The Buscher

I will laugh so hard if they take Josh Allen. I'll also feel relieved because I'm terrified of the prospect of the Giants taking him. I don't really want Barkley just because I think getting your QB of the future is way more important - yet I still want Barkley a billion times more than I'd ever want Allen.

What the fuck is the point of having an ace like Jacob deGrom on your team if you can never win when he starts? They were up 6-1 in the eighth inning on the Nats on Monday, and the bullpen blew it and completely wasted his start. Tonight, he hands over a 3-0 lead against the Braves in the eighth and the bullpen coughs it up again. Two horrendous division losses in consecutive deGrom starts where he pitched a gem. Look, I realize that the Mets will lose at least 60 games a year every year for the rest of my life, and that 14-6 is still a better start than I could've hoped for. I get that. But the Braves have so many really good young players and may be legit, the Phillies are showing promise, and we all know the Nats are going to wake up. Losses like these are most certainly going to come back to bite down the stretch.

Time for my monthly Matt Harvey rant. Last night may have been the final start of Matt Harvey's Met career, or at least it should be. My guess is they'll give him one more start because Jason Vargas is due back the next turn after that, but it's impossible to justify putting him out there every fifth day. He has no life on his pitches whatsoever, every hit he gives up is a rocket. After Mickey Callaway told the press that he won't commit to another start (something Terry Collins never would have done), Harvey stood at his locker and defiantly said he was a starting pitcher, citing the fact that he threw six innings for the first time since last May and retired 11 of his last 12 batters. That's great Matt, too bad you had already given up six runs and were pitching in a complete non-pressure situation by that point. Harvey hasn't been a good pitcher since he walked off the mound in the 9th inning of Game 5 of the 2015 World Series. He needs to decide what he'd rather do - try being a reliever in the big leagues and getting a second lease on his career, or accept a minor league assignment in hopes of keeping his career as a starter in tact. That's it. If he moans and throws a hissyfit over these options, just cut him a check for the rest of his salary and send him on his way. He is in no position to make any demands of this team, and quite frankly he'll be lucky if he's not out of baseball in 2019.

This didn't age well.

Giants and Cowboys fans be like: please no Giants at Cowboys in a week 1 night game for the millionth year in a row NFL be like: wish granted, but it will be Giants at Cowboys in a week 2 night game instead

Hester's gotta go to the HOF surely. I mean it took forever to finally get a punter in so I expect Hester might have to wait a while but he was ridiculous.

The Reds have fired Bryan Price after a 3-15 start.

The best way I can explain profiles is with my 30 team control example. I have a profile called "Mets" which is where all of the mode specific stuff except scouting is set to Manual, and a profile called "Other Teams" where everything is set to Auto. When I set up my franchise, I assigned the Mets to my Mets profile and all of the other teams to the Other Teams profile. The end result is that even though I technically control all 30 teams, the CPU runs all aspects of all the teams other than the Mets. So I run it just like any other franchise but I have the flexibility to switch to another team if an unrealistic trade or something happens. If I went into Franchise Settings to change the profile assignments and accidentally moved the Mets from "Mets" to "Other Teams", I'd suddenly start seeing the CPU making roster moves and screwing around.

You may have only one team selected - but I'm talking about the actual user profile assigned to that team. You can create different profiles with different settings. I really can't imagine what else it could be - and I feel like OS would've been blowing up with complaints if something that game-breaking was happening to everybody.

That's bizarre. Have you checked the profile select screen to make sure that your team is actually set to your profile? If you've set up multiple profiles it's possible you inadvertently set one of the teams to a default profile that has Auto control for everything. Otherwise I can't imagine why this would happen. I've been rolling along in franchise swimmingly without issue. I gotta say I enjoy the new quick sim manager. I mean it's still by no means perfect. You still can't make guys switch positions in game. Say Cespedes gets hurt during a game and the game auto-subs in Juan Lagares. In real life the Mets would then shift Conforto to LF and put Lagares in CF. In this mode you can't do that, Lagares would be forced to stay in LF. You also still can't do double switches which is a pretty glaring problem for NL teams. But my biggest complaint of the Sportscast Manager from previous games was that it took sooooooo long to do a game because it had to show you each and every pitch, usually 10+ minutes a game and I'd invariably just have to fully sim games a leave it to the mercy of the CPU. Now every AB is one click and you can finish a game in under 5 minutes. I might actually be able to have some level of control over all 162 games now.

Given that the draft is the last real glimpse of football for a few months, taking an OL in the first round is like when you'd get the annual socks and underwear gift at Christmas. Important and necessary, yes. But nowhere as exciting as the other gifts.

Todd McShay: "The Giants are going to take Saquon Barkley because they want to become a run-first team." Odell Beckham, Sterling Shepard, Evan Engram, Brandon Marshall, terrible run-blocking offensive linemen. RUN FIRST TEAM!

Zak DeOssie: first ever long snapper in the HOF! 2007 also featured one of my favorite "fans angry over draft pick" reactions.

Every time I've turned on NFL Network over the past few days, they're talking about Dez Bryant. They were even showing a Broncos/Cowboys game that was labeled "DEZ BRYANT CLASSICS". You'd think he died ffs.

I was as excited about the Mets' 12-2 start as anyone, but I honestly just groaned hearing people having a laugh at how bad the Nats have been to start the year. People were calling into WFAN acting like a 6 game lead division meant anything this early, which is ridiculous. And just like that, the Mets' bullpen implodes and blows a 6-1 lead in the 8th inning at home and the Nats show why they're still the team to beat in the division.

I wish every stadium had a retractable roof, then they could just schedule double headers in advance like they used to in the old days.

It happened again. Blowout game, final AB looking for a HR to complete the cycle. Another gapper into the outfield. Easy triple but this time I blatantly ran through the stop sign (the third baseman practically had the ball yet I kept running past). And yet I scored!!!! And they rule it a triple and a throwing error because the throw to the bag was slightly off-line. I was waiting by the official scorer's car when that game was over.

This was a RTTS I started during the first week I had the game when I was just killing time before OSFM rosters dropped, so Vlad isn't there. Despite having like a 20 speed, I lead the league with like 10 triples solely because of how big the park is. It's reallllllly easy to split the gaps. I was a HR short of the cycle in a blowout, and I ripped another triple way out and decided to go for the inside the park. Catcher caught it, dove, and tagged me out when my hand was probably like 6 inches from the plate.

It seems like you ALWAYS switch positions early on. Like, that's just part of the mode. It's pre-ordained. I'm guessing they do it just because it's a decision point where you can decide whether or not to be a prick about it which will shape your personality.

I also was a third baseman, drafted by the Blue Jays. I was having a blast with the fielding. But then they moved me to left field for a stint even though my secondary positions are only in the infield, and then they decided to keep me there. I haaaaaate playing the outfield in RTTS, always have. The camera angles are just really clunky and I find it tough to get a good read off the bat. Worse though, the New Hampshire home ballpark I play in is enormous and my guy is slow as shit. I want to switch back but my agent told me I have no leverage and need to tough it out. Technically I should view being a LF in the Jays system as a good thing as they have Granderson who will probably retire after the first season. But Donaldson is a free agent after this year, so 3B could still be an option for me if he leaves.

Every year without fail there are complaints about MLB scheduling early season games in cold weather cities and every year without fail there are a bunch of cancellations due to rain or snow. The solution proposed is usually just to schedule most/all of the early season games in places where the weather is unlikely to cause a cancellation. The problem is if you do that - where do you draw the line? Toronto and Milwaukee can get a pass because they have retractable roofs, but outside of them you can make the case that Detroit, Minnesota, Colorado, Boston, both New York teams, both Chicago teams, both Pennsylvania teams, and both Ohio teams should be avoided for early home games. That's over a third of the league. And how long do you wait? We're in the third week of the season now and this is happening. You can't have a team spend a month on the road, and you shouldn't punish the nice weather teams by making them be on the road a ton in the second half to make up for the fact that they had to host all the time in April. Look at what a mess the Central divisions in particular would be.

Yeah, when a player retires with time left under contract the contract is frozen and the team retains their rights forever. When Tiki Barber wanted to make a comeback in 2011, four seasons removed from retirement, the Giants still had to formally release him from his old deal.

Just two days after retiring, Richie Incognito suggested that he will show up to the Bills' offseason conditioning program on Monday. And now three days after retiring, he has asked the Bills to release him from his contract.

He's been talking to Latrell Sprewell. He's got a family to feed.

It'll be Cavs/Warriors again and I won't watch a second of it. Also the Knicks want Jay Wright. As if he's going to want to inherit this shitshow.