Miguel Cabrera
Ellsbury
McCutcheon
Lincecum

Need to pick 2 more from this pool:

Nelson Cruz
Brian McCann
Yovanni Gallardo
Craig Kimbrel
Michael Young

Which two do I pick? Also, am I crazy to consider trading Lincecum for Lawrie this offseason? At some point Lincecum has to fade or get hurt, right? And if Lawrie is everything Grey says he’ll be, shouldn’t I be doing everything in my power to lock him down now?

*batting average adjusted 1/4 of the last two numbers

Did you notice that there was no mention of Redemption? This could mean that we’re just expected to understand that it’s now part of the game… or (hopefully) it means we’re done with that experiment.

This was also the season where we first met Ozzie (of the Hispanic tribe). He (and Becky) lost to Yul in the (first ever) final tribal with three players rather than two. Despite deceiving as much as anyone had, he’s remembered as being an “honest player,” something that can only be attributed to the way he owned up to, and convincingly defended his strategy during the final tribal… not dissimilarly to the way Richard Hatch had done in Season One.

Another neat parallel between Cook Islands and Borneo was that the runner up (Kelly Wigglesworth and Ozzie Lusth) was dominant in challenges, but failed to match their opponent in strategy and the social game.

There’s no need to get personal

@DWRlovesKAR_OLR: Yeah, saw that.

for sure the ranger’s fan base is going to be divided on yu vs cj ,
if only because of the money issue .

the intriguing side of it , for me , would have been had cj signed on
to pitch for the ham fighters .
would he have found it easier to play with smaller balls ?

that’s even a smaller sample size , but yu vs cj data for the next
few years is a comparative that i would have followed closely .

pretty small sample size , if that’s what you’re basing your decision on .

i have short-term memory something-or-other .
who the heck is yul ?

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” — Samuel Beckett

I don’t mean this to sound elitist… but how many morons are at home thinking Ozzie is saying something profound? How many intelligent and/or educated people are at home shaking their heads? Unfortunately, we’re in the minority… then again, we’re watching reality TV, so it’s not like we’re keeping company with the Mensa crowd.

Coach apologized way too much. This is why I always go back to Yul playing the best game ever. He may have made less strategic moves than Coach did, ran a less strategic game (it’s an area you could argue either way, they were on the same level). What set Yul apart was at the final tribal, he was able to take a bitter jury and show them that the reason they were bitter was because he had done better than they had, not because he had been some kind of devil. And he did it in a way that wasn’t throwing it in their face, but rather, “Hey, we all came out here to play a game that we knew involved deception. It only makes sense to reward the person who did it better than everyone else.”

@Steve: It’s worse, that’s his line of shirts.

As I am, in the cliche department (emoticon).

http://deadspin.com/5869473/victor-conte-says-ryan-brauns-test-result-is-exactly-what-youd-expect-from-fast+acting-testosterone-not-anabolic-steroids

they should change the name of the show to “screw your buddy” .
there’s not a lot of survival skills required .

if i was to be stuck on an island , i’d want it to be with ozzy and sophie ,
both , for reasons that are all too obvious .

@Awesomus Maximus: Probst runs a good reunion usually, I think other reunions have been better. He gave Ozzy too much lip service, but maybe that’s because everyone loves him and I’m in the decidedly smaller camp. He’s really arrogant. “I want to tell all the kids out there to fall gracefully.” Dude, you have a niche talent that you’re good at one reality show’s challenges, you’re not exactly Einstein. Coach probably apologized too much, which is a shame. Seems like more often than not the person who I think should win (the outwitter) never wins because everyone else is bitter.

Funny that neither of us discussed (here, at least) a scenario where Ozzie wasn’t in the final three. Once that happened, I felt very good about my pick of Sophie. I knew Coach was going to get flamed to hell from a bitter jury, and I didn’t think Albert was self-aware enough to run a strong final tribal (a point driven home when he talked about being so confident in his game that he wouldn’t ever be on his heels leading up to final tribal… he wasn’t prepared for the push back that the jury gives almost everyone).

Jim’s advice to future players was fantastic… to be aware of other players’ motivation. He was totally on the mark that Cochran wasn’t playing to win, just playing to be on the show for as long as possible. Also, Probst usually runs a pretty good reunion show, but I think the ball was dropped giving Russell only 30 seconds to talk. I know the thinking was that Russell can drone on, but Probst should have just wrangled him the way he’s done before rather than cut short the most interesting dynamic of the entire reunion.

His wardrobe needs an intervention.

@royce!: Haha! He seems like such a douchebag.

@Steve: I like that reasoning.

On that basis, I’m all over Chris Woodward, Nick Hundley and Mark Melancon in 2012.