcher in that sabotages the end of the team’s batting lineup?
How many different ways did the Yanks want to screw themselves in this game?
I’m not one to just complain and not offer a solution, so let’s think about how we can keep this craziness from happening in the future. The first would be to finally stretch out Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes and just leave them the hell alone. No more of this situational pitching or putting them in the bullpen because there’s a hole. They are starting pitchers. That is the most important position in the game and that’s where they belong. With a full season to gauge their progress (which will be far superior if Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi let them be) the team can just let them go in the playoffs.
But, there is another way. The team can take a grizzled, veteran pitcher who wants the ball every time the manager is willing to give it to them. A guy who has a winning pedigree and a career 3.12 ERA in the postseason. A guy who screamed at his manager for taking him out in a tight game because all he wanted was to pitch out of the jam he got into.
All it would take is a commitment of five years and about 85 million bucks.
By Bryan Berg October 3, 2009, at 1:59 pm Finally, we’re here. October 3. Opening Day… and Charles Wang’s “certainty” deadline.
It comes as no surprise that Wang’s deadline was not met by the Town of Hempstead. Bad news, sure, but not at all unexpected, and that’s good. Because this should not be a sad day for Islanders fans.
Instead, it should be a celebration. Tonight should be a celebration of what we still have. We get to watch this team play instead of worry about the future. We get to spend the night in Nassau Coliseum; warts and all, it’s one of the few remaining arenas with a real home-ice advantage when the crowd’s involved. We get to reacquaint ourselves with pretzel twists, easily the greatest arena food available anywhere. Most importantly, we get to welcome John Tavares to Long Island.
On many occasions, I’ve tried to put into to words what John Tavares means to the Islanders and their fans. I’ve failed each time. You never want to give a player the dreaded “savior” label, and it’s not fair to give it to Tavares. However, it’s okay to admit that Tavares is a bigger deal than just about anybody the Islanders have brought in since Pat LaFontaine. He’s the kind of player the Islanders would never have a prayer of signing as a free agent and the kind of player they’d never be able to trade for, and yet John Tavares begins his NHL career as a New York Islander. Even better, he’s a very willing and happy New York Islander.
It’s a night to forget all the Lighthouse stuff. It’s a night to cheer and to finally be proud of the Islanders. That’s something no politician can take away.
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