Offseason happenings

I failed to mention some more awards in the majors this past week: The MVP and Cy Young awards. Clayton Kershaw won both the Cy Young and MVP awards this year, the first time that that has happened since Justin Verlander in 2011 for the Tigers. It was the first National League pitcher to accomplish that feat since Bob Gibson in 1968 with the Cardinals. What an amazing accomplishment! In the AL, Angels CF Mike Trout won the MVP while Kory Kluber took home the pitchers' hardware for the Indians. Exciting things there. Congratulations to all the winners this year. Meanwhile, the offseason hot stove is heating up at a rapid pace. The highlight in the MLB trade department so far is a trade between the Cardinals and Braves. The Braves sent Jason Heyward to St. Louis along with a teammate while the Braves received Shelby Miller along with a teammate. The Padres have been in the news a lot this week. They made a trade between minor league players this week sending Reymond Fuentes to the Royals in exchange for a hard-throwing left-handed reliever, Kyle Bartsch. Even bigger news, however, is the fact that the Padres are pursuing two major free agents. Historically the Padres have never been close to signing a big-time free agent. I believe that this is the time that changes. In a report earlier today, the Padres have become the front-runners along with the Braves in acquiring Cuban sensation, Yasmany Tomas. I have a lot of faith that this goes through. The report concluded that we as fans should not be surprised to see a deal made by Monday. Another player involved in the talk is current Giants' third baseman, Pablo Sandoval. I don't know how I feel about his pursuit to PETCO Park, but hey, it's an improvement. He knows how to play in the postseason and has become one of the majors most pesky hitters. Looks like A.J. Preller really knows what he is doing and is not afraid to open the checkbook in order to put a winning team on the field. Another possible player the Padres have been looking to acquire is Reds' outfielder, Jay Bruce. Bruce's season ended early this year with arthroscopic knee surgery, but he is expected to be ready for spring training at the end of February. With the Reds in need of lots of pitching, they are looking, perhaps, to get Ian Kennedy or another one of the Padres' three-headed mound monster (Cashner, Ross, and Kennedy). Perfect solution, right? Overall, something is going to happen this winter that has never been seen before in Padres history (except maybe before the 1998 season when the Padres went all the way to the world series).

 

Now on to college football. There has been some shakings in the top four over the past week. After Alabama dismantled Mississippi State last week, they jumped from #5 to #1 in the college football rankings. Oregon stayed at #2 and Florida State at #3. I honestly believe that the Seminoles ought to be on top because they are the only undefeated team left. But as long as they remain in the top 4, I can be satisfied. Here are your top games for the weekend.
25Minnesota at 23Nebraska noon ET ESPN
Boston College at 3Florida State 3:30 ET ABC
15Arizona at 17Utah 3:30 ET ESPN
19USC at 9UCLA 8ET ABC
There are not as many highly anticipated games as there were last week, but it is exciting to see the schedule this week. Check out the game of your choice.

This week in the NFL, the Chargers beat the Raiders on Sunday and then the Raiders went on to beat the Chiefs in Oakland Thursday night for their first win of the year. Looks like they will be in place for the top spot in next year's draft. Let us wait until the end of the year to make it official. The Buffalo Bills were going to host the NY Jets in Buffalo this coming Sunday, but because of snow drifts bringing that city 4+ feet of snow, the game has been moved to Detroit on Monday night instead. In fact, the players for the Bills had to be taken to the airport on snowmobiles from their homes. It was interesting to see the huge walls of snow covering cars.

In the NBA, the Cavaliers and their hyped squad are a woeful 6-6 so far this year after losing tonight to the Wizards in D.C. It is believed that they will turn their season around, though. It is looking like this will be the first season without someone with the name of LeBron James in the finals for the first time since 2010 when the Lakers defeated the Celtics in 6 games.

I am looking forward to a great Thanksgiving break as we give thanks and prepare for more exciting news in all the world of sports!

Another weekend...

Another weekend brigs another post to the blog! Some exciting things are brewing in the world of sports. However, it is not as exciting as weeks past, but we can change that.

So, in the major leagues, free agency is underway. Not much has happened but in Detroit, the Tigers have re-signed Victor Martinez to a 4-year deal (I'm not sure what the quantity is yet) and the D-Backs signed Jeremy Hellickson today. He won the AL rookie of the year award with the Rays. I'm not sure how he has fared since then, but the D-Backs are going to be good next year with all their good hitting and decent pitching. No matter how bad they are, however, the Padres are never able to beat them. It always frustrates me to see them win the season series year after year even though they may lose 100 games. Speaking of the Padres, they have been in the news this week. They were the highest bidder on Korean pitcher Kwang-hyun Kim at $2 million. I have NO idea why the Padres are going after a stinkin' pitcher when they had a historically bad offensive year, but I am going to trust A.J. Preller in this.We need improvements everywhere in the field. Injuries decimated the team this year, now we just need some hitters to step up and get some clutch knocks when we need it.

Now we get to the good stuff. College football this weekend brings many dramatic games. Let's list off some of them.
8Ohio State at 25Minnesota at 12ET on ABC
19Clemson at 22Georgia Tech at 12ET on ESPN
1Mississippi State at 5Alabama 3:30 ET CBS (THIS IS THE BIG ONE FOR THE DAY!!!!)
16Nebraska at 20Wisconsin 3:30ET ABC
9Auburn at 15Georgia 7:15ET ESPN
3Florida State at Miami 8ET ABC
As you can see, there is a plethora of games to choose from. I will be rooting for an upset to occur. Hopefully it does. Alabama is actually favored to win at home against Mississippi State so I cannot wait to see the result there. Please watch one of these games and then give me a report as to how it went and what you took away from the game. I am looking forward to another great year in college football. I just really hope we get a variety of teams in the playoff this year. The SEC will most likely be in it along with Florida State. Who else will be in by the end of the year? We'll just have to wait and see.

Nothing to report in the NBA or NFL. There were a few exciting games, but nothing that is amazing or is worth reporting. College Basketball returned tonight, however. My favorite team is BYU. They beat Long beach State 95-90 in Provo in what should've been a blowout. But the time I pay most attention to college basketball is in March during the tournament. Spring is the best time of year when it comes to sports. But now that we are in the fall, let us enjoy what we have. So just sit down, relax, grab your favorite beverage (as long as it is alcohol-free, please), and enjoy yet another week of action!

College football 11/8/14

As per my usual tradition, I will begin with baseball. The off-season is now entering its second week and we have been witnesses of the gold glove winners along with the silver slugger awards. No Padres were on the list this year. But there is no surprise there. As far as the Padres themselves, not much has happened this week other than the fact that Eric Stults and Donn Roach were designated for assignment in order to make room on the 40-man roster for some other desired players. It is still possible to see him come back, especially if Padres GM A.J. Preller decides to use either of the three options from the rotation (Cashner, Ross, and Kennedy) as a trade tool to bring in a heavy bat. Everth Cabrera will likely not be the starting short stop come opening day. He has had some legal issues bring him much grief. That may have cost him his job. An all-star in 2013, he struggled this year dealing with two hamstring injuries. The biggest news this week came from the news of a new scoreboard coming to Petco Park. The link for all of the details on the article is here: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/nov/06/padres-new-video-board-plans-seating-left-field/ It is to be the third biggest in baseball behind the one at Safeco field in Seattle and Kauffman stadium in Kansas City. This new HD board is expected to be completed by the Padres' home opener on April 8 against the world champion Giants. It will be taking out many seats in the process plus move in the fences a little bit, but the brand new part of the stadium will welcome more standing room: a feature becoming more popular at major league stadiums across the bigs.

This week in the world of college football is going to be amazing! There are so many good games to choose from! I feel like I should just list the games available to watch. Here are the games that I deem to bring the most impact to the college football playoff:
12Baylor at 15Oklahoma at noon ET
10Notre Dame at 9Arizona State 3:30 ET ABC
9K-State at 7TCU 7:30 ET FOX
5Alabama at 16LSU 8ET CBS (The one I plan on watching)
14Ohio State at 8Michigan State 8ET ABC
4Oregon at 17Utah 10ET ESPN
There are many other games, just like any other Saturday. Your team may or may not be on this list, but this will be a great Saturday of college football. Hopefully I can finish my homework in time to sit back and watch some of it unfold.

This is all very exciting to me, but there is one glaring problem when it comes to the scheduling of these games. As much as I want to watch the college football playoffs come new years day, I doubt I will be able to. The beginning of a new school semester seems to prevent that. My travel day for school will probably be Thursday/Friday the 1st and 2nd of January. As much as I am upset about this, I am also upset about the end of winter semester. The Padres' home opener, as I mentioned before, is on April 8. But the end of testing is officially the day after on the 9th. It's whatever. But doesn't BYU-Idaho know what history will be happening? Seriously, opening day in baseball needs to be a national holiday.

Anyways, the NBA is in full swing now, and the team that I follow the closest (the Cleveland Cavaliers) have only won two games up to this point. However, we must not worry because there is a lot of season left and the Cavaliers will figure all of this out.

In regards to the NFL season, the only exciting thing right now is how the football baby is 8-0 on picking football games for the past two weeks (http://at.nfl.com/cHGT8f8). I don't really care about all the paparazzi which comes with the NFL. I like to follow the Chargers but they stink and are always plagued with injuries. I guess some other news in a similar sport was how the New Zealand all blacks rugby team destroyed the Unites States rugby team in Chicago last Saturday. 60,000 people attended that game. Maybe we should expand our ranges of sports. I don't know. That's just me thinking.

Sports in and of themselves is fascinating. I was making dinner today when my roommate and his girlfriend were watching a movie that I would consider inappropriate when I realized that sports is probably the cleanest things that you can watch on TV. Of course you get commercials and cheerleaders, but those go away quickly and easily. This is one of the many reasons why I am so passionate about sports of any kind anywhere.