You're really giving 110%, partner.

Wait a sec: I'm supposed to trust advanced statistical analysis from a dude who thinks if the season is 43 percent over, there's still 67 percent left to play? And says it twice? Sweet Mike Schmidt on a saltine.

I've really only got one major point to make in response to your post. But first a few clarifications. (I really wish I had saved the IM conversation so I could prove you said some of this.) The argument in question arose out of a back-and-forth Diesel and I were having about Jon Lieber going on the DL (in case any of you missed it, he twisted his ankle running to back up the catcher, right after he blew the lead). The Phils just lost Freddy Garcia and Myers is both on the DL and apparently entrenched in the 'pen, which means a team that started the season with 6 starters now has 3 and a guy they just called up from AA. I mentioned that there's been a lot of chatter about trading Aaron Rowand for another pitcher, and that the good folks over at A Citizen's Blog had mentioned Carlos Zambrano.

Diesel first said how inconsistent and volatile Zambrano is, and that he'd lost velocity. The first two, sure. I don't know if that last part is true, and I doubt if he does, either. But whatever. Then Diesel said the Cubs would "never trade Zambrano."

"Why not?" I asked. "He's an inconsistent pitcher in his walk year who just beat the shit out of the starting catcher. And they're not going to make the playoffs, so why not get something for him?"

Diesel took the bait and said something ridiculous about how the Cubs were even money to win the Central.

Ding ding.

Thankfully, he's much more reasonable about it in his recent post, which makes sense save for that whole 43/67 thing, and what I think is another miscalculation. Namely, isn't it logically unsound to view the teams' current win/loss records as part of a probability of the entire season's? This is a hard idea to verbalize, so forgive me if this sounds patronizing. But here's what I'm trying to say:

1. The Cubs and Brewers already have their respective records. They are a statistical certainty.
2. The rest of the season is the only part that is still subject to statistical projection. Meaning 57 percent of the season.
3. Therefore, is it not unsound, logically speaking, to view what's already happened -- a statistical certainty, a fact -- as part of a season-long projection of performance? Wouldn't you have to treat only the remaining 57 percent as the statistical uncertainty? And wouldn't that make it even less likely that the Cubs go on a hot streak that coincides with a Brewers swoon, and that both happen to the tune of an 8.5 game margin? The certainty of the actual standings is why the adjusted standings don't matter -- if the adjusted standings were true, you'd have a much better chance of winning this argument, but they're not, so you don't. The Cubs need to be even more lucky for the rest of the year than they've been unlucky thus far. I feel like I'm not being clear, but hopefully you catch my drift.

20 percent sounds about right to me. That figure makes it less fun, because you were talking 50/50 earlier. But whatever. The Cubs are not going to win the NL Central. That's what I'm saying. Sure, I also said Freddy Garcia was going to be a valuable pitcher for the Phils this year, but what the fuck. I stick by it, and I'll stick by this. If you lose I want a Brewers hat (size 8 -- go ahead and laugh), and if you win I'll get you Dusty Baker's autograph.

And who the fuck drinks tea, anyway? You got the cramps or something, England?

You know who's fucking awesome? Alexi Lalas, that's who! Not only does he have decidedly wacky hair (or at least used to), but he's telling those bad-teeth-havin', no-coffee-drinkin', George Bush-hatin', Underground-ridin', Parliamentary-governed, Monarchy-toleratin', coal-mine-closin', Muslim-riot-fadin', cocksucking British assholes where they can shove their fucking football soccer superiority.

America: Fuck Yeah!

Only problem is that Lalas is wrong. Like, totally fucking, irreconcilably wrong. Wrong like saying, "Islam is Peace."

"In England, our league is considered second class, but I honestly believe if you took a helicopter and grabbed a bunch of MLS players and took them to the perceived best league in the world they wouldn't miss a beat and the fans wouldn't notice any drop in quality.''

This is kind of like saying that if we picked up the Yakult Swallows in a helicopter and flew them into Yankee Stadium, people wouldn't notice a difference in play. Or Maccabi against the Spurs. Or Roddick vs. Federer. Or Barbaro vs. Laminitis. The point is: Just because two people, or groups of people, do the same thing and get paid for it does not mean that the two persons/groups do so at equal levels of ability.

Maybe, Alexi, if the helicopter cherry-picked the very best MLS players left in the league (you know, the ones who aren't good enough to get contract offers from European clubs, which they would invariably jump at the second there's an offer), you could assemble a side that could give one of the better EPL teams a ride. I don't think they win, since the better EPL teams generally include at least one player who is considered the premier talent of his home country (Man-U: Ronaldo; Chelsea: Drogba; Arsenal: Henry; Liverpool: ... Kuyt? Bellamy? ... I should ask the girl who writes You'll Never Blog Alone about this, right after I see if she wants to bear my child, because there are few bigger turn-ons in this world than 20-year-old redheaded law students who love soccer, and all of the alternatives involve Sarah Jessica Parker, an anvil and pneumatic nail gun) and the U.S.'s best players — with the exception of Landycakes — play in Europe as well, which doesn't make any of them available for this supremely awesome and totally ridiculous hypothetical match. Actually, the more I think about it, an MLS All-Star team is probably about a 6-1 dog against any of the top four teams in the EPL. Maybe a little more for Man U and Chelsea, a little less against Arsenal, and pretty much dead-on for Liverpool. Obviously, the closer one gets to the relegation line, the better the odds of MLS team would be, and I have no problem believing that this MLS team could beat some of the lesser EPL teams, perhaps even handily. But that's no different than accepting that a Japanese League All-Star team could beat up on the Royals, or that maybe John Daly's wife had a reason to try stabbing him in the fucking face. But does proving that one league's best could beat another league's worst (or, at best, mediocre) really prove anything? Furthermore, how much fuel would a helicopter big enough to transport an entire soccer team across the Atlantic require? I bet you just positing that question to Sheryl Crow could get that played-out hag to have a seizure.

But getting back to the idiot of the hour, what the fuck is Lalas after here? He gave this interview to a British paper, which must just love another opportunity to pillory an American for not thinking before speaking (or, worse, purposely antagonizing countries that do their best to like us). It's not like his stupidity is going to inspire more British people to care about a sport that is absent from U.K. airwaves. And Lalas' comments are precisely the kind of condescending shit that drives Americans away from fringe leagues like the MLS; instead of being honest and giving us some credit for knowing the difference between the MLS and the EPL in terms of quality of play, he tries to tell us that we only feel the way we do about the league because we're ignorant, which is charming in a Noam Chomsky sorta way. No one likes to be browbeaten, as evidenced by the NBA's failure to guilt people into watching the WNBA despite the former making it clear that our not doing so makes us sexist assholes. Nor does anyone like being lied to, or want to root for whiny pricks whose public comments are dictated by an inferiority complex.

But there's hope yet for American soccer, according to some Brits who caught a L.A.-Salt Lake tilt recently:

"The game was not without moments of quality ... [but] some of the defending from both sides was the type of stuff you watch through your fingers,'' according to The Mirror. "It was the football equivalent of a demolition derby."

Last I checked, people actually attend demolition derbies. It sounds like someone needs to convince Eddie Pope that he's doing work, and shouldn't retire after the season.