Way back in February, Paul Hoynes put on his prognosticator hat and wrote, "What will probably happen: The improved Indians will win between 85 and 90 games to repeat their fourth-place finish from last season." At the time, I checked every single divisional race in the Wild Card era and found there has never been a division with four teams winning 85 or more games.

Well, 131 games later, maybe we have a better idea of how the AL Central will shake out; let's take a look. The Indians have 74 wins and, according to Baseball Prospectus's ELO-adjusted Postseason Odds report, are on-pace for a 91 on the season. The Tigers are predicted to end up with 87, the Twins 83, the Royals 72, and the Stupid Sox 70.

By my count, that's two AL Central teams with 85 or more wins, not four. In fact, for the Royals to reach the magic number of 85 wins, they'd have to go at least 27-5 the rest of the way. The White Sox? 28-2. And oh yes, the Indians should finish in first, not fourth. With more than 90 wins. Gee, it looks like the 2007 AL Central is, more or less, a normal division in a normal year. What a surprise.

Since 1999, the Browns have been plagued by ineffectual quarterbacks and the resulting quarterback controversies. First, it was Detmer vs. Couch, then Couch vs. Holcomb, Couch vs. Holcomb II, Garcia vs. Holcomb, Dilfer vs. Frye, Frye vs. Anderson, and now Frye vs. Anderson vs. Quinn. Imagine how many years of their lives sports talk radio hosts wasted debating these quarterbacks. Maybe Clevelanders just need something stupid to argue about.

This time around, amidst all the arguing, people were able to reach some consensus: neither Charlie Frye nor Derek Anderson should be starting in the N.F.L. Even after considering the poor situations they were thrown into, neither one should have a long future in the league. They have too much to learn. And choosing between the two is a matter of personal preference. Frye has more experience, short-yardage accuracy, and good mobility, yet he has a rag arm and often scrambles right into a sack. Anderson has the better arm and is not Charlie Frye, but makes his share of mistakes too.

Frankly, it's too close to call. To somehow separate the two I looked into what else could possibly differentiate them. I found that there was a Charlie Frye who pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1940. And like his namesake, he wasn't very good. Frye the Elder only stuck in the majors for one season, posting an 84 ERA+ in 50.1 innings. No Derek Anderson ever made it to the M.L.B., although you should all be familiar with the basketball-playing, former Cavalier Derek Anderson. On the strength of the Anderson the Elder's rookie season for the Cavs (with a .689 PWP), I'd say Anderson wins out over Frye.

Regardless of preference in terrible quarterbacks, everyone is in agreement that Brady Quinn is the future of the franchise. But should he start in Week 1? The second half of the season? Not at all this year? I'm on the fence. On the one hand, Ned Macey of Football Outsiders has shown quarterbacks who sit as rookies, on average, have better careers than those who don't. On the other hand, Mike Tanier of Football Outsiders proposed starting Brady Quinn in an exhibition game since if he fails against the first team, the Browns knows Quinn isn't ready and can sit him for an extended period. If he succeeds, then Quinn's performance against Detroit and Denver was for real and he's probably already better than Frye or Anderson.

The conclusions of Macey and Tanier represent the feelings of two groups who have an interest in the starting QB come Week 1: the team and the fans. On the team side, which I'll take to be Romeo Crennel's, winning this season is of the utmost importance. There have been reports that Crennel's job is on the line this year; if the Browns don't meet expectations, he'll be fired. So, to him, the present value of future wins is very low—Crennel would likely trade wins in future seasons for wins this season, even if he ended up with fewer total wins, just to keep his job. From the fan's perspective, the present value of a future win is much higher. If I were to offer you two situations, the Browns win 6 games this year and 12 next or 8 this year and 8 next, we'd all choose the former. Browns fans can be impatient, but a division championship next year is a powerful incentive.

Think of it this way: let's say that Macey is right and starting as a rookie would hurt Quinn's peak in future seasons. Let's also assume that what Tanier suggests is right, Quinn is already the best option to start between the three quarterbacks. In that case, Crennel would lean towards starting Quinn as soon possible—it would maximize the team's wins this year. The fans, impatient as they may be, should be rooting for the opposite, for Quinn to sit on the sidelines for the entire season. That would bode the best for the Browns' future.

This is all conjecture, fortunately. Macey's study doesn't have the statistical rigor to make its conclusions stand strongly. Not that his conclusions are all that strong to begin with. We can't be sure if playing as a rookie would damage the career of Brady Quinn—perhaps he'd be the same either way. Personally, I believe there's some truth to the myth of sitting rookie quarterbacks and I'll be hoping for Quinn to man the headset as long as possible before making his true Browns debut. I realize that it'll definitely be in 2007, but maybe Frye or Anderson can prove themselves competent enough to let Quinn soak up more of the playbook, become more familiar with the offense, or whatever it is that rookies need to sit on the sidelines for. All we need is a little luck.

Below are the answers to the quiz I posted on Tuesday night. If you missed it the first time around, click here before you peek at the answers!

Essentially, I used the website Simpsonize Me (a promotional tool for the new Simpsons movie) to turn five Cleveland athletes into Simpsons characters, and left it to you to guess who they were.

The quiz was apparently easier than I thought it would be. The very first responder got four out of five right. The second responder swooped right in and picked up the spare. One loyal reader (okay, Alex) told me my athletes should have been more obscure (obscure Cleveland athletes being our specialty). The problem is that the Simponsizing program only accepts hi-res photos taken of people's faces straight-on. And the athletes couldn't be wearing hats or helmets. So I was kind of limited in my selections.

At any rate, congratulations to loyal reader Roger—you're the winner! Loyal reader John-David Filing came close, but he thought Athlete #2 was David Wesley—a very understandable mistake. I hereby name Roger Honorary Mistake by the Lake Treasurer For the Day!

But enough stalling. Here are the athletes, revealed:

Athlete #1 is Grady Sizemore:



Grady was really easy to Simpsonize. I didn't even tweak this one at all. And of course, it was pretty easy to find suitable pictures of Grady.

Athlete #2 is Drew Gooden:



This was maybe the weakest resemblance. The Simponizing program only has goatees like this one, and big, bushy lumberjack beards. At any rate, I thought the diamond earring might help.

Athlete #3 is Zydrunas Ilgauskas:



I thought this one came out pretty well. Z's familiar five o'clock shadow made him a good candidate.

Athlete #4 is Charlie Frye:



The Simpsonizing program had trouble with the original photo, but I was able to tweak the hairstyle to look like Frye. The resulting picture is unmistakable.

Athlete #5 is Josh Barfield:



I had to switch to a more pronounced set of eyebrows, but this one might be the strongest resemblance. In spite of that, I thought this might be the hardest one to guess because not as many people know Josh's face that well (yet). Shows what I know!

Stay tuned for my next quiz, where I turn Cleveland athletes into Mega Man robots!!!

With the NFL season fast approaching, fans across the nation are celebrating the release of the latest Madden football video game. As I did last year, I am taking this opportunity to browse through the 2008 Madden player ratings and point out to you any Browns players' numbers that are, for whatever reason, notable.

I am a fan of the Madden franchise—I think it is an excellent, excellent video game—but I recognize that their player ratings are often inaccurate (for example, veterans tend to be ridiculously overrated) or weirdly arbitrary (see my post from last year—Lee Suggs was singled out as the worst kicker in all of Madden 2007).

Anyway, here's what I noticed:

• The best Browns are Eric Steinbach and Kellen Winslow, each with a 94 overall rating. Fair enough. But the Browns' next best player, at 90, is LeCharles Bentley. I'm as much a LeCharles fan as anyone, but wasn't this guy's career supposedly over until a few short weeks ago?
• For the second year in a row, the worst Brown—and third-worst player in all of Madden—is Josh Cribbs, whose overall rating is 56. How they determined Cribbs is worse than, say, Greg Camarillo of the Chargers, we'll never know.
• Madden totally hates on Leigh Bodden. I don't expect the video game to properly reflect the fact that Bodden is the Browns' best player, but come on. Leigh is only the fourth-best defensive back on the team. His overall rating of 82 ties him with Lawrence Vickers, for crying out loud.
• Madden seems to expect big things from onetime Obscure Brown of the Week Fred Matua, who has so far never appeared in an NFL game, and spent last year on the Browns' practice squad. Matua, with an overall rating of 77, is rated higher than such teammates as Steve Heiden, Orpheus Roye, and Chaun Thompson, to name but a few.
• Josh Cribbs has the 6th-best "Throw Power" (77) and 7th-best "Throw Accuracy" (65) among all non-QBs. Props to the Madden people for that one.
• The brilliant minds at Madden have determined that Browns OL Kelly Butler deserves to be tied with 7 other players for worst "Throw Accuracy" (5) in all of football. You may be wondering how, exactly, they know that this offensive lineman, as compared to any other offensive lineman, is such an inaccurate passer. The answer, of course, is scouting—duh.
• More Josh Cribbs: despite enjoying one of the NFL's best seasons by a kick returner in 2006, Josh is only tied for 11th place among kick returners in Madden 2008, with a "Kick Return" rating of 90. He is surpassed, oddly, by two 2007 draftees (Ted Ginn, Jr. and Yamon Figurs).
• For the second year in a row, Braylon Edwards is the Browns' most injury-resistant player, with an "Injury" rating of 94. Somehow, the major injury problems he's had in his career weren't a determining factor.
• Also for the second year in a row, Ryan Tucker is singled out as the most injury-prone player in football—by far. His "Injury" rating is at 25 and the next-closest player is at 34. This is exactly the same as it was last year. At that time, Tucker was coming off an extremely healthy season in which he started all 16 games. Now, in hindsight, the rating seems oddly prescient.
• Jamal Lewis ranks 5th in football in "Stiff Arm" (96) and 4th in something called "Trucking" (96), but is 3rd-worst among all halfbacks (and only 21st among Browns players at any position) in "Spin Move" (55). Keep that in mind when you're playing Madden as the Browns.
• Alex had the idea of averaging the player ratings for each team. This, of course, gives us some wacky results because every player on each roster gets weighted equally, but I thought it would be amusing to look at. For instance, you might not be surprised to learn the Browns have the worst average "Run Block" rating (42.1) in the NFL. You might be marginally surprised to learn they also have the league's worst "Spectacular Catch" rating (26.9) as well. That hardly seems fair; haven't they seen Lennie Friedman reeling in those floaters? At any rate, for some reason, the Browns rate extremely well in "Strength" (72.1, good for 2nd in the NFL), "Tackle" (50.3, 2nd in the NFL), and "Man Coverage" (35.3, also 2nd in the NFL). Here are their team average ratings and ranks among all NFL teams in each Madden category:

                  team average  NFL rank
  Overall Rating      77.9         15
  Speed               73.5         17
  Acceleration        79.0         15
  Strength            72.1          2
  Agility             72.2         21
  Awareness           71.2          9
  Catching            47.0         28
  Carrying            40.3         15
  Throw Power         27.8          3
  Throw Accuracy      27.4          6
  Kick Power          22.5         15
  Kick Accuracy       22.6          8
  Run Block           42.1         32
  Pass Block          36.9         29
  Tackle              50.3          2
  Jumping             63.2         11
  Kick Return         18.0         22
  Injury              79.6         28
  Stamina             79.2         28
  Trucking            31.9         15
  Elusiveness         51.2         13
  BC Vision           35.6         22
  Stiff Arm           28.0         24
  Spin Move           38.6         18
  Juke Move           44.1         14
  Impact Blocking     44.1         29
  Block Strength      43.8         27
  Run Block Footwork  41.8         20
  Pass Block Strength 38.1         30
  Pass Block Footwork 36.9         17
  Power Moves         36.9          4
  Finesse Moves       36.4         18
  Block Shedding      49.4          5
  Pursuit             48.6         18
  Play Recognition    42.6         10
  Man Coverage        35.3          2
  Zone Coverage       37.9         10
  Spectacular Catch   26.9         32
  Catch in Traffic    27.1         28
  Route Running       24.9         29
  Hit Power           36.9         19
  Press               26.3         17
  Release             28.1         22

Well, there you have it. Of course, the game doesn't have ratings for such important categories as "Long Snapping" and "Moral Victories", so take this with a grain of salt, but... if the Madden player ratings are any indication, we're in store for a wacky season, in which LeCharles Bentley and Fred Matua will lead the Browns to the brink of glory, only to be hamstrung by Kelly Butler's embarrassing lack of throwing accuracy. At least we no longer have Lee Suggs' lousy kicking holding us back. I can't wait!

We at the Mistake by the Lake Sporting Times are nothing if not extremely timely with our edgy, voguish pop culture references. I'm referring, of course, to The Simpsons. As you may have heard, they've come out with a Simpsons movie, and in order to promote the movie, as you may have seen on millions of blogs lately, they've created a website called Simpsonize Me where you upload pictures of yourself and they show you what you would look like as a Simpsons character.

So, I had the idea of "Simpsonizing" a few Cleveland athletes, and letting you, the readers, guess who they are. I found that the Simpsonization process is hit-or-miss; a lot of my creations were unrecognizable. But a few turned out okay, and they appear below.

The first person to correctly identify all five Cleveland athletes in the comments section of this post will be the winner. I'll reveal the answers in a separate post in a couple of days. Good luck!

Athlete #1:


Athlete #2:


Athlete #3:


Athlete #4:


Athlete #5:

Pretend this was the NFL. If nothing but the last 16 games counted...

             W   L
Chicago      9   7
Kansas City  8   8
Minnesota    7   9
Cleveland    6  10
Detroit      5  11

It kind of makes you wonder how many NFL teams have made the playoffs despite actually being quite awful--we're talking worst in the league, or close to it.

It also makes you appreciate baseball for one of its subtler attractions: it's a marathon.

Our dad and I just just got back from a trip to Cooperstown, NY. Someone had told me they were inducting Wayne Kirby this weekend, so we show up, and... long story short, I guess Wayne Kirby couldn't make it.

Anyway, I snapped a few photos of what I deem to be the coolest Indians memorabilia in the Hall. In descending order of coolness:



Jolbert Cabrera's broken bat from the game-winning single in the 11th inning of The Comeback. Seriously, if they just opened a The Comeback Museum, I would be in heaven. Marty Cordova's home run ball! Mike Bascik's rosin bag! The postgame buffet table Lou Piniella destroyed!



Miscellaneous Indians stuff from the last decade or so, including a Wahoo (née Albert Belle) Bar, the two lineup cards from September 25, 2000 (when the Tribe hosted 2 different teams in one day), Jose Mesa's hat, Matt Williams' bat from when he hit 5 homers in 2 days, and Ben Broussard's bat from when he had 2 pinch hit grand slams in one season.



Bob Feller's glove and balls from his record 12th one-hitter, a special sleeve Feller's mom knitted him to, uh, protect his pitching arm?, and Early Wynn's glove and 300th victory ball.

In the end, even though there were no Wayne Kirby sightings, there was a Peter Bogdanovich sighting, and a satisfactory time was had by all.

If you've listened to any Indians baseball on the radio this season, you've heard this commercial:

Tom Hamilton: [something or other] is going a million smiles per minute!
Matt Underwood: You mean MILES per hour?
Tom Hamilton: No, SMILES per minute!!!

Emphases theirs. You see, we are supposed to hear this and think, "Haha! It sounds like 'miles' but he really meant 'smiles'! Because it makes people smile!" What keeps me up at night, though, is the way Underwood casually changes "smiles per minute" to "miles per hour"... and then Hamilton, in correcting him, changes it back to "minute" as if there had been no change.

Apparently, miles need to be measured on a per-hour basis. Who's heard of "miles per minute", anyway? it's "miles per hour"... like on the signs! Oh, but this presents a problem. Our fine product makes people smile waaaaay more than a million times per hour! It makes people smile at least 60 million times per hour. Big difference! Someone back me up on this.

Also, Russell Branyan is once again an Indians farmhand. All is right with the world. That is all.